"Now don’t get all worked up," he said, his breath fanning her ear. Violet flinched. "Christine is a woman."
What the hell was she dealing with here? Was this man Chris’s brother? "What have you done with her?"
"Oh, she is a little wimp. She goes into hiding when I’m around. She can’t stand to see anyone harmed. She hates me and I have to say, the feeling is mutual."
"So you just pretended to be a woman?"
"I told you," he growled. "Christine is a woman. She’s the one who wears the dresses and makeup and has her hair and nails done. She’s very much a lady."
Violet was slowly starting to understand. "When did Christine first show up?"
He didn’t hesitate answering. "My mother was crazy. She got pregnant by God knows who and wanted a girl. Whoops, surprise, she got me instead. But you know what, she didn’t care that I was a boy. She dressed me in girly clothes and fixed my hair with curls and ribbons. Hell, I thought I was a girl until I was six."
"What happened then?"
"Dear old mom, who always teetered on the edge of sanity, finally crossed over to completely nuts. She was committed to a mental institution for Dissociative Identity Disorder."
And that’s what her son suffers from as well, Violet realized.
She'd met people at Daisy’s hospital diagnosed with the same disease. She racked her brain, trying to remember details. She knew it had formerly been called multiple personality disorder, and that the person had at least two distinct and individual personalities. She remembered headaches being one symptom and now that she thought back, Chris claimed a migraine after every murder and had suffered from them for years. No telling how many women she—no, not she—he had murdered. Did Christine even know what her alter ego was capable of?
Christopher continued talking, breaking into her thoughts. "I was sent to a foster home. The family had other foster kids and when they found out the little girl in pink dresses and Mary-Jane’s was actually a boy, oh my, was I labeled the freak. They tried to give me back but when the agency threatened to decrease their monthly stipend, they reluctantly agreed to let me stay."
The scarf had loosened from Violet’s neck, the ends draped over her shoulders. Christopher had stepped away, too, lost in thoughts. She eased closer to the opening.
"I endured daily taunting, both physical and mental. When I was ten, the old man had a heart attack. His oldest daughter came home to help out." He moved lightning quick, spinning her around to face him, his lips twisting into an evil sneer.
"Her name was Kim." His gaze raked her body. "She was about your age and height and had long dark hair like yours." He toyed with the strands, letting her hair sift through his fingers. "But she wasn’t nearly as pretty as you."
Violet swallowed and forced her lips to work, dreading the answer. "What did she do to you, Christopher?"
His brows puckered, his mind drifting back all those years ago. "She came into my room one night. I had to sleep in a closet in the basement." He released his grip and laughed derisively. "No one wanted to share a room with the freak."
"It was about this size," he said indicating the space around them but not really seeing it. "She locked the door and told me we were going to play a game." He was whispering now, back in the frightened mind of that ten year old boy. His arms wrapped around his waist. Violet slowly backed to the opening. "She put a gag in my mouth so I wouldn’t scream and then she tied me to the bed. He looked up and pinned her in place. "She raped me."
She almost felt sorry for the fear she saw in his eyes, for the little boy who was scared to death and had nowhere to turn and no one to trust. Almost.
"How long did it last?"
His voice was flat, dead. "Eight years."
And that was the reasoning behind the number eight.
It all suddenly made sense. Christopher invented Christine in order to deal with life, in order to survive. Christine was the good left in this broken man.
He was watching her again. She couldn’t escape. Her only hope was to keep him talking, hopefully coax Christine out.
"How did you get away from Kim?"
He stared at her, his head cocked sideways. She wondered if he was seeing Kim, not her. His next words confirmed it.
"I was so tired of you abusing me, hurting me," his hand unconsciously covered the word on his stomach. "You threatened me and you belittled me and you humiliated me. You made me wear that cheap, trashy lingerie, thinking it was fitting for a boy who believed he was a girl. You knew no one would believe me if I told them what happened." His face contorted into a mask of pure evil. "You didn’t expect me to turn the tables on you, did you? You thought you could control me, dominate me." He pointed to his head. "But you couldn’t get in here, could you?"
