by David Beers
"You're going to respect me, Mother. Father is gone and he's not coming back. You're going to respect me or else I'll teach you respect. You understand?"
Mother turned her head so that she looked toward the window. She said nothing.
Bradley looked down at her frail body. She needed to eat. "You're not going on some kind of hunger strike. If I have to force-feed you, I will."
"I'll eat when I'm hungry."
Bradley felt blood rise to his face again, anger wanting to overflow onto Mother and her goddamn bed. Her thin legs stuck out to him, the lamp's light somehow making the scars rise almost incandescently from her skin. They had healed, but they wouldn't always. One day, the cuts would be too much for her old body to handle and she'd die.
"You should be careful, Mother," Bradley said. "You're not as young as you used to be."
He stared at her for a minute or so, though she didn't look back over at him. Maybe she didn't even know he was looking at her. She kept silent, though, and that was most important.
Bradley left the room, closing the door behind him. He looked down at the sandwich, the meat inside it having grayed some since he pulled it from the refrigerator.
A perfectly good waste of meat.
He kicked it across the hallway, the bread flying off, and the thick piece of meat landing on the wall, making a wet splat sound against it.
Bradley watched it fall to the ground before walking off down the hallway to his room.
CHAPTER 11
"T hat's him," Christian said.
"You're sure?" Tommy said from behind him. Luke stood to Tommy's right and Christian sat in the chair, staring at the laptop.
"Yes. He's the one we want."
Tommy looked at the picture on the screen. The guy was good looking. Young, at least compared to Tommy—more and more he felt everyone was young compared to himself. Forty-five certainly wasn't as glamorous as he wanted it to be. The man he looked at was probably in his mid twenties, which fit the profile.
"That's not actually him, though, right?" Tommy said.
"No. It's a fake photo." Christian turned around and looked at Tommy, for once no shyness in his face. Instead, Tommy saw an intense concentration.
This is the real him, Tommy thought. This is the part of him that feels alive. The other person is just a shadow of this one, just a shell to hide this real one inside.
"Do we have computer scientists?" Christian asked.
Luke chuckled from the right.
"We're the FBI. Of course we have computer scientists," Tommy said.
"We need everything we can get from this profile and his. IP addresses, reroutes, associated names, others contacted. Tell them to get everything."
"Alright."
"I'm hungry," the kid said. He stood up and started walking down the hallway without so much as a glance at the two of them. Tommy stared without moving until Christian finally stopped about ten feet away. "Is there some place to eat around here?"
Tommy looked over at Luke. If Christian's face had showed intense interest a moment ago, Luke's held mild approval.
"Sure," Luke said. "There's a sandwich shop around the corner. Mind if we join you?"
Tommy watched Christian's eyes widen, as if the idea had never occurred to him—he had been completely set on eating alone.
"Yeah, that's fine," he said a second later.
Tommy shook his head, a smile on his own face. He had two very weird partners, and there was no way he'd ever understand everything they did.
TWO FOOTLONG SUBS sat in front of Christian. He pulled one from the wrapping and started munching on the first section. He always asked that they cut his subs into quarters. He never understood why they only did halves. If the knife was already next to the bread, why not just make two more cuts? It certainly made holding the sandwich easier.
"You're going to eat all of that?" Tommy said.
Christian looked up from his sandwich. He hadn't quite forgotten that two other people sat with him, only his mind wasn't concerned with them.
"What do you mean?"
"That's two feet worth of sandwich. You're about a hundred and fifty pounds, Christian. I'm not sure you'll survive both of those."
Christian saw the smile and a second later realized the joke. He smiled too and looked back down at his sandwiches.
You eat more in a single meal than most people do all day, his mom had said years ago.
"I, um ... I eat more in a single meal than most people do all day," he said, still smiling as he thought about his mother.
"I can see that," Tommy laughed.
Christian glanced forward at the six inch sub which Tommy held. Then he looked over at Luke, a chopped salad in front of him.
"Hey, if you're hungry eat," Tommy said, and took a bite of his own sandwich.
Christian did as he was told.
Don't go inside your head, Melissa told him. She spoke from behind the restaurant's counter. You're here with people. You should make conversation.
He knew she was right, but could feel his mind wanting to take off, to focus on the case, the criminal, the killings. He also knew she would keep talking if he didn't do as she asked.
"So," he said. "I think this guy was abused pretty badly as a child."
"Do you?"
Christian heard Luke ask the question, but he didn't look up, just kept munching away.
"Yeah," he said with a mouthful of food. "I'm not sure if it was the mother or father, or both. The whole household was violent, is what I imagine. That's where the eyes come from."
Christian had no clue that the entire table had stopped eating, both of his partners staring at him.
"That's why he cuts them out," Christian continued. "Eyes can show a lot of emotion, or at least that's how we view them. The eye isn't really showing the emotion, it's the face around the eye. Yet, when he removes the eyes from their heads, the emotion disappears, and all that stares back at him is a sort of purity. Perhaps even a truth. That's what he's after. He wants people to look at him as pure. As he views himself, a good person. His parents’s eyes showed a lot of disapproval, and he doesn't want to see that anymore."
