Dr. Casper opened the door located on the other side of the staircase. Rory saw a dark landing and shadowed stairs.
“It’ll take me just a minute to locate the file. Would you mind helping me?”
Rory smiled and, despite the misfiring in her brain, started off toward the cellar door.
CHAPTER 94
LANE HELD HIS PHONE TO HIS EAR AND LISTENED AS RORY’S VOICE mail picked up.
“Hey,” he said. “It’s me. I’m down here in Florida and I think I stumbled onto something. You’ve got to call me back. Right away. As soon as you get this.”
Lane checked his watch. It was 9:15 P.M. Central time. He fired off a text with the same message and then set his phone on the table so he was sure to catch Rory’s call back.
“No luck?” Gus asked.
“No.” Lane checked his watch again and wondered why Rory wasn’t answering her phone. A sense of urgency swelled in his chest, but fifteen hundred miles separated him from Rory, and Lane knew he was helpless until Rory called back. He finally looked up to Gus. “I’m sure you did some digging into Dr. Casper.”
Gus nodded. “I did. He stayed in the foster system but was never picked up by another family. When he turned eighteen, he was free as a bird. I lost track of him back then, but after you called I tapped my contacts and we did a records search.”
Gus turned the page in the folder in front of him.
“While he was in the foster system, he managed his way through high school. Then he applied for, and received, a grant to go to college. It’s pretty rare for a foster kid who never found a home to make it past high school. But this kid did. He went to New York State College.”
Gus looked up from the page he was reading.
“Guess what happened to his freshman year roommate.”
Lane shook his head.
“Casper lived in the dorms. In October of his freshman year, his roommate killed himself. Casper found him hanging from the rafters when he came back to the dorm room one night.”
Lane remembered the profile he created of the Westmont Prep killer. The organized nature of the crime scene indicated that this was not the first time he had killed. Lane had also guessed that the killer came from a broken family and likely had developed an unnaturally intimate relationship with his mother. This maternal bond was in opposition to a troubled relationship with his father.
“It seems everyone around this guy dies,” Gus said. “After college he went to medical school. Eventually went into psychiatry, specializing in adolescent and juvenile psychotherapy. My source tracked down an old patient of Casper’s from when he practiced in New York. Casper’s previous patient is almost thirty now and had only the nicest things to say about his old shrink. When asked if Dr. Casper had any unusual techniques or practices, the guy said that Casper had a unique way of calming his patients during therapy sessions.”
Lane waited a second. “Which was?”
“He had them fidget with a flattened penny. Guy said that it worked so well that after a while it was like an infant sucking on a pacifier.”
Lane’s mind was firing, and the urgency in his chest grew to something closer to dread.
“When combined with everything that’s happened at that prep school,” Gus said, “it’s either a very eerie coincidence that so many deaths surround this guy, or it’s proof that we’ve stumbled onto the footprints of a lifelong serial killer.”
Lane grabbed his phone and dialed again. “Pick up, Rory. Pick up the goddamn phone.”
CHAPTER 95
AS SOON AS THE BASEMENT DOOR CLOSED BEHIND HER, RORY KNEW something was wrong. She took three steps downward before her intuition told her to turn around, run up the stairs, get herself above ground and out of this house. As Dr. Casper disappeared around the corner of the landing, and she heard him descend the last of the stairs, Rory decided to do just that. Part of her—the paranoid part—worried about the embarrassment she would have to deal with after she was out of the stairwell and standing in the front yard of the house. Dr. Casper would surely reappear with Gwen Montgomery’s file in his hand, wondering why a grown woman had run out of his office. But that same distrustful part of her mind was screaming for her to leave this setting. Adrenaline from her fight-or-flight system washed through her body, quickening her heart rate and increasing her blood pressure. Any awkwardness that came from running now would be easier to deal with than the impending panic attack she would experience from staying one minute longer in the confined space of the stairwell.
“I could use a hand down here,” Dr. Casper yelled from the basement.
