Never Saw Me Coming

by Vera Kurian

  “Wait,” Trevor said suddenly. “I’m not like them.”

  Oh, bitch please. The comment was so outrageous that even I had to pause in my inching toward the column.

  “I can help you,” he added, looking at her almost earnestly.

  She was clearly skeptical. “How can you help me?”

  Trevor licked his lips. “I can get into his data files,” he said, gesturing to Wyman. “All of them. For years. Every student who’s gone through his program. Every student who qualified or even just came close. We...we could make a list together.”

  You little shit. Wyman and Elena were both staring at him incredulously. Elena gave her boss a little look; it was just a split second but any woman could recognize it. I told you so, it said. I told you about this kid and you didn’t listen. My fingers, numb from the cold, edged their way onto the column behind me, tracing out the outline of the broken brick. I tugged and it gave way, but not entirely.

  “What’s your game?” I asked loudly. “What did you do over there?” I asked, gesturing with my head in Will’s direction. Megan stalked closer to me, smirking. “How many people have you killed? Four? Five? Six? Clearly you’re not limiting yourself to just bad guys.”

  “Bad guys, huh?” she asked, spinning around to face Wyman and Elena. Glad for the distraction, I gave one final tug, and then the chunk of brick was in my right hand, cold and heavy. “You’ve been playing all these psychological games with us for years, now it’s your turn to be in an experiment. I’m going to kill everyone here,” she said matter-of-factly. “But if one of you—” here she waved the gun at the pair of psychologists “—is willing to take someone out yourself, I’ll let you go free.”

  Charles perked up, his gaze intent on the scientists. He clearly thought one of them would take the deal. Emma and Trevor were also staring intently, but Andre’s face was more emotive: What the fuck, his face said. The longest silence went on, Megan waiting for one of them to take the deal. “Megan, we are not doing that. Why don’t we go to my office and talk?” Wyman suggested.

  “No one wants to talk to you. Do you think any of these freaks actually want to talk to you about their problems?” she asked. I edged closer. In her distraction, she didn’t realize I had scooted almost behind her.

  “Megan, we are helping these people,” Elena said quietly. “No, it’s not a population that everyone wants to work with, but that’s the whole reason there’s so little research about it.”

  “That’s the purpose of science,” Wyman chimed in. “To understand things without judging them. I would like to help you, and I won’t judge what you’ve done already if you just put the gun down.”

  “Name one person this program has helped,” Megan demanded.

  “Me,” Charles said suddenly. “I learned to at least resemble a human being. You should try it some time.”

  “You terrible man!” she shouted. I saw her arm move. A flash of light came from the end of the gun, an exploding, popping sound. Charles’s body snapped back, falling to the ground. She had shot him. She had shot Charles.

  Coldness came over me. It was calm, but it was also a concentrated, white-hot rage. I was too low, though, for the brick, so it was her lower body I sprang at, knocking her down, my teeth sinking into her calf between where her pants ended and her socks began, drawing blood. She screamed and the gun went off, a bright pop of light in the darkness. We scrabbled like two alley cats. I smashed the brick into her head with the sound of a melon bursting, collapsing her nose.

  She made a strangled cry. I swung again, finding purchase. There was screaming, I’m not sure whose. I couldn’t see anyone else, not Wyman, not Charles, not any of them, just this despicable bitch who I had to end. Someone was shouting my name. I swung again and again, until there was a mass of white lights cutting across the dark cavern in all directions. Shouting. Men in black were appearing like ninjas, blinding me with their lights, shouting.

  “Drop the weapon!”

  “Down on the ground!”

  “Down on the ground now!”

  They all shouted at once. I realized suddenly that the lights were trained on me. The fancy-looking rifles, too. Blood dripped off my chin. Dazed, I dropped the brick and put my hands above my head, blinking into the lights blindly.

