Face Off

by Brenda Novak

  She didn’t care how brave he was or that he was a CO. She was responding to the way he looked, and he knew it. She was too old for him, wasn’t actually flirting, but it was his handsome face—and his body, which he was careful to keep fit—that lent him credibility with women of all ages. He used his good looks as a lure, but if he wasn’t careful they could get him in trouble, too. Women paid attention to him and what he was doing. He wasn’t one of those nondescript killers who could come and go without anyone noticing; he was attractive enough to be memorable. That meant he had to be smarter than most other killers, more adept at fooling people.

  “What do ya got?” he asked.

  “A turkey or ham sandwich, some chips and a soda, or bottled water if you prefer. Cleaned out Quigley’s Quick Stop down the way.”

  “I’ll take whatever you have the most of.”

  She went in back and returned with a sack and a bottle of water. “Here you go.”

  “Appreciate it,” he said, and gave her a grateful smile before bracing himself to go back out in the cold.

  His room was at the far end, which suited him fine. He didn’t want to be too close to anyone. He moved his truck in front of it and checked on what he’d put in the bed. Both bodies were still wrapped up together, under the tarp, which was quickly being buried by snow.

  Leaning into the wind, he used one hand to block the snowflakes stinging his face and turned in a slow circle.

  No one seemed to be showing any interest in him or his vehicle. Everyone was too worried about the weather.

  He was going to be fine—as long as he could get out of town before someone raised the alarm about the woman who’d gone missing from that cabin.

  * * *

  Evelyn couldn’t sleep. She’d tried, but not long after she climbed into bed the power went out, so she didn’t have phone service or electricity. She lay in the dark, feeling the house slowly cool, with no radio or television to distract her—only the shriek of the wind.

  Just last summer, Amarok had installed a backup generator. Although the storm wouldn’t make it easy, she could take a flashlight, go outside and try to get it started; he’d shown her how.

  She considered doing that. She desperately wanted the lights to come back on. But after what had happened in this very house last winter, she was too scared to abandon the meager safety of remaining behind locked doors. Although she’d been pretending the incident with Bishop hadn’t affected her, it had set her back, made it more difficult to cope with all the fear she carried around. Ever since that attack, she couldn’t abide total darkness, just as she hadn’t been able to abide it for three or four years after that first incident with Jasper. As much as Amarok had helped her heal sexually, the recent trauma with Lyman Bishop had sent her reeling in other ways; it made her jump at every shadow, fear every noise, constantly glance over her shoulder. There were even times she felt as though she was being watched when she knew it couldn’t be true.

  Go turn on the generator. Getting the light to come back on in the hallway would be worth suiting up for the weather. But she couldn’t make herself crawl out from under the covers, not even to go into the living room to put more wood on the fire. She felt paralyzed beneath the thick, heavy blankets, could hear her heart thumping in her ears as her imagination began to kick into overdrive—showing her a face at the window or making her hear the creak of footsteps in the hall.

  Why are you allowing this? She’d been doing so well! She’d thought she could cope with everything she’d been through, had been coping. But she hadn’t faced a night like this. Thinking about the woman who’d gone missing made her remember what it had been like when she’d gone missing herself—for three days.

  Stop! If she didn’t get hold of herself, she’d fall into a full-blown panic attack. She was cold and clammy and beginning to tremble. And the fear, rising to ever greater heights inside her, seemed to be squeezing off her windpipe. With Amarok gone, she didn’t possess her usual coping skills.

  She closed her eyes, opened them and closed them again. Total blackness either way. Just like the night Jasper had tied a bandana around her head so she couldn’t see what he was going to do to her next. He liked how that frightened her, relished making her quake and beg as he led her to believe this was the moment he was going to kill her.

  What he’d done instead had been demeaning, revolting, excruciating. Mercifully, her brain had blocked out the worst of it.

  But certain sights, smells or sounds could trigger an emotional memory even if her brain refused to fill in all the blanks. In those moments, she felt sick.

  “I won’t let you win. You will not beat me,” she told him through gritted teeth. She couldn’t allow him to imprison her mind as he’d once imprisoned her body. Being Evelyn Talbot meant breaking out of that shack again and again and again—almost every day—but she had to do it, had no other choice.

  Curling into a tight ball, she struggled to dig deep, find calm. She hadn’t had an episode quite this bad in years, which only went to prove she probably needed counseling again. Recently, she’d been able to sense that she was slipping into the anxiety and fear that always hung on the fringes of her psyche. Her parents had warned her this would happen if she continued to study violent behavior and the men responsible for it, especially in such an up close and personal way. But because of Amarok and the happiness he brought her, she’d been able to move forward, hold herself together. The long days of spring and summer, which were filled with beauty and sunshine here in Alaska, had helped, too—helped her ignore and even cloak the damage Bishop had caused.

  But now summer was gone and so was Amarok, and she was alone in the cold darkness, without phone service and power in a place that felt vast and lonely. And she couldn’t go to counseling, couldn’t seek that kind of help. If her boss at the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the other mental health professionals on her team learned she was struggling, they could lose confidence in her. Perception was everything; she couldn’t undermine her own credibility, or she could be stripped of everything she’d worked so hard to create. Then how would she solve the mysteries of the psychopathic mind and arm would-be victims with knowledge and power?