Violet kept quiet, letting him relive his revenge. She was close enough to the opening that she might have a chance to run.
"I had it all planned. As soon as you came into the room, I used the chemicals I stole from the chemistry lab. Tying you up was almost as big of a thrill as torturing you."
His hand moved down his stomach to stroke the rapidly growing bulge in his jeans. Violet held her breath.
His other hand lifted to her face and she clamped her lids shut, preparing for the blow. Her eyes flew open when she felt him lift a lock of hair and his voice soften. "It was then that I realized why you did that to me all those years. Every time I hurt you, every time you screamed behind the gag, I got harder and harder. Your pain was the ultimate turn-on, as mine must have been to you."
He tangled the lock of hair around his fist and jerked. Violet’s head wrenched violently to the side, tears springing to her eyes.
"You ruined my life!"
She never even saw it coming. A loud smack rang out and her head snapped sideways from the force of his backhanded blow. Stunned, her hand lifted to her face. Blood pounded in her cheek. She had never been hit that hard in her life.
"I can’t even have sex with a woman unless I torture her." He was yelling now. "Damn you, Kim! I keep killing you but you won’t die!"
His hands circled her throat and Violet automatically gripped his wrists to loosen the hold. He was wiry and thin but strong. Spots swam before her eyes as he squeezed the air from her lungs.
His grip loosened and Violet greedily sucked in air. Then she saw the reason why. A dagger no longer pinned the picture of her and Jake to the wall…it now rested against her throat. He dragged the blade down her chest, opening a shallow cut. She felt the sting but refused to react.
"Does Christine know what you did to those women?"
"She would try to stop me if she knew," he scoffed.
"Christine is a good person, a good friend. Can I talk to her one last time?"
Christopher removed the knife from her neck and scratched his head with the tip. She'd confused him. Using the opportunity to catch him off guard, she drove her arm up against his as he pressed the blade to his temple. He howled in pain as it speared into his head and hit bone. She karate-chopped his prominent Adam’s apple with the side of her hand, the reason why Chris always wore scarves now obvious.
She didn’t have time to reflect on that as he yanked the knife free and clutched his neck. She turned to run. His hand whipped out and fastened around her ankle, sending her sprawling to the floor. She landed halfway in the small closet he had closed off to create her macabre shrine. Her eyes lit on a large steel flashlight lying carelessly on the ground next to a pair of hiking boots. As a weapon, it wasn’t the greatest but she didn’t have a choice.
She allowed Christopher to drag her back by her feet. She cried out and felt something snap when he gave her ankle a vicious twist. He reached down to pull her up by her hair. She rose quickly to ease the pain of his grip and then whirled around and bashed the flashlight against the side of his head, the same side the knife had pierced.
Christopher’s eyes rolled and he spun in a circle before slamming into the wall. He ripped down several pictures on his rapid des
cent to the floor, landing with a solid thud.
Violet took off running, ignoring the ache in her ankle. She bumped into the dining room table, sending a chair crashing to the ground. Clumsily, she pushed it out of the way as a voice behind her stopped her cold.
"Where do you think you are going?"
She pivoted to find Chris swaying unsteadily, his eyes glazed. He held his head with one hand, blood dripping through his fingers. His other hand clutched a deadly-looking gun.
Violet stumbled blindly around the fallen chair. It wouldn’t stop a bullet, but she needed something between her and the madman.
"Christine, I need you. Come and talk to me."
"Shut up!" Christopher roared. "Christine is gone and she is never coming back."
"Christine, I know you are in there."
"Stop!" Christopher closed his eyes, his hands covering his ears. As soon as the gun wasn’t trained on her anymore, Violet picked up the wooden chair and rammed the pointy legs into his stomach, driving him against the wall. He yelped in pain. The gun flew out of his hand, skittered across the floor and landed under the sofa.
