by Trisha Wolfe
I grip the door handle, and he halts his pursuit. “With Grayson behind bars, who will take the fall, Nelson? Have you thought this through?”
The farce is over. Nelson never intended for Grayson to be captured alive—that’s too much of a risk. An intelligent criminal who’s been framed for murders he didn’t commit could do serious damage to the guilty party, even from prison.
And I’m Grayson’s lover. The proof of my affection is written all over my investigation into him. The hours, days, weeks I devoted to the patient who abducted and tortured me…that’s just not natural. I should’ve been working harder to ensure Grayson’s capture, not investing time into setting him free. That’s what Nelson sees. The fruits of my labor.
Which means I know about the copycat killings.
I’m as much of a threat to him as Grayson.
“Obsessed fan who finishes what was started,” he says, waving a hand thoughtlessly. “Or maybe you just couldn’t handle it. The man you love taken away again. The judgment from not only your patients, but also your colleagues. Your career in ruins. Suicide rates are up this season.”
I exhale a lengthy breath, thinking how to buy time. “Detective Foster would’ve been more original. Secretly, I was rooting for it to be him. You’re an insult to Grayson’s methods.”
He chuckles, but the sound is off, disembodied. “Foster is an embarrassment to law enforcement. He doesn’t have the first clue.”
I crane an eyebrow. “He shadowed you, according to the reports. Followed you right to the scene of the crime. I bet you’ve been plagued by that—going over it and over it. Thinking if Foster had just been ten minutes earlier…” I trail off, a taunt in my voice. “You shouldn’t underestimate people. The number one reason why serial killers get caught is because they start to believe they’re unstoppable. They make careless mistakes.”
Something in his gaze dims, unseeing. He’s staring through me. Gaining an ounce of leverage, I ease away from the door and toward the filing cabinet. I’m not leaving here without what I came for.
Nelson snaps out of his daze, and I stop all movement. “Who slit the rapist’s throat?” he suddenly asks.
I stay still. A fixed object, unthreatening. “You’re not making sense, Nelson. We can go to my therapy room. I have techniques that can help you—”
“Who slit his fucking throat, London?” He advances on me. “You didn’t think that, after all my study and work that I’ve put into this case, I wouldn’t recognize the deviancy in signature?”
He’s so close to me now. I can feel his body heat. Smell his aftershave. See every wrinkle in his standard, black suit. I look up into his wild eyes. “I did,” I admit. “I placed my hand over Grayson’s and, even though we both dragged the blade across his neck, it was my choice.”
His nostrils flare. With purposeful movement, he takes hold of my hand and turns it over, exposing the tattooed key I no longer conceal. “A replica of the murder weapon. Your trophy. You killed Malcolm Noble.”
“Prove it.”
In one quick flash, Nelson strikes my face.
I slam into the door from the force of his backhand. I cover my cheek, vision blurring. The pain hasn’t seeped past my shock yet. I watch him with guarded eyes as he hovers near, breathing hard.
“I don’t have to prove it,” he says, gripping my upper arm and hauling me across the room. He swipes an arm across my desktop. Objects crash to the floor. Then he’s pushing me down against the surface. “I just have to get rid of the loose end.”
I struggle against his hold and work my way onto my back. Using my feet, I kick at him. “There are witnesses,” I say around a grunt as I strike out. “All those people down there…”
My mention of witnesses only fazes him for a second, then he pushes himself between my legs, ending my fight. His hands close around my throat. “Scream,” he dares through clenched teeth. “You’ll suffer a broken neck from a fall down the elevator shaft. No one will question me. I’m the fucking law.”
His fingers tighten, cutting off my oxygen. I claw his hands, gasping for air. “Then why not just do it now,” I manage. His hold loosens, gaze narrowed. “You can’t. The same way you couldn’t allow a trap to take your victims’ lives. You had to be the one—you had to feel life drained from them with your own hands…”
Grayson’s words channeled through me, but they’re true. However this sadistic game started for Nelson, he’s embraced it fully now. He’s become the monster he hunts. With Grayson locked away, the killings have to end.