  “Hang on. Amarok will be home. He’ll be here soon. Just wait for Amarok.”

  As she struggled to regulate her breathing, various sensory impressions assailed her like arrows. The grittiness of the dirt floor in the shack where Jasper had kept her. The acrid scent of the fire Jasper had set after he’d slit her throat and left her for dead. The confusion and pain as she’d dragged her broken body through the woods. The blaring of the car horn when she’d finally stumbled into the road and was nearly hit by the man who’d eventually stopped to help her. The pavement scraping her heels as a masked man dragged her from her vehicle only two years ago. And Lyman Bishop’s high, almost effeminate voice as he told her she’d asked for what he was about to do when he stood over her outside the front door of this very house.

  Tears were streaming down her face when she heard the noise outside her bedroom window. That wasn’t just the storm. She heard purposeful movement.

  Makita agreed. Although Amarok’s dog had followed her when she went to bed—he typically slept at their feet—he jumped up, raced to the front door and began to bark like crazy.

  Someone was out there.

  Who?

  The face of Jasper and the many other psychopaths she’d dealt with over the years passed before her mind’s eye. She was about to scream when the hum of the generator rose above the wind and the lights snapped on.

  Amarok. He was home. He had to be home. Who else would take the time to turn on the generator? Or even know it was there?

  Gasping for breath, she quickly wiped her face, sat up and hugged her knees to her chest as she waited.

  Sure enough, she heard the front door open and Amarok’s voice as he quieted his dog.

  He was home. He was safe. And so was she.

  Falling back onto the pillows, she tried to g
ather her composure before he could realize how badly off she’d been, how close she’d come to really freaking out.

  Fortunately, he was so preoccupied or tired he didn’t seem to notice she was awake when he came in and quietly pulled off his boots.

  She waited until he was completely undressed and crawling under the covers to speak to him. By then, she could talk without a wobble in her voice. “Did you find her?”

  “No.”

  “What do you think happened?”

  “I don’t know. But let’s not talk about that right now. Go back to sleep. We’ll discuss it in the morning.”

  She didn’t tell him she hadn’t slept a wink so far. “But you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  He was concerned about the situation. She could tell. And he’d be concerned about her, too, if he knew she’d fallen into such a distressed state.

  Which was why she wasn’t going to tell him.

  “But … what do you think happened to her?”

  “I don’t know,” he said again, “but I’m not going to jump to any conclusions.” He pulled her into his arms. “Come here. I need to feel you against me,” he said, and she was only too happy to oblige.

  The warmth of his body, the solid muscles that moved beneath his smooth skin as he anchored her back to his chest with one arm, quieted her mind and slowed her pulse. Sex was the last thing she should be thinking about. After the night he’d had she couldn’t imagine he’d be interested, but she hoped he was, because she needed to feel him inside her.

  She turned to kiss him, to test his response, and felt his hand slide into her hair as his tongue met hers. Maybe he needed to blot out the negative emotions he’d experienced, too—reassure himself of the love she offered—because he rolled her onto her back almost as soon as she reached down to make sure he had an erection.

  * * *

  It was quiet when Jasper woke up several hours later. He wasn’t sure what had disturbed him. The wind seemed to have died down, so it was quieter than before. But then he heard voices, raised in alarm, right outside his room.

  “Leland, no! You can’t go back up there.”

  “I have to! I should never have let him talk me into leaving. Sierra’s there somewhere. She could need me!”

  For a moment Jasper thought he had to be dreaming. He’d never met anyone called Leland. The only place he’d ever heard that name was on the lips of the woman he’d strangled earlier, at the cabin.

  But, surely, this wasn’t the man she’d been crying for—was it?

  He supposed it could be. If Leland had returned to the cabin in time to get off the mountain, where else would he go? He’d be stranded in Hilltop, same as Jasper—who had the woman this man was so frantic to find in the bed of his truck only ten feet away.

  The realization of what was happening sent a jolt of adrenaline through him, clearing the cobwebs and making him hyper-alert. He climbed out of bed and went to the window, where he parted the drapes, but the glass was too foggy to be able to see clearly.

  What time was it? It was still dark out, but that didn’t mean anything. The length of days in Alaska swung so widely—from more than nineteen hours of daylight in mid-June to barely five during the winter solstice in December. It could be late morning and still look like it did now.

  He hoped it wasn’t too late. He’d set the radio alarm on the nightstand for four, but it was blinking zeroes. The power must’ve gone out after he fell asleep.

  He checked his watch and relaxed; it was only three. If the road was open and he left now, he could dump the bodies and be back in time to reach the prison by one.

  Good thing he’d let another CO pay him fifty bucks to trade shifts! Otherwise, he’d have to head back to Hanover House right now, since he most often worked the early shift.

  He cracked open his door so he could see and hear what was going on. As the men continued to argue, a third guy came out of the room closest to Jasper’s and tried to talk some sense into Leland, too. “You heard what Sergeant Murphy said. He’s got this. He’s gonna do everything he can to find your sister.”