Another bite. He chewed it, thought about speaking again, then took another mouthful before talking.
"I don't think he deals well with disapproval from anyone nowadays. We're looking for someone, that if they get a bad write up at work, there could be a scene. He doesn't need perfection, he just needs people to act like he's perfect."
"Hey, Christian," Tommy said. "You mind if we just eat for a minute?"
LUKE KNEW it was time to start. Perhaps past time, if he wanted to have maximum effect—which he did.
He placed his bag down on the kitchen table and pulled out his personal laptop, leaving the FBI issued one inside. It was just before midnight, his group having finished going over all of the reports that came in thirty minutes ago. A lot of tips, none of them good. Interviews had been completed by other investigators, but not much promising. While they hadn't told the Yorks that their daughter was most likely murdered for her eyeballs, Luke knew it to be true.
Tommy would break the news to the parents when they had proof.
Would he bring Christian with him? Tommy was taking an unusual role with the boy, a sort of fatherly apprenticeship. Luke thought it interesting, if a bit silly. Tommy wasn't married, though, nor did he have any kids. Luke knew he saw a woman once or twice a week—had actually stood outside Tommy's apartment downtown and watched the woman leave one morning. Pretty, with red hair, but Tommy never mentioned it. Luke checked up on her—Alice Stromin. It was good to know about those that you worked with, especially given what Luke had planned.
Luke typed in the social network website they had visited earlier. The three of them had debated whether to reach out to the killer's profile, but in the end, decided against it. They were working on acquiring a warrant for the social network—would have a yes or no on that by tomorrow morning, which meant Luke needed to act to
night. He stared at the man's face for a bit, knowing that whoever was on the other side of that profile probably looked similar, but not exactly like the picture. The picture needed to resemble the killer so that he could get close without alarming the victim.
He loaded up his encrypted TOR browser. It took the necessary steps to ensure no one could track him, either physically or digitally, and then he went live on what was known as the Dark Net.
Luke reloaded the website inside the TOR application, created a fake profile, then located the killer again.
His fingers hit the keys with a nearly magical rapidity, flying across them while he closed his eyes and listened to the keys snap back. He found the sound of typing almost musical.
Finally, the letter was done.
Luke hit send. He closed the laptop, placed it in his bag, and then went upstairs to his bedroom. He lay down and fell asleep immediately.
BRADLEY'S EYES WERE OPEN. He gave up trying to keep them closed an hour before, knowing that he wouldn't fall asleep regardless what he did. Bradley had hurt things before—plenty of animals, his mother, his father—but he had never felt an urge like this. It was driving him insane, the need to do it again.
He had killed two people in a week, and was already wanting another.
That's how you got caught.
Bundy did that stupid shit, going through that sorority house as if he might never get another chance to kill someone. Bradley wouldn't do it. Couldn't do it, not if he wanted to keep living on this side of a prison cell.
But what the fuck was he supposed to do? He couldn't sit in here and not sleep for a month. Tomorrow would be hell at work, no doubt about it, and he still needed to talk with Charlie about their last conversation. He didn't want to have that particular talk while exhausted, though.
What do I do?
He could go out and kill someone, but that would be so stupid, especially without planning. The first two pairs of eyes had been planned out, one from a bar, one online—but he hadn't set up anything else yet.
Maybe you're not so smart. Maybe Father was right and you are an idiot, regardless what your IQ says.
Fuck that, he thought. You showed him how smart you were in the end. How dumb he was, too.
"Okay, okay," he said, trying to push the angry thoughts from his head.
His computer screen flashed on across the room, lighting up the darkness like a lamp. Bradley squinted his eyes as they adjusted, trying to see what the screen signaled. A notification. He had left the notifications on when he was dealing with the York girl, wanting to be able to answer her immediately if she messaged. He hadn't looked at the messages since he froze her downstairs, though, and there hadn't been any others as far as he knew.
Yet, the screen was on, and sure enough, Bradley could see a message waiting for him.
He climbed from bed and padded across the room, sitting down at his computer.
Nothing from the York girl, but a new name sat in Bradley's inbox. Or, a moniker, because certainly no one was named Johnny Consultant. He clicked the notification and the message popped up on his screen.
Delete this account and everything associated with it. Wipe your computer. Contact me through Signal messaging, my number is 555-4646.
That was it.
Nothing else.
Even the picture in the top right corner gave Bradley nothing, only showed a large magnifying glass.
Someone knows?
"That's impossible," he said. "Even if they have the conversation from her end, there's nothing that would lead to me."
He stared at the screen, his mouth open, unable to believe the words he just read. Someone already knew who he was, and if some Johnny Dick-Sucking Consultant could figure it out ... then, the FBI would have no problem.
What do I do?
Bradley grabbed a sheet of paper and pen from his desk then scribbled down the phone number. He knew what Signal was—an end-to-end encryption messaging app. No one would be able to read anything sent over it, not even the company that owned the application.