And Nelson can’t accept that.
His grip around my neck strengthens, tears blur my eyes. Fire snakes through my lungs and curls around my throat. He’s shaking, muscles strained. Spittle leaks from his mouth as he squeezes the life from my body.
I’m going to die.
“You’ll always be in his shadow,” I wheeze out, but he hears me.
Apprehension glints in his crazed eyes. For the briefest second, air finds my lungs, and I grovel for more. I push the panic down and rake my nails across his face. He releases an enraged growl, then one of his hands wrapping my neck is gone. I clutch the air in my lungs like a desperate animal fighting for survival.
“Guess I need to taste the muse for myself, then,” he grits out. He works his belt buckle open, and another paralyzing burst of panic seizes my body.
Hand clamped hard to my throat, he wrestles his pants open, and I come alive with fight. I flail and scream, my voice nearly lost, a searing whisper wrenched free. It’s not enough. Nelson manhandles me easily, bunching up my skirt and ripping my underwear down my thighs.
He positions himself between my legs, and I can’t make sense of this. In spite of the panic, the fear…logic finds a way in. Nelson is going off script. This doesn’t fit—the killer he’s become in Grayson’s wake.
How many perpetrators has Nelson emulated? How many personas does he have trapped in his psyche? He’s coming undone.
Just one second. That’s all I need.
I swipe my hands along the surface of the desk, anger overcoming desperation. This man will not victimize me. I grasp onto something solid and aim for his neck.
He cries out as my letter opener drives into his shoulder.
A miss, but it’s enough. His hand falls away from my throat, and I pull the silver object out and drive my hand down, making contact with his leg.
“Fuck!”
I feel the warm gush of blood cover my hand and, trembling, I roll over. I take half a second to drag an unobstructed breath into my lungs, then I bound off the desk. My legs unsteady, I stagger before finding my footing. Nelson clutches the wound on his thigh, red seeping through his fingers.
Not good enough. I need him immobile.
Every muscle and bone in my body hitched with pain, I brace a hand to the desk and kick. I nail him in the balls. He falls to his knees. Then I attack again, hitting him directly in the same spot, taking him to the ground.
He’s spewing venomous curses at me—and I use his angered voice to gauge his presence as I drop before the filing cabinet. I get the key ring out of my pocket. The keys clang in my trembling hands, but I manage to insert the right one and yank the bottom drawer open. I reach underneath and grasp the object taped to the underside of the drawer above.
I close my eyes, lungs struggling to hold in air, as I grip the rusted key in my palm.
I take one last look at Nelson on the floor of my office, then I half crawl, half run toward the elevator. Everything is surreal. Detached from reality. Somehow I calm my nerves enough to fix my hair, pulling it loose from the hair clamp to cover my neck. I straighten my blouse and suit. Wiping any makeup smudges from my face, I ready myself to face the crowd.
The taxi is still waiting for me outside the back entrance. It seems so wrong—how much time has passed? I feel as if it’s been hours that I fought Nelson off, but when I get inside the cab and dig my phone from my purse, it’s only been minutes.
The driver glances
at me in the rearview mirror. “Everything all right?”
No. Nothing is all right.
“Please take me directly to the Rockland Police Department.”
His worried gaze shifts to the road ahead, and the car bounds forward. I relax against the seat, my adrenaline tapering off, leaving me drained.
I’m still clutching the key in my hand, the teeth biting into my palm.
I close my eyes. Hear Nelson asking me what happened to the key…the murder weapon. He was right; my practice has always been my haven. My most salacious secrets kept there, safe. Hidden.
It can’t be anymore. Grayson is my haven now. My secrets reside within us.
