by Lisa Regan
“I’m not here because of me,” he said.
She arched an eyebrow. Her palms rested flat on the surface of the table. “You’re not?”
“You were not a very nice person,” he said. “Not a nice teacher.”
She scoffed. “Now that’s not true.”
“You hated girls.”
She considered this. Her gaze dropped for a moment, and when it returned to his face there was concession in it. “The girls were never as easy to manage or as pleasant as the boys. Girls come with a lot of problems.”
“That doesn’t justify demeaning them and undermining their confidence. You were dealing with eighth grade girls—they’re already dealing with a lot of self-esteem crises.”
Gerst laughed. The sound made Wyatt wince as if she’d pinched him. “What are you? Some kind of psychologist?”
“Shut up,” he said.
She didn’t even have the good grace or the good sense to look afraid. She stopped laughing, but a smirk lingered on her lined face.
“I’m going to kill you.”
As if he’d just told her he was simply going to cook her dinner, Gerst shrugged. “I gathered that.”
Her nonchalance bordered on irreverence. It reminded him of every single time she’d insulted, harassed or denigrated one of the students in his class—in the face of their obvious distress, even in the face of their tears, she remained smug and unaffected. Even when parents complained about her, she was unapologetic.
As if coming from a great distance, he heard thunder. At first he thought it was actual thunder, but a quick glance out the window betrayed no storm clouds—no clouds at all. The sun was high in the sky. Then he thought it was the ocean, but the waves weren’t powerful enough on the beach outside to make the kind of noise he heard. Maybe a motorboat.
“Stay,” he commanded, although the look she gave him indicated she had no intention of trying to escape.
He pointed the gun at the back of her head as he crept into the doorway of the dining room. He craned his neck to see the large bay window in the living room and the water beyond. There were no boats.
“What is it?” Gerst asked.
“Shut up.”
He moved back into the kitchen. The thunder receded just a little. Small beads of sweat popped out along his upper lip as he realized what it was. The beast.
“You cracking up or what?” Gerst snapped.
The next instant Wyatt was staring at the woman from across the table, and she was holding the right side of her skull. Blood trickled from between her fingers. He stared at the butt of his gun and back at her. She looked up at him. Her face was crinkled in pain, but her eyes showed annoyance.
Had he hit her?
He waited for her to say something else, but she didn’t speak. Finally, he pulled the photo from the inside pocket of his vest. He was troubled to see that his hand trembled just a little as he held the photo up for her to inspect it. He swallowed.
“I’m going to give you a chance to save your life,” he recited.
Gerst studied the photo as if she were looking at a mug shot. She brought her hand down from her forehead and poked the photo with it. Wyatt stared at the inch long gash on her head, oozing bright red blood. “I remember her,” Gerst said. “There were two of ‘em. Had to be almost 25 years ago. Her dad was a police officer. One of ‘em got sick in my classroom. Threw up all over.”
Wyatt snatched the photo from her. “I know,” he said. “You made me clean it up.” She’d smeared a tiny drop of blood on the photo. He rubbed it with his shirttail, trying to return the photo to its original pristine shine.
Gerst began to laugh but quickly stopped, using the sleeve of her sweater to staunch the blood sliding down the side of her face. She looked at him as if waiting for him to hit her again. When he didn’t, she continued, “So you’re here for her? You telling me that twenty-five years ago your girlfriend didn’t like my class and she’s still upset about it?”
“You put her down every chance you got,” Wyatt said. “That day she threw up—that’s a perfect example. Do you remember what you said to her?”
Gerst shook her head.
“You told her she stunk. You said she was disgusting and to get out of your classroom because you couldn’t stand her stench. Who says that to a child?”
Gerst pressed her mouth into a thin line. “You mean to tell me you’re going to kill me because your girlfriend threw up in my class over two decades ago and—” She froze.
For a second, Wyatt thought she might be having a heart attack. Her eyes widened. Her mouth went slack, hanging open in the shape of an O. But then he realized what was happening.
She remembered him.
And she was afraid.
Wyatt smiled.
“You went to prison,” Gerst said. Her voice squeaked.
Wyatt crossed his arms. He could not contain the gleeful grin that spread across his face. “No,” he said. “I went to a juvenile detention center. I was tried as a juvenile, or don’t you remember that? Did you pay attention? I was released at eighteen. My records were sealed.”
“That’s impossible,” Gerst said.
Wyatt laughed. “It happens every day in this country.”
“They couldn’t just let you go.”
“But they did, and by that time everyone had forgotten all about me and my little crime. I got to start over.”
A long moment of silence passed between them. Then Gerst smiled. “You said you would give me a chance to save my life. What do I have to do?”
“You have to be sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
He shook his head and clucked his tongue. “And that is where you have failed to save your life. You recognize the woman in the photo, but you don’t recognize that you hurt her. You’re not truly sorry.”