  62

  “Chloe, come here,” Elena said quietly. I obeyed. There were police milling around everywhere, their bright white flashlights arcing across the cavern. The SWAT guys were clustered in what had been the center of our circle of psychopaths. The plainclothes police—I think they were detectives—were starting to block off a large area and push us out of it, telling us not to go anywhere.

  Elena withdrew a small packet of Handi Wipes from her purse, and wiped the blood from my mouth and where it had leaked out the sides. Her thin fingers were shaking. “Are you okay?” she whispered.

  “Is Charles dead?” The EMTs had come in after SWAT realized I wasn’t a threat to anyone—that the real culprit was now Hamburger Helper being photographed by police forensics. They had surrounded Charles immediately like a pack of bees while one lone EMT checked Megan to confirm the obvious—she was dead. There was a lot of shouting and then they carted Charles away on a portable stretcher, a cop grabbing me by the back of the shirt to prevent me from following. Charles had been deathly pale, unmoving. The EMTs had booked it out of here—I had a bad feeling in my stomach.

  Elena put her hands on my shoulders and didn’t say anything.

  Shit. Something just occurred to me. I needed Megan’s phone. She either had it on her, because everyone our age is attached to our phones, or if she was smart she left it at home, knowing that the phone could possibly geolocate her to the same place as her intended mass murder. But I had barely taken two steps when two cops appeared, pushing me back toward where Andre was. He was staring, his hand clasped over his mouth and nose, at something a few yards away.

  I looked over and saw that several of the police were examining the remains of a certain human barbecue on the ground. I guess it did smell—the cavern was underground, and there was dampness in the air and sand and what was left of Will’s body. I would have to make sure to lay down the remainder of my cards carefully when the police questioned me. I trusted that Charles knew better than to say anything, and Andre didn’t know anything substantial about Will.

  “What—what is that?”

  I shrugged. “Another body, I guess.”

  Andre looked up suddenly and right at me, his hand falling off his face. There was a look I couldn’t read in his eyes. I couldn’t quite tell what it was, but I knew it wasn’t a good one. I feigned some tears. “Honestly, I just want this night to finally be over.”

  He stared at me. “Right. Right, we all do.”

  Then all of a sudden the police were ushering the lot of us outside to police SUVs that were waiting. Elena sat next to me during the ride, her thin hand gripping my forearm. “Everything’s going to be fine now,” I said.

  She looked at me, her brow furrowed. They whizzed us away to a police station, then separated us into different rooms, but a nice lady came in to give me some hot tea. I wasn’t dressed right and was having residual effects from being left out in the cold for so long.

  A door opened and a man came in, smiling in a subdued but friendly way. “Hi there, I’m Detective Bentley,” he said. Detective Bentley was DILFy in a Die Hard sort of way—I liked him right away. “I’ve been working this case for the past few months. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

  I didn’t. It was very important that I answer a few questions. Some of what I told him was true—that we knew we were being stalked, that someone tried to get into a bedroom where Charles was, and that we figured out that the twins were the CRD’s kids and that the killings appeared to be some form of copycatting. I left out the Instagram part, of course, and embellished a few new details that no one would be ab
le to verify.

  “There was one night,” I said, starting to shiver again, my teeth clacking. Detective Bentley took off his coat and put it around my shoulders. Bingo. I hugged it around me, smiling gratefully. “I was coming back from the gym and heading to this frat party around nine o’clock and I got the feeling someone was following me.”

  “Which frat?” Bentley was taking notes.

  “SAE, I think? Anyway, I thought I was just being paranoid and went to the party. I was talking to this blond boy—crap, I can’t remember his name. We talked for a while, but I got up to go to the bathroom and saw that this girl was glaring at me. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I assumed maybe this girl was hooking up with the blond boy, or he was her boyfriend or something, and she got mad. But—” I widened my eyes, filling them with the traumatic tears that I was supposed to be feeling “Mr. Bentley, it was that girl—the one who just tried to kill us all!”

  “It was the same girl?”