Violet didn’t waste time recovering it. She jerked open the door and raced the down the hall. Too late she realized she had turned in the wrong direction, headed away from the entrance. She aimed for the sign marked emergency exit and threw her weight against the handle. It didn’t budge. She rattled the lever to no avail. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Chris stagger out into the hall.
He had reclaimed the gun.
She pushed open the stairwell door and limped up the stairs. At the second floor, she tried the door but it was locked. Panic threatened as she heard Chris enter the stairwell. She turned and bolted up the next flight, tripping on the last step. She sprawled on her knees on the landing. Scrambling to her feet with a sense of dread, she knew she’d find the next door locked. She did. Refusing to give in to exhaustion, she climbed the next set of stairs and was shocked when the handle released. She whipped open the door to reveal a dark, cavernous space. Not pausing to allow her eyes to adjust, she almost crashed into a sawhorse with a "Danger, Do Not Enter" sign attached before she skirted the obstacle. Walls were finished in some areas, while plastic hung from the rafters to block the spread of sawdust in others. Large windows framed the structure, but with the moonless winter night and the location of the warehouse on the edge of town, no lights filtered inside. The effect made the expanse feel mysterious and evil. Tripping on an extension cord, she crashed to her knees, pain radiating up her legs. A shaft of light suddenly appeared and then just as quickly dissolved when the heavy door slammed shut with an air of finality, trapping her with Christopher in the vast empty space.
"You can run, but you can’t hide," his calm voice echoed.
Pushing to her feet, she took off and rounded a corner, deciding to veer left. This time she smashed into something dangling from the rafters, knocking her off balance. She fell backward, landing hard on her butt on the concrete. A bright spotlight snapped on, temporarily blinding her. Blinking rapidly, she followed the beam as it illuminated what had knocked her down. Legs. Human legs. She glanced up the body and screamed, her feet scrambling to propel herself away.
"He looks much better that way, don’t you agree?"
Violet shot to her feet, her stomach threatening to empty. "You killed Todd?"
"Now, now, Violet, I went to great pains to make it look like a suicide," he tsked. Blood coated the side of Chris’s face, head wounds being notorious bleeders. He didn’t appear to notice as it dripped off his chin and pooled on the ground. "Don’t tell me I’ve failed." He looked genuinely perplexed.
"Why?" She had to know why Chris killed their friend.
"Because the bastard tried to rape Christine." His voice was laced with malevolence.
Violet gasped, disappointed that Todd was capable of such a thing but knowing in her heart that he was.
"He got drunk and came crying to Christine that he loved you but you didn’t love him, that you were sleeping with that cop and trying to frame him for murder. Sap that she is, Christine tried to comfort him and the next thing she knew, he attacked her. While I might despise her, I am the only one allowed to hurt her. I sent her into hiding and I took care of Todd myself." He laughed menacingly as he moved closer. "I enjoyed snapping the little bastard’s neck."
He was too close. She had to keep him talking. "You’re so smart, Chris, the smartest man I know." She almost gagged on the lie. "You were very clever stumping the police like you did. They didn’t have a clue it was you."
"Ignorant morons," he agreed inching ever closer. "I laughed every time I read the papers. Who did they think they were dealing with? I am smarter than all of them combined."
Violet waited until he was directly in front of the hanging body and then prayed for forgiveness from her deceased friend. With a mighty heave, she shoved Todd at Chris, the dead weight sending the already-woozy man sprawling. She bolted, dodging construction materials until she came across a tool chest on wheels. Heaving it at Christopher, she didn’t watch as it crashed into him and knocked him over.
Dashing up the open stairway to the top floor, she found it as dark and unfinished as the one she just left. Maneuvering through more equipment, she spotted a crowbar. Gripping the tool like a baseball bat, she pressed her back against a finished wall, her breath billowing from her lungs.
"Come out, come out wherever you are," Christopher sing-songed, his voice carrying dangerously closer. Violet held her breath, refusing to tip him off to her hiding place. When he rounded the corner and came into view, she slammed the iron bar into his stomach. He let out a tortured scream. "You bitch," he roared. "You will pay for that."