Indignation got the best of the woman, blotting out her fear, making her bold as she thrust her chin forward. “I didn’t hurt her. I never hurt anyone. You, on the other hand—”
He was standing over her. She lay on the floor. The chair had tipped with her in it. She was curled up on her side, holding the other side of her face. The beast circled. He couldn’t control it much longer.
A voice was speaking. It took him a moment to realize it was his own. “So stubborn,” it said. “You believe so profoundly that you are right; you don’t even care what happens to you. You don’t even have it in you to pretend to be sorry to save your own pathetic life. You hurt people. That is a fact. What’s worse is that you don’t care that you did. You don’t care because you don’t for one second believe that that is true. You’re not even living in the same reality as the rest of us.”
One of her palsied eyes glanced up at him, wet with part fear and part disgust. “You’re deranged,” she said.
The beast smiled. “You’re dead,” Wyatt whispered.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
KASSIDY
October 19th
I locked my office door and plopped into the chair behind my desk. I held onto the armrests because it felt like the chair was spinning wildly. The room seemed to be moving, the air pulsing around me. Everything was fluid, and the sound of my breathing was a high-pitched whine. I closed my eyes and planted my feet on the floor.
Slow, I commanded. Slow breathing. In and out.
I don’t know how much time passed—it may have been a few minutes or a half-hour. I still felt a low thrum coursing through my body, but my breathing had returned to normal. I opened my eyes and swiveled my chair to face the desk.
The knock on the door made me jump. I stood and straightened my clothes, as if my inner turmoil might be apparent on my person. I expected to find TK on the doorstep, but it was Isaac. My breath caught in my throat momentarily. For the first time I noticed th
e little bit of gray threaded through his tousled brown hair. Matching stubble covered his face. His eyes were penetrating but warm, like he knew everything there was to know about me and was happy to see me anyway. How could I not remember him?
“What are you—can I help you with something?”
“I wanted to see if you were okay.”
My cheeks burned. “I’m fine.”
“You rushed out of that meeting. It seemed like something was wrong.”
“I—” I froze and glanced back toward my desk where the seventeen-year-old complaint against Michael Bittler lay. I wished Jory were there. He would know what to do, what to say, where to start.
What if the For You killer was killing for me?
I felt cold suddenly, as if I’d just walked into a meat locker. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. I stood staring awkwardly at a point over Isaac’s shoulder until I felt like I was floating outside my body. I had a flash of watching myself from the same vantage point while Nico Sala tried to kill me five years earlier.
Isaac held up a large hand as he turned to leave. “Forget it. I’m sorry if I’m being intrusive. I know you don’t remember me. You just looked spooked when you ran out of there. I’ll go now.”
Before I could think about it, I reached out and grasped his forearm. It was thick, and I could feel the cords of muscle beneath his jacket sleeve. “Wait,” I said. “I found something. Come look.” Surprise registered on his face, then he nodded.
I led him to my desk and handed him the complaint. It only took him a moment to find my name. His wide lips pressed into a thin line. “Bishop,” he said. “This is over fifteen years old. You were at a clinic?”
I opened my mouth to explain, but the words got stuck. I cleared my throat and tried again. “My sister,” I said. “She was coming out of the clinic. Bittler threw a rock and hit her on the head.”
“Your sister—” Isaac began.
I cut him off. “We were twins. She pretended she was me. She didn’t want my parents to know that she—” I trailed off. I didn’t want to go into it with him. The only living people who knew about any of that were Linnea and my mother.
Well, Linnea, my mother and possibly the For You killer.
“So it was okay if they found out that you were involved in,” he groped for words, finally settling on, “these activities, but not your sister?”
I laughed dryly, staring at the floor. “Yeah,” I said.
I hadn’t given much thought to the dynamic between Lexie and I, but it was true that in a sense I was the “older” sibling. I was the protector. I took the brunt of punishment and disapproval in our household. I had often fought her battles. I’d comforted her through disappointments. I’d shielded her. I had done the hard things, and I’d been left behind.
“Where’s your sister now?”
“Dead,” I said flatly.
I had a dozen memories of Lexie imploring me with a look to please, please do this for her, please just this one time. They were interrupted by Isaac.
“Wait a minute,” he said.
I turned my attention toward him. His eyebrows drew together. “A rock—you said Bittler threw a rock and hit your sister in the head.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“The killer used rocks in Bittler’s bathroom to spell out the words—”
“I know. I am connected to him and a couple of the other victims as well. I’ve been sitting here thinking about it. Martin Sorenson was one of my professors in college. Megan Wilkins is from my hometown.”
“What about the others?”
I sighed and moved back to the chair behind my desk. My legs felt heavy and achy. I hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours. “I don’t know,” I said. “If I’m connected to them somehow, I don’t remember them. After Sala, I have trouble—”
Isaac waved a hand in dismissal and plopped into the chair across from my desk. “It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to explain. Is there anyone else in your life who might remember them?”
“My mother,” I said.