Upstairs and outside, she could wait for Detective Ott. He was on the way. Hadn’t Dr. Casper also mentioned that Gabriella Hanover was on the way over? It was hard for Rory to believe how badly she longed to see perfect strangers. The sensation confirmed the danger she had walked into.
“I think I’ve found what you’re looking for,” she heard Dr. Casper call out. “And she . . .”
Rory turned and ran up the stairs, the thumping of her combat boots drowning out the last of Casper’s sentence. She reached the closed door and twisted the knob. It was locked. The clicking noise she had heard when the door closed behind her was now obvious. The door had locked automatically from the other side. In the darkened stairwell she frantically ran her fingers over the doorknob, feeling the keyhole in the handle.
She heard shuffling on the stairs, scratching of shoes as Dr. Casper methodically climbed up the first few steps. He appeared on the landing below her, his face shadowed and his eyes hidden by darkness.
“I told you I found what you’re looking for,” he said. “Now come back down here.”
Rory tried the door handle again.
“The door locks automatically when it closes. It’s the safest way. Now, I’ll tell you only one more time. Come down here.”
CHAPTER 96
HENRY OTT PULLED HIS CHEVY TO THE FRONT GATES OF WESTMONT Prep. He checked his watch and then squinted through the windshield to stare up the dark road before him. He glanced at the rearview mirror and then back to his watch. He wondered how the hell he could have beaten her here. Rory had called forty minutes earlier to tell him about her findings. She asked him to meet her at the front entrance of the school so he could use his influence to track down Gwen Montgomery. Ott changed clothes quickly, had a quick bite to eat, and then came right over. He was as eager to speak with the Montgomery girl as Rory was, and to figure out how Mark McEvoy’s blood had stained her hands the night of the Westmont Prep Killings.
He waited another minute before he swiped his phone and pressed the return call icon. After a series of rings, the call connected.
“This is Rory Moore. Leave a message.”
Ott ended the call and checked his rearview for a second time. A cop for more than thirty years, he trusted his instincts whenever they were loud enough to be heard. Right now, they were screaming that something was wrong. He reached over to the glove box, grabbed a small flashlight from inside, and then climbed out of his car into the humid summer night. He opened the rear door and pulled his suit coat off the hook, stuck his arms into the sleeves, and shrugged it onto his shoulders. It was hot as hell, but he preferred to keep his firearm concealed. He adjusted the holster now, positioning it so the butt of the gun rested just below his left armpit.
Then he clicked on the flashlight and walked toward the front gates of Westmont Preparatory High School.
CHAPTER 97
AS DR. CASPER TURNED AND SHUFFLED DOWN THE STAIRS, RORY reached to the back pocket of her jeans, but her phone was missing. She checked her windbreaker, then her jeans again, as if a second pass would produce a different result. She had set her phone on the passenger seat of the car after she called Henry Ott and must have left it there. She fought with the door handle for another minute as her skin burned with itch and perspiration rolled down her spine. Finally, Rory turned and looked down the dark stairwell. Fight or flight. Her first choice was gone, so she pushed
her glasses up her nose, took a deep breath, and started down the stairs. When she reached the landing, she turned to her right and saw the last few stairs leading to the doorway beyond. It was brighter here, light from the basement spilling onto the bottom steps.
She took the last few steps slowly. At the bottom, she saw file cabinets lining a wall and a desk cluttered with papers. For a fleeting instant, Rory thought that perhaps she had misread the situation. That the danger she felt was only in her mind. But then she saw Dr. Casper through the doorway to her left. He was sitting in a chair with his legs casually crossed. A leather-bound journal was in his lap as if he were reading a novel and enjoying an evening glass of wine. As Rory moved through the doorway, another image came into view. Sitting across from Dr. Casper, propped up in a wheelchair, was an emaciated woman with sunken eyes that were open but seemed blind to the world around her.