I feel along my suit pocket, tracing the outline of a USB drive. I slipped it into my pocket in the elevator, not thinking about it in the moment, unnerved from the confrontation. The drive was taped next to the key. Only one person could’ve placed it there.
During the ride, I continue to take deep breaths, calming myself further. I gather my thoughts in preparation.
I’ve been to the jailhouse before, to visit a patient who’d been locked up for public drunkenness. I stood on the other side of the bars, scared to get too near them, thinking how much they reminded me of the cell in my father’s basement. I recognized the brand name on the cell door lock—the same name that was on the door to my father’s basement cage.
Coincidence or fate?
With shaky hands, I open the locket I brought from home and slip the key inside, then drape the chain over my head. I find a thin scarf in my purse and layer it over the chain and the purpling bruises along my neck.
Then I scrape a fingernail file beneath my nails and place the skin and blood inside my compact. I make the call.
“Young,” I say when he answers. “Get me access to Grayson.”
He talks on about procedure and regulation and strict enforcement…and I hear none of it. “Make it happen,” I demand and hang up.
I make one last call before we’re parked in front of the building where Grayson is being kept under heavy guard. I pay my fair and leave the safe confines of the cab, phone pressed to my ear.
I talk hurriedly, keeping the communication short.
Agent Nelson has become more than a complication. He’s become a barrier. He’s unpredictable. And that frightens me more than the walls between Grayson and me now.
I turn off my phone and adjust my suit, situating myself. If it was just a matter of killing the FBI agent, then it would be less problematic. A single, large dose of succinylcholine, and he’d be one less obstacle to hurdle. But we placed Nelson in a position of power for a reason—and it’s too late to change the game.
I lift my chin as I steadily walk toward the jailhouse, arming myself with layers of confidence. Dr. London Noble has the status and authority to overturn any official. I believed this before; I have to believe it now.
Above reproach.
Agent Nelson isn’t the only one with the law on his side.
You’re his muse.
Wrong again.
From the moment I placed my hand in Grayson’s on that roof, everything has been my choice. I wondered when it was that the dynamic between us was established…and now I know. It was then. Right then.
Amid our Folie à deux—our madness shared by two—I am the dominant.
It has always been me.
21
Fated Ruin
Grayson
Gray cinderblock and iron bars. A trap of my own design. So familiar it should feel consoling—but I pace the length of the holding cell. A wild animal. This time it’s different. Because this time, there’s someone on the outside that matters.
I underestimated Nelson.
For that, I deserve my consequences. And I’ll willingly serve out my sentence and walk death row with my head held high, as long as London remains free and unharmed.
As long as a disgrace like Nelson doesn’t get anywhere near her.
It’s the loss of information that’s torturing me. Where she is…what’s happening to her. If I call the slovenly cop over and tell him there’s an unhinged FBI agent out there with his sights set on my psychologist, would he believe me? Or would I put her at even greater risk?
My design is simple: get caught, and escape. It’s what I do. The never-ending cycle of my fucking existence. Until I go bleeding mad. With short intervals where I get to touch her…taste her…experience the sweet glimpse of heaven through her—the unexpected variable that interrupted my routine.
She changed everything.
I’m a devil with a heart. Pure lunacy. But then, even the devil loves passionately, ardently, coveting this world…so much so that he rebuffed heaven. A manic laugh starts at the base of my throat, and I’m not sure I can stop it.
They’ve stripped me of my clothes, leaving me with jogging pants and a plain white T-shirt. Nothing left in the cell that I can use—they’re not sure what’s safe and what’s not—they’ve taken everything. Only a thin cot mattress and toilet with a sink atop in the holding cell.
I search again, going over every inch. Trying to find a change, upgrade, a revision, or something I overlooked before.
I’ve studied the schematic of this building, of this cage, for months. I compared every detail and possible outcome. And I know that there’s no way out. Not without London.
I was wrong to hinge so much on her, but then this was the least likely result. Planning for a potential outcome is different than expecting it. Truthfully, she wasn’t supposed to be involved at all. Just her existence has changed the course, and I don’t know if I can ever control it again.