Isaac took off his jacket. Beneath it he wore a white button-down shirt with no tie. The outline of his V-necked tee-shirt was visible under his formal shirt. The top button of his shirt was undone, revealing a few golden brown chest hairs. My eyes were drawn to the hollow of his throat.
I closed my eyes for a moment, and immediately Jory’s face floated before me. What was I thinking? How could I possibly be looking at Isaac McCaffrey? At anyone? When I opened my eyes, my gaze was drawn to Lexie’s photo, and I was hit with the sudden realization that although Jory had wanted to marry me and we were going to have a child together, he hadn’t yet been a real presence in my life. There should have been a photo of the man I loved on my desk next to Lexie’s picture. But there wasn’t. Maybe there would have been, but all of those possibilities had been cut short.
I sucked down the sob that rose instantly in my throat. Sleep deprivation and pregnancy hormones were not a good combination. Again Isaac looked at me, concern darkening his azure blue eyes. “You okay?”
I nodded but didn’t trust myself to speak.
He leaned forward in his chair, studying me. “You’re freaking out a little.”
I laughed abruptly, the sound surprising me as much as it did him. It reminded me of his own inappropriate laughter at the Bittler crime scene, which for some reason, made me laugh harder. “A little bit,” I said. “I’m freaking out a little bit.”
He leaned back in his chair again, smiling calmly. It was then that I realized why his presence put me at ease. He was the calmest person I’d ever met. He exuded it. It rolled off him like waves of gentle warmth. Like Talia Crossan, I couldn’t imagine anything ruffling him. I wondered if he had been that way before—during the Sala investigation.
He motioned to the phone on my desk. “Call your mother,” he said. “See if she remembers the other victims. Then we’ll talk to the rest of the task force and figure out where to go from there. In the meantime, I’m going to try to score some food.”
The thought of food made my mouth water. I hadn’t eaten in six hours. The last thing my nerves were interested in was food, but the baby had other ideas. “A cheeseburger. Two cheeseburgers. See if you can get some cheeseburgers,” I instructed.
Isaac stood and gave me a mock salute as he made his way out of my office. He left his jacket and the Bittler complaint in the chair by my desk.
With another glance at Lexie’s picture, I picked up the phone.
Although I checked in with my mother by phone about once a month, I hadn’t even told her about my pregnancy yet. But there were questions I needed to ask her. My mother remembered everything—especially when it came to her children. She knew the name of every bully who’d ever picked on us, every teacher we’d either loved or hated, every boy we’d ever had a crush on or been rejected by, every girl who’d ever made our lives miserable, every job we’d ever had however long it lasted—an hour or a year—and every supervisor who’d ever ruined our day.
She answered on the third ring. “Mom? I have to ask you a few questions. They are going to seem very strange, but it is very important that you answer them as best you can.”
I jotted things down on a notepad as we talked. I didn’t go into the details of the investigation, and she didn’t ask. When I hung up I looked at Isaac’s jacket, wishing he and the cheeseburgers had come back already. Then I thought again of Jory. He would have been here. He would have been a part of the task force. I felt a sharp pang, a pain under my diaphragm. My thoughts were quickly interrupted by Isaac’s voice and the delicious smell of hot food.
I tried not to look like a maniac as I tore the wrapping off the first cheeseburger and devoured it. “Thank you,” I managed around a wad of food.
“Got you fries, to
o,” he said. He pulled the chair closer to my desk and spread the rest of the food and two bottles of water out between us. For a few blissful moments, my anxiety over the For You Killer was smothered with the greasy goodness of fast food. I ate like I hadn’t eaten in years. Isaac watched with an amused smile, his own burger frozen halfway to his mouth.
“What?” I said.
He chuckled. “I love a woman who eats like a lumberjack.”
I shot him a caustic look as I finished off my second cheeseburger. “Shut up,” I said.
He shrugged. “Did you get in touch with your mother?”
I took a long drink of water and picked up my notepad. My stomach full, a deep warmth suffused my body, and I found it easier to reveal the things I’d figured out by talking to my mother.
“Georgette Paul was my boss in college. I worked at a bookstore in Philadelphia. One of our regular customers was Boyd Henderson. He came in every Sunday and bought about 10 newspapers. One Sunday not all his papers were there, and he called me a cunt. I called him a misogynist pig and told him where to go. Paul fired me over it. Megan Wilkins bullied Lexie and I mercilessly when we were in middle school.”
I took a deep breath. “All the victims are connected to me,” I concluded.
Isaac was silent for a full minute. He put his uneaten hamburger on my desk and stared into my eyes. “The UNSUB must be someone you know. Who is the killer?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
He studied my face, his gaze intense and unflinching. The scar beneath my chin burned—Nico Sala’s brand. “No ideas?”
“No. I mean I’d have to think about it. I don’t even remember the victims.”
TK gave a cursory knock as he entered my office. He pulled up short when he saw Isaac but recovered quickly. “Lieutenant,” he said.
“Agent Bennett,” Isaac responded.
TK strode over to the desk and looked down on me with a severely wrinkled forehead.