  “I’m positive. I remember distinctly, because she turned and looked at me, like totally evilly! Then she walked off with that boy. It was really weird, though—it was like she was acting like she’d stolen him away from me or something. I don’t even remember his name.”

  “Could you describe him? How old? Was he in the fraternity?”

  Rambling, I gave him a description of Will that was more or less on point. “I guess that wraps it up... She was crazy in the coconut, and must have figured out that we knew about her dad being CRD.”

  Suddenly, Bentley put down his tablet and stooped to my level, putting his hands on his knees. “Chloe... I know your moral reasoning is different than regular people, but—”

  “Wait, what?”

  “We know about the program.”

  “Who?”

  “Some of the police. I do. I’ve worked with Leonard for years on this program. You seem like a nice girl and Leonard tells me you have very good grades.”

  “I was a National Merit finalist.”

  “That’s quite an accomplishment! But I want you to think for a second about Emma, and the fact that she probably doesn’t want anyone to know who her father is. A lot of people worked hard to keep that a secret because the media would have torn those two little girls into tabloid shreds.”

  “Were you one of them?”

  “It was before my time, but my father was the lead detective on the Ripley case. Everyone fell in love with those little girls.”

  I snorted. “Everyone had bad judgment, then.”

  He was undeterred. “Do you think you can keep the part about Emma’s dad a secret?”

  “I like secrets,” I said, hugging his coat around me. “If you tell me one thing.” He looked a little skeptical but nodded. “She tricked me—me and Andre and Charles—to get us down here. How did she get everyone else?”

  “The same way, actually. She spoofed a text to Charles so that it looked like it came from you, then she got her hands on Charles’s phone. She spoofed Trevor, too, pretending to be a girl looking to hook up.” I had to admire that—it was what I would have done, and Trevor would go to a weird cavern if he thought he might get some. “But with Emma and the doctors, she just simply asked them to come. I guess they never saw it coming,” Bentley said.

  I wasn’t entirely sure I agreed about Emma. I think there were things Emma didn’t want to admit but maybe suspected about her sister.

  * * *

  Andre tried not to stare at Dr. Wyman, who was sitting at the far end of the hallway of the police station, his head in his hands. He looked pallid. Andre had been taken to another part of the building and questioned, then had forensic evidence taken from him, and was now free to go as soon as his ride showed up. He hugged his arms around his chest, still trying to get rid of the chill that had settled into his bones after God-knows-how-long in that underground place. All he wanted to do was be home. Real home, not dorm home. He took out his phone and after considerable thought texted his brother: Long story but I’m at the police station @ Dave Thomas Circle. Can you pick me up? I’ll stay at home for a few days. An ellipsis appeared, then a singular Pooh! which was Isaiah’s way of saying, I’m on my way, but I want the whole story and I can roast you over it while we eat some greasy food. Which was fine by Andre.

  He was glad for the few moments alone to try to warm up and think about what he had just seen, which some part of his brain still could not process. It was over. Everything was over. Mystery solved—they’d all go home safe and...happy? Just then, Chloe emerged from a doorway wearing a coat that clearly wasn’t hers. He had been separated from everyone else as soon as he had gotten to the police station, and assumed they’d questioned her and also took any forensic evidence. “Don’t say anything,” she whispered to Andre as soon as she slid into a chair right beside him.

  He sat straight up. Say anything about what? Was she mad at him? Did she figure out that he had been the one to call the cops on his way to Megan’s party—or whatever you wanted to call it—or had she assumed it was Elena or Wyman? Tense, Andre tried to watch her without it being obvious. She didn’t seem perturbed; she was swinging her legs and playing Dog Dash on her phone. You just brained a girl to death, Andre thought. I saw pieces of her brain. “Do you think there are snacks anywhere?” Chloe asked suddenly.