“Mother,” Dr. Casper said. “This is Rory Moore. She’s part of the reason you’re here tonight. And, of course, you’ve already met Gwen.”
Rory walked farther into the room, beyond the doorframe. When she did, she saw a girl bound to a chair. Her mouth was covered with a strip of gray duct tape. She had tears running down her cheeks, and she was feverishly fidgeting with something in her right hand. When the girl saw Rory, her eyes went wide and a moan came from her taped mouth.
Rory recognized the word. Help.
The girl suddenly dropped the item she had in her hand. Rory looked to the floor and saw that it was a flattened penny.
“Gwen,” Dr. Casper said, uncrossing his legs and standing from the chair. “The penny is supposed to calm you down, not make you nervous. It’s always worked for you in the past. Let’s try it again.”
He walked over, picked up the penny, and placed it back in her hand. Then he walked back to his chair and picked up a bowl from the side table, holding it out and offering it to Rory. It was filled with flattened pennies.
“I’d offer you one, too, Miss Moore. It might calm you for what’s about to happen, but I assume your spectrum disorder has also plagued you with mysophobia?”
Rory stayed still and silent.
“I figured as much,” Dr. Casper said, placing the bowl back onto the table. He sat down and opened his journal. He looked at Rory.
“My mother and I were just about to have a session when Detective Ott called. I’ve read nearly the entire journal to my mother. I’m almost at the end. You may as well listen in.”
Rory stayed rigid still, not even blinking as she watched Christian Casper open the journal, move aside the tassel that held his place, and begin to read.
Session 6
Journal Entry: THE END IS NEAR
I ARRIVED TO THE ABANDONED BOARDING HOUSE AND WAITED IN THE PLACE the students called the “safe” room. It was an ironic name, because that night it would be anything but safe. I had kept a set of keys to the old house from when it was operational. The door opened easily, and I took my place in the corner. I knew what was transpiring that night. It was the summer solstice, which meant the juniors were being initiated. Although believed by its members to be shrouded in secrecy, I knew just about everything about the game they called The Man in the Mirror. Many faculty members did, including Charles Gorman.
He had shared his journal with me the previous week, and I read what he fantasized about doing to the students who were tormenting him. My plan came clearly into focus then. I would go to the house and wait for the students to arrive, one by one. I had planned initially to kill them all that night, but the two Charles hated most arrived first, and when no one else immediately came from the woods, I hurried back to campus. I knew the police would eventually suspect Charles. He was weak and feeble, and when he came to me after the tragedy in the woods to confess his worry that his darkest thoughts had somehow come to fruition, I convinced him that the only way he could dispel the demons that haunted him was to go out to the house and the tracks and face them down. We went together. It was there that he stumbled, like my foster brother had years before, onto the tracks. It was considered a suicide attempt. I wanted to rid the world of the weak and feeble—the type of person I had once been—but somehow Charles survived. It was better that way. Charles would be forever displayed to the world as the helpless and pathetic soul he was. He deserved to suffer for his weakness. His tormenters, though, they deserved to die. Just like my father.
That night in the safe room, Andrew Gross died in a pool of his own blood. Tanner Landing, from a tine that speared his brain. I had to wait on the others. But slowly, one by one, they came to me during our therapy sessions and confessed their guilt for having driven Charles Gorman to murder and attempted suicide by hiding from the police the fact that they had seen him that night, alone in his home, and that the time line of events made it impossible for Charles to have gone out to the abandoned house.
But something else had occurred that night that also plagued their souls. They had accidentally killed a man. A man they then dropped in Baker’s Creek. They each came to me, desperate for my help. Frantic to find a way past their guilt. I offered the perfect solution. The only way for them to clear their conscience, I told them, was for each of them to face their demons in the exact place that produced them.
Bridget was first. I convinced her to go to the abandoned boarding house. I offered to accompany her, to stand next to her as she faced her demons at the train tracks. At the exact location where they all believed Charles Gorman had attempted suicide. When we made it there, she closed her eyes and waited for the train to take away her demons. Just like with my foster brother years before, it was almost too easy.