Bradley closed his eyes tight, forcing the screen's light from his mind. He felt a headache threatening to overtake him; he hadn't had them in years—not since his father died (that ended and started a lot of things for Bradley)—but he still remembered what they felt like: crippling.
He opened his eyes and flew through the necessary screens to delete his account. When that was finished, he clicked a few more times on his mouse and a message popped up: Are you sure you want to reset to factory settings? This will delete all files and programs not originally associated with the computer.
Bradley clicked yes.
He went to bed but still couldn't sleep. The migraines were back.
CHAPTER 12
"T hanks for meeting with me, Agent Phillips," Veronica said.
"Not a problem, though I'm not sure how much help I've been," the FBI agent, Tommy Phillips, said.
He was cute and smart, though clearly not as smart as Luke Titan. Veronica doubted she'd ever meet anyone as smart as Titan—or if she did, that they would have the ability to communicate such intelligence in a way that others could understand.
"Would you mind if I contacted you again, if something else comes up I'd like clarification on?" she asked.
"Not a problem. Luke said to talk freely with you.” Phillips stood from his desk, following Veronica's lead. The interview had lasted about an hour. After Veronica had her first meeting with Titan, she spoke to her agent about the book. Veronica strongly suggested that while focusing on the Sphere—they should take a pro-Titan angle.
The man is captivating, Veronica had said. Readers will love him. Her agent agreed, and the scope of the project expanded some, allowing her to gain needed insight into Titan's life.
"Yes, Dr. Titan is being great about this. Can you suggest anyone else here that I might find it worthwhile to speak with?"
"Well ...," Phillips said, glancing down at his desk. He looked back up as he continued talking. "His first partner might be a good idea. He’s no longer with the bureau, but it might give you a different perspective than mine."
"Oh, great. What's his name?"
"John Presley."
IT TOOK VERONICA TWO DAYS, but she was finally able to locate John Presley and arrange a meeting with him.
He worked for one of the jurisdictional courts now. She couldn't find out what he did, exactly, and he was vague about it when she reached him on the phone.
She found out what he did when she showed up at the courthouse.
"Oh, John? Sure, come with me."
The courthouse was fifty miles outside of the city and didn't appear to get much business, at least during this time of day. One of the clerks at the front desk, a young kid—maybe in his early twenties, probably in college and doing this part time—simply stepped away from his charge and lead Veronica down the hallway.
"Not a lot of people come by here unless they have a parking ticket or something. It's a pretty small town," he explained as she stepped up next to him at the security station. A single guard stood beside a brown wooden table with a metal detector in front of it. "If you have anything in your pockets, go ahead and take it out. Julie here will push them to the other side of the metal detector."
Veronica did as she was asked and made it through the detector without any issues. They took the elevator down to the basement floor.
"Okay," the kid said. "Here's John's area. Just head to the back and he'll be sitting in his office."
Veronica's head tilted slightly sideways as she looked at the clerk. From what she could tell, they were in the basement. "His office?"
"You'll understand when you get there," the kid said and smiled. "Have a good day."
The elevator door closed and Veronica stood in something that looked like an old library. The ceilings were low and she saw no windows. Books—at least they appeared to be books—sat in tall cases to her left and right, rows of them.
"Hello?" she called.
Veronica followed the voice, walking by empty tables, as if someone might come down here and pull out one of those books for an all day study session.
"Over here," the voice said, and Veronica looked to her right.
An older man sat in a well lit office, with much more lighting than what was out on the floor. The door was open and she walked inside.
"Hi, I'm Veronica Lopez. You're Mr. Presley?"
"Yes, ma'am." He stood up and Veronica put his age somewhere at fifty plus. Maybe early sixties.
"Nice to meet you," he said, extending his hand. "Welcome to my domain."
"Mr. Presley—"
"John, please," he said.
"John, what do you do here?"
"I'm the record keeper. They're slowly moving everything to digital, but this is one of the last counties in the state to go that way, so, they're employing me until it’s completed. If you need something, some kind of history of a case that took place here, I'm the man you see."
Veronica turned half-way around and looked out the office door. "I don't mean any offense, but this seems a far way off from a special agent with the FBI."
"It is."
She turned back around. "Do you enjoy it?"
"Some days. Have a seat and we can talk."
The two sat down and John continued. "It wasn't how I saw my career ending, but then again, I didn't really see myself meeting Luke Titan either. That's who you wanted to discuss right? Writing a book on him?"
"Not him specifically, but yes, he's going to be a major part in it."
"What do you think so far?" John asked, a dry smile on his face.
"He's a genius. I'm probably as shocked to find him in the FBI as I am to find you here."
"Because he's too smart to be an agent and I'm too smart to be a bookkeeper?" John asked.
"Well, I wouldn't put it exactly like that."
"But, it's true. That's okay. I probably am too smart to be here, but I think to understand whether or not Titan is too smart, you have to ask why he's at the FBI in the first place."