  So that was Leland’s connection to the woman he’d murdered. He was her brother. At least she wasn’t his wife. Jasper figured Leland should be grateful for that.

  Leland tried to shove the others away. “By the time the sergeant goes back, it could be too late.”

  It was already too late. Leland was a fool. But Jasper didn’t care if the guy risked life and limb returning to the cabin. He just wanted them all to clear out so he could leave. He preferred not to be seen in the same vicinity or have them observe him driving off at such an odd hour. Anyone could get snowed in, and since the motel was now full, he certainly wasn’t alone. But he knew better than to do anything that might attract Amarok’s attention. He couldn’t account for the hours after he’d left the prison before he got snowed in, couldn’t say he was at the Moosehead or the Quick Stop or even The Dinky Diner. This was a small enough place that there’d be people who could refute any claim he made, and those people would be easy enough to find.

  Better to keep his head down a little longer.

  He closed the door as the two men who were trying to talk Leland into staying started wresting his keys away from him, which caused Leland to break down crying. When Jasper heard his deep wail, he had to peer out again. That emotion, that profound grief, was a curiosity to him. He’d never experienced anything similar, couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was like.

  But he never tired of studying it.

  Terror was another interesting emotion.

  6

  Harold Childress. Evelyn sat at her desk at Hanover House and stared at the name of her former therapist on a greeting card he’d given her the last time she’d seen him, nearly six years ago. Forty years older than she was, he’d retired nine months before their last meeting, so she’d no longer been his patient. They’d gotten together for lunch, as friends.

  She wished she could talk to him again. Although he’d never experienced anything remotely like the trauma she’d been through, he’d possessed a wise mind and an understanding heart. No one else could soothe her fears in quite the same way. No one else could shine such a bright light on the goal of normalcy or show her a clear path for reaching that target. His rational thinking made so much sense to her.

  But she couldn’t reach out to him, not anymore. He’d had a heart attack and died not long after that lunch date. And now Jasper’s attempt to kidnap her two years ago, the corruption she’d battled when she first started Hanover House, the stalking behavior of the psychiatrist who’d helped her launch the facility, the recent murders of two more of her friends in Boston and Lyman Bishop’s attempt at revenge—all of that had reopened old wounds.

  She put the greeting card carefully back inside her drawer and gazed at the Starship Enterprise model on her desk. Brianne, her sister and only sibling, had given it to her at her going-away party before she’d left Boston. A small placard at the base read: “Going where no man or woman has gone before.” Back then, Evelyn had thought she’d make such great strides, had been determined to break new ground in psychopathy, which was the reason for that analogy. Plus the fact that she was moving to the last great frontier. But now? She felt like the Enterprise after it’d passed through an asteroid field and sustained too many hits. Not only were her shields inoperable, she could no longer escape the gravity of the alien world, the one inhabited by the monsters she studied, the one that held her captive.

  Perhaps all the people who’d second-guessed her in the beginning—her parents, so many of her colleagues, the opponents she’d faced when trying to establish Hanover House—were right. Perhaps she couldn’t handle what she’d set out to do.

  She thumbed through the contacts on her old-fashioned Rolodex, which she used since she didn’t have a smartphone. She needed to find another Harold. Fast. But who could replace him? Although she worked with five psychologists, she couldn’t go to any of them for help.
She’d consider Stacy Wilheim, the only other woman on the team, except that she couldn’t confess her weakness even to Stacy. Not when Stacy and all the rest of the mental health professionals she’d hired had dragged their families and pets, if they had them, to this frozen wilderness expecting their fearless leader to be like Captain Kirk—strong, resourceful, always successful in the end.

  She supposed she might be able to find a therapist in Anchorage.

  She keyed “psychologists, Anchorage” into the search engine on her computer and several names populated the screen. But as she scanned the addresses, they all felt too close to Hilltop. She’d been on the news so many times while lobbying for this facility. She could easily be recognized going in or out of one of their offices and couldn’t risk being questioned.

  She had to remain stoic, had to forge ahead despite the crippling fear, the nightmares, the pressures of her job and the dark and cold of this place.

  And she would, she told herself. She was just experiencing a moment of uncertainty. She’d functioned quite well since moving to Hilltop, despite everything that’d happened. She wasn’t sure why she was struggling now that it was all over, but at least this was Thursday. If she could get through today and tomorrow, she’d have a short break from work. “Dr. Talbot?”

  Closing out of her browser, Evelyn glanced over to see her assistant, Penny Singh, who was less than five feet tall, standing in the doorway. “Yes?”

  Penny looked confused. “You’re late for your session with Bobby Knox.”

  Evelyn blinked as she checked the clock. Where had the past twenty minutes gone? She hadn’t even eaten the lunch Amarok had packed for her. It was still sitting, untouched, at her elbow. “Oh, right. Of course. I’m on my way.”

  “There’s something else.”

  Evelyn closed the file that lay open on her desk, since she needed to take it with her, and stood. “What’s that?”

  Penny winced as she pulled an envelope from behind her back. “You’ve received another letter from Dr. Fitzpatrick.”