Danielle and Theo followed. Everyone believed they were suicides. But then the reporter arrived and the podcast began. New interest formed around the suicides and, despite my best efforts to quell that curiosity and end the podcast, I knew it was only a matter of time before they came back to me. I’m at peace with it all, though. I knew this day was coming. Back when I peeked through the keyhole of my bedroom door and allowed that weak and helpless child to die—the one who watched his father beat his mother—I knew this day would eventually come.
When Gwen came to me yesterday, I knew the day had arrived. She had a grand plan to go to the police, but I knew I couldn’t allow that to happen, Mother. Not before you and I shared this last moment together.
I closed the journal and looked at my mother. I felt the presence of the other two women in the room—Gwen, bound and staring at me, and Rory Moore, surely panicked beyond rational thought.
“Do you think what I’ve done is wrong, Mother?”
There was a long stretch of silence, but tonight eye contact alone was not enough.
“Mother! Do you think what I’ve done is wrong?”
“Not at all,” she said.
I smiled at the reassuring words. They washed over me and calmed me. Of course, those were the only words my mother has been able to speak since she woke from her coma more than twenty-five years ago. Still, I enjoyed hearing her voice. I needed her reassurance that I have lived my life to her approval. I am who I am today, and I’ve done what I’ve done throughout my life, because of her. Because of the things she allowed me to witness through the keyhole in my bedroom door. Because of her weakness.
I placed the journal onto the table next to my chair. I stood, reached into my pocket, and removed the knife. I unfolded it and locked the blade into place. I took a step toward my mother, knowing this was necessary, despite how difficult it would be.
CHAPTER 98
RORY LISTENED AS CHRISTIAN CASPER READ TO THE CADAVEROUS woman who sat across from him. Had he called her mother? She thought so, but the scene was so confusing that Rory wasn’t processing things correctly or logically. She only knew that she felt that same sense of obligation now as she had the year before when she stood in a cabin tucked in the woods. A few minutes earlier, when she stood on the stairs, her main goal was self-preservation. But now, it was something else. The other women in the room neede
d her. Rory could no longer consider running.
She took a deep breath and listened as Dr. Casper confessed to killing Tanner Landing and Andrew Gross. She listened to how he had pushed Charles Gorman and the others in front of the train that ran next to the boarding house. Surely, this man was responsible for the explosion that claimed Mack Carter’s life, and nearly ended Lane’s as well. Sweat ran down the length of her back as her mind flashed to the corkboard in the three-season room of the cottage and to the faces that were pinned there.
Casper stopped reading, and the silence snapped Rory to attention. She watched as he stood from his chair. He reached into his pocket and removed something. The overhead lighting reflected off the metal, and the blade of a knife grinned ominously in his hand when he unfolded it. The frail woman did not so much as flinch as he approached her. She appeared to be detached from reality.
“You made me this way, Mother,” Rory heard Casper say in a quiet voice. “And now that I’m ready to leave this life you’ve given me, I’m taking you with me.”
Rory had no time to consider her options. She simply bolted toward him. Like a linebacker, she lowered her head and crashed into his waist. Her right shoulder connected squarely with his groin, and he released a howl as the air left his lungs and they both crashed to the ground. She immediately reached for his right hand to isolate the knife, but as she grabbed his wrist she saw that his hand was empty.
Casper turned onto his stomach, still groaning from the blow, and began to crawl for the knife that had landed a few feet away. Rory reached her right arm around his neck and secured a tight choke hold when her hands came together. She squeezed with all her strength. It slowed his progress but didn’t stop it as he crawled, inch by inch, toward the knife. She squeezed harder, hoping the lack of blood and oxygen to his brain would eventually stop him. A muffled wheeze escaped from his constricted trachea, but he continued to drag Rory on his back, one elbow over the other, until he was within arm’s reach of the knife.
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