  “Probably,” Andre said, wishing she would go away. And then she did, practically skipping down the hall. Andre swallowed, his throat so dry it seemed to click. In a little inlet just off the hallway was a table set up with burned-smelling coffee and Styrofoam cups. He poured two with hands that were shaking a little and walked down to where Wyman was sitting. Wyman accepted the coffee with a surprised but sad smile that didn’t really reach his eyes. He looked like he was physically in pain.

  “Are you going to be okay, Dr. Wyman?” Andre asked.

  “Sorry, I... It’s the strangest sensation of déjà vu. All I ever wanted was for those girls to be protected, to have a normal life.”

  “You never thought there was something wrong with Megan?”

  Wyman exhaled loudly. “When I got the call from California, when they first started to think that Emma might have psychopathy, she was all I could think about—how could I help her? I know my personal relationship with her made it odd for her to take part in the study, but I thought the program might provide a better life for her.”

  “But, Dr. Wyman...why did you want to help Gregory Ripley to begin with?”

  He blinked, as if the answer were obvious. “Because he was a profoundly disturbed person—I just didn’t know how disturbed.”

  “But when the entire country wanted him executed, why did you testify on his behalf at the sentencing?”

  “I’m a Quaker, Andre. I don’t believe in the death penalty. A lot of people claim to be opposed to it and the system that perpetuates it, but suddenly those morals disappear with a case like Ripley. I don’t believe the state should execute a man, and I don’t think any man is beyond redemption. I wanted to help him.”

  “Do you think he could have been helped? If he’d lived?”

  “No, and do you know why not? Because the field of psychology has devoted relatively little time and energy to studying psychopathy. Quakers believe in something called restorative justice. It means when someone does something wrong, you don’t take their life or remove them from society, but that person is required to repair the harm they’ve done.”

  Andre looked silently at his bitter-tasting coffee. With all his research, Andre knew the arc of Wyman’s career, but had never thought of it this way. He felt embarrassed suddenly—Wyman was not some deranged mad scientist, but a man so earnest that it was almost painful to think about. He imagined what it must have felt like for Wyman to have thought he had helped the twins find some semblance of a normal life, only to have this happen, and for it to feel as if it was something he should have been able to see and stop.


  Andre struggled for something to say; he wondered if now, in the chaos of everything, it might be a good time to come clean about his diagnosis. When he opened his mouth, though, what popped out was, “Are they going to shut down the program?”

  Wyman looked bewildered, then this was almost instantly replaced with a look of sympathy. “No, Andre, I wouldn’t worry. It’s you guys who were attacked, not the other way around.” He patted Andre’s back somewhat absently and Andre felt a flush of shame.

  Just then, one of the cops reappeared with Emma, swapping her out for Wyman to take him away to a room somewhere.

  Emma’s expression was blank, guarded. She sat on the bench, perfectly still, the bottom of her shoes resting flat on the floor. If the events of the night had traumatized her, she didn’t show it.

  “I’m sorry...about your sister,” Andre ventured. Since he had plowed through Fiola’s book, he had been concentrating on the mystery, on keeping himself safe, and hadn’t really paused to think about the fact that there were two girls about his same age who both knew that their father had committed some of the most horrific acts in true-crime history. This was the same man who had fed them as babies, bought them toys for Christmas, and kissed their mother good-night. Their father had been a monster, and their mother had in a way abandoned them, as well. It was more than enough trauma for several lifetimes, let alone one.

  Emma turned to face him. Her eyes were a pale shade of hazel, unreadable, and were focused on the wall behind him. “Nothing I ever said to Megan could ever control her.”

  Andre struggled for something reasonable to say. “It’s not your responsibility to control your sister.”

  “It kind of is,” Emma replied. “Because I’m the only one who really knows her. I didn’t want her to be that way. She was always smarter than me, always seeing everything as a threat or planning something.” She was quiet for a long time. Andre strained to hear the detectives down the hall, but there was the intermittent blasts of radio coming from more than one office. Emma was looking down at her sandy shoes.