London said our aim was too high. Nelson was too big of a mark. I’m not sure if it was my pride or desperation to be with her that did us in—but here I am. Again. I laugh. Push my palms over my head, as if I can stop the painful webbing cluttering my brain.
We didn’t choose Nelson; he chose us. He put himself in our path and made it possible. Only I wanted it too badly—I’ve never wanted anything before her, never craved to be free until her golden-flecked eyes really saw me.
And then she appears. My angel of mercy. Clearing the maddening fog.
“Fifteen minutes,” the guard accompanying London says. “Three feet away from the cell at all times. Try anything funny, and you’re out. You got that, Sullivan?” he directs this toward me.
I nod once, and the guard steps away, giving us the illusion of privacy.
I can’t take my eyes off her. In a matter of seconds, I’ve analyzed every cell of her body, looking for evidence of pain or suffering. She’s too well collected, her wall erected to keep everyone out.
“Seems like I’m destined to visit you behind bars,” she says. Her voice is raw, strained. I’m not sure if it’s the statement or the action of talking that causes her pain, but she’s hurting.
“Remove the scarf.”
“No,” she says, averting her eyes briefly. “Not yet. I need to talk to you first, and I need you to hear me.”
Fury boils my blood. I stalk toward the row of bars and link my hands around the cold iron to douse the flames. “I’m listening.”
She looks down at her hands. Her thumb traces the inked key and the scar along her palm. “Why did you choose me, Grayson?”
When she finds my eyes again, I hold her gaze, unrepentant.
“I want the truth,” she demands.
The truth? Would she believe me if I told her that I didn’t realize the reason at first. That I was consumed by her, obsessed with the unknown—that she frightened me as much as she mesmerized me. Scrape the reasons back layer by layer, until only one, blindingly obvious motive sparkles with clarity. “Because you’re the best.”
My response neither shocks nor insults her. I’ve confirmed what she’s already puzzled out. “Schizophrenia runs in your family,” she says, pulling the seams to unravel the truth of me. “After our first session, I decided that you came to me because you wanted me to save your life. I wasn’t too far off,
was I?”
I breathe in deeply, savoring her scent. I set her free so she could lock my demons away. “There’s give and take in every relationship, doc.”
“There is,” she says on a breathy whisper. Then her eyes drill me. “I’ve studied your brain scans repeatedly. I’ve shown you the proof of them. There are no signs of schizophrenia, Grayson. Your fear of inheriting your mother’s mental illness only goes so far.”
So she’s discovered Mother dearest. “And how is Becky these days?”
“Nonresponsive.”
I nod slowly, absorbing the information.
London doesn’t stop. “After your official diagnosis,” she says, “you could’ve left. Ended the sessions. You didn’t need me, not in that way anymore. You’re feeding a deluded fear of an illness that doesn’t exist. May never exist—”
“It will,” I cut her off.
She wets her lips. “And when it doesn’t, when you never fall victim to your madness, how will I fit into your puzzle then?”
I can’t help the smile that steals across my face. “Do you honestly believe you’re expendable to me?”
She shrugs with a shake of her head. “I believe that everyone becomes expendable when their usefulness runs its course. You chose me because I was the best?” she says in a mocking tone. “No, Grayson. You chose me because I was good enough, and I had a secret you could exploit. A means of manipulation for if and when our arrangement was no longer beneficial to you.”
I don’t deny it.
Her arms hug her slim waist. “Why didn’t you just kill me? Why?” she demands.
I breathe out slowly. “Oh, London. Don’t tempt a man. It’s cruel.”
“Where are the copies of my patient tapes?” she suddenly asks.
My expression hardens. “With your confession footage, of course.”
My admission doesn’t faze her, either. I figured she’d eventually put it together; I wasn’t hiding it from her—more like saving the best for last.