She darted past him but he reached out and grabbed her hair, jerking her off balance. Her battered ankle twisted and she slammed head-first into the wall. Her hands barely broke her fall to the ground. The pain was so intense, black spots swam in front of her eyes. She refused to give into the darkness. If she lost consciousness, she lost her life.
Chris’s labored breathing was the only sound as she remained motionless. He staggered to his feet, breath wheezing out in harsh gasps. He laughed menacingly and reached for her. She grabbed the forgotten crowbar and bashed him in the head, wincing at the sickening thud. He fell limply on top of her, eerily silent. She shoved him aside and hobbled away, searching for an escape as she turned down a hallway, only to discover it dead-ended at an old freight elevator. Backtracking wasn’t an option. Chris was like Michael Meyers in Halloween. He just wouldn’t die. She couldn’t kill him. This was her only way out.
Slamming her palm against a metal button, she moaned when nothing happened. She banged her fist against it repeatedly, glancing over her shoulder. No sign of Christopher yet, but nothing from the elevator, either. Sliding the wooden half-gate above her head, she cringed when the creak reverberated through the open space. She stepped inside, pulling the gate closed behind her. She crouched down against the back wall and waited.
"You will pay bitch," Christopher shouted. "When I find you, and I will, you’ll beg me for death, which will come. Eventually," he added with an unsteady chuckle. Air gurgled in his lungs as his voice drew close. She swallowed and prayed.
"There you are, darling."
Violet’s eyes snapped open to Christopher’s evil, one-eyed gleam. His hair was matted, the entire left side of his head red. When he flashed a wicked grin, blood coated his teeth. "I told you that you could run but you couldn’t hide." He wiped a trail of blood from his forehead with the back of his hand and swayed. "You are mine now, Violet. Forever."
Reaching for the wood gate, he slid it skyward, his gaze never leaving hers. "Come now, my love. It’s time." He held out a hand and took a step forward.
#
"Who the hell is the killer?" Turner asked
Jake didn’t have time to answer. "Who from the task force is at the station right now?"
"Baker and Keller should both be there."
Turner whipped out his cell phone and stabbed in a number. Barking rapidly into the receiver he got Milt Baker on the line and handed it to Jake.
"Pull the files from the background checks we did on the University staff." He waited for Milt to return. "Find the records for Professor Christine Stark." Turner’s eyes widened. Jake tapped his foot while Milt located the file. When the man confirmed he had the information, Jake said, "I need addresses for the last twenty years." A pause. "What’s her current address?" He scribbled the number down. "Email that to me and meet us there. Oh, and call Olivia Larrson and tell her to hold up on that story."
"Stark lived in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania five years ago and Greenville, South Carolina, ten years ago," Jake informed Turner as he lunged for the cordless phone in the kitchen.
"The same cities where women disappeared," Turner noted. "We wouldn't have checked her background closely since she's a woman."
Jake nodded in confirmation as he checked caller ID. All the incoming calls were from him. Hitting redial, he held the phone so they both could hear. A machine picked up.
"Hi, you’ve reached Christine Stark. I’m not available right now, but if you leave a message I’ll get back to you."
"Let’s go." They took off for the car, stopping long enough for Jake to let Zeus out and Turner to inform the other squad cars to follow.
"Why do you think it’s the professor?" Turner glanced from the road to Jake and back. "She’s a woman and we know the killer is a man. He rapes the victims."
"I should have seen it earlier," Jake said with self-recrimination. "She found a brand new knife. She had no idea where it came from. The receipt was attached, indicating that it had been paid for with cash." He grabbed the handle above the door as Turner took a corner at full speed.
"She didn’t know what to do with it so she gave it to Violet to give to me. Violet told me about it but I didn’t get a chance to look at it. I thought it was just some kind of pocket knife or something." He gripped the tactical weapon with the serrated blade. "When I saw it on the counter, I realized it was the same type of weapon the killer used." He prayed the same thing wasn’t happening to Violet.
Violets Are Blue Page 30
