Tortured Dreams

by Hadena James

At ten in the morning, there was a knock on the door. I hadn’t slept well the night before, but I hadn’t slept well in almost twenty years. It is a side effect of my life.

  McMichaels and Reece came into the apartment. They returned to the seats they had vacated the day before. Nyleena sat down next to me on the couch. She took hold of my hand.

  “There’s something I should tell you, before I get involved in this case,” I took a deep breath. “I have a ‘fan’ for lack of a better word, although, ‘creepy stalker’ might work. I don’t know who it is or where he is or much about him. He sends me letters on my birthday, a Christmas card at Christmas and once or twice a year, I get an extra letter from him. He signs his letters ‘The Butcher’ and describes his latest kill in graphic detail. It started right before I left for college. There was an incident that local reporters found newsworthy. I got the first letter about two weeks after that incident. By then though, I had moved to Michigan, so I don’t know how he got my new address. He always seems to have my address. I reported it to the FBI, but they didn’t have any victims matching his description, so they wrote it off as a hoax. My friend, Malachi Blake, works for the FBI and he now collects the stuff The Butcher sends me. Malachi has been trying to get a fix on him since the FBI wrote it off. It’s a spare-time thing. Nyleena sees the letters and works on them from her end. So far, nothing has popped up on him.”

  “How many people know about it?” Reece asked.

  “Including the people in this room?”

  “Yes,” Reece answered.

  “Seven. The four of us, the original FBI agent, Malachi Blake and the guy who sends the letters.”

  “Are they threatening?” McMichaels asked.

  “No, just twisted,” I frowned. “I’d give you copies, but I don’t keep the originals or any copies. I hand them all over.”

  “We will talk to someone and have them look more thoroughly into the matter,” McMichaels answered.

  “Ok, not sure it will do any good, but feel free to dig.”

  “How many victims would he be up to if he really is killing them?”

  “It’s been ten years, so ten birthdays, ten Christmases and a handful of others…” I shrugged. “At least twenty-one, but some years, I get two letters besides the usual.”

  “This year?” He asked.

  “I’ve had only one besides the one on my birthday.”

  “I see,” McMichaels seemed to think for a while. “Any connection to this case?”

  “Only me, I just thought you should be aware of it.”

  “Well, I don’t see that it will hinder anything,” Reece joined back in.

  “What now?”

  “Now, we officially make you a consultant. Our unit is a trial unit; we’ve been together about three years. None of us could pass a psych test, so they didn’t bother with that. There are four of us total, you will be working mostly with Xavier and myself, simply because Alejandro doesn’t like consultants. He’s a bit of an ass, but he’s good at what he does. We have a geek, his name is Michael Giovanni. He does all our roving tech support. Xavier is our on scene medical examiner. I’m the pyschologist. I have a degree from Yale in psychology. Xavier and I both served as SEALS, not sure how we slipped in, but we did. Alejandro has a last name, he refuses to use it. We won’t bother to tell you what it is because he’ll yell loudly if you use it.”

  “An entire unit of head cases?” Nyleena raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes, who better to track serial killers than functional monsters just one step away from being one themselves?” McMichaels looked at her. “Hence the word ‘trial’. We’ve had good success so far, almost 100% on cases we’ve worked. Usually, two months is the average time we work a case. This one isn’t average and isn’t making us look very good.”

  “I understand,” I lied through my teeth.

  “Lucas has a compensation problem, hence the enormous girth. I have PTSD that manifests into violent rages. Alejandro is his own special breed. Michael is about as social as a plank of wood. And now we have a sociopathic consultant. It should be a good case.”

  “You know I’m a sociopath?”

  “There isn’t much we don’t know about you. We know Malachi Blake is smart enough to fake being normal, hence how he became an FBI agent. He also suffers from a dissociative disorder, but he is a full-blown psychopath. Nyleena Clachan, cousin and best friend, defender of Kansas City, has an outstanding prosecution rate, specializes in serial crimes, no doubt because of your past. Your father is deceased. Shot and killed in the line of duty while investigating a domestic disturbance. Your mother is a librarian and worrier. You have one older brother who is currently serving a life sentence in The Fortress. You have one sister, also deceased, from the same domestic violence call that claimed your father. Your mother has four sisters and two brothers. Your father has two brothers and one sister. You are mostly estranged from your family. There is no history of abuse in your family. There is some history of mental instability, on both sides. You changed your name shortly before you turned sixteen because you didn’t want to be known as the ‘child that survived’ on your driver’s license. You are very close to your mother, Malachi Blake and Nyleena, but you don’t seem to be close to anyone else. You haven’t been on a date in over a year and it has probably been seven years since you bothered with a relationship,” McMichaels told me.

  “You’re good and for the record, I haven’t been on a date in over three years. My last date died in a random, freak accident.”

  “Maybe not so random or freak or accident,” Xavier tilted his head to the side and looked at me. “That would be one Thomas Barter. He was killed in a hit and run.”

  “That would be correct,” I answered.

  “Hit while waiting to retrieve his car from valet parking, the car turned out to be stolen. Nothing on the inside. Case never solved.”

  “Pretty much. I stopped dating after that.”

  “Possible your ‘fan’ did it?”

  “Anything is possible in my world,” I lit a cigarette.

  “Could you not…” Reece started to say.

  “I could not light it up, sure, but since my choices seem to be death by serial killer or death by bad habits…” I lit the cigarette again, stupid safety cigarettes always burn out when they are in your hand and then start ashtray fires because they won’t go out if you aren’t holding them.

  “Point taken, enjoy,” McMichaels shot Reece a look that said many things, if you were on the inside. I wasn’t.

  “So, does she get paid for consulting?” Nyleena asked, always the practical one.

  “Yes, standard rates apply to consultants,” McMichaels assured her.

  “Good, because she is running through her trust fund; she could use a little cash infusion.”

  “Ah the trust fund,” McMichaels smiled.

  “Started when you were eight years old by your maternal grandparents. They started it while you were missing. Several people chipped in at the time. Now your family still adds money to it every so often.”

  “Everyone was pretty sure I wouldn’t function if I was found, so they built a trust fund,” I shrugged. “Nyleena continues to contribute because she knows I do not function well in society.”

  “Malachi Blake has also contributed in the past,” McMichaels added.

  “He also knows I don’t function well. I have no student loans, but I sure made a lot of college kid’s cry,” I stubbed out the cigarette.

  “College paid for with scholarships, tutoring in English and paper writing. Grad school was partially paid for by tutoring in German, English and paper writing, the other by working for the college as an assistant. And you’re fluent in German,” Reece added.

  “And enough about me. What about you guys? Why did you pick me? I know there are other experts out there.”

  “Because they don’t deal with serial killers, you do.” McMichaels answered
.

  “So I win the creepy prize,” I shook my soda can and found it empty. I got up, walked the ten feet and got a refill.

  “Maybe you should lay off the caffeine,” Reece looked at the full can of Coca-Cola.

  “I don’t sleep. I exercise every day. I have a possible serial killer who sends me letters. I don’t eat junk food. I don’t live extravagantly. I think letting me have a cigarette and a soda is allowed.”

  “Why don’t you sleep?” McMichaels showed concern.

  “If people broke into your house twice in seven years, would you sleep?” I asked him.

  “Yes,” He answered.

  “That isn’t why she doesn’t sleep. If you were kidnapped at the age of eight, then killed two serial killers and had a creepy fan, would you sleep?” Nyleena corrected.

  “Probably not,” Reece answered.

  “I find my dreams to be very vivid and very bad, so I have trouble sleeping through the night,” I told them. “My childhood may have had something to do with it, but I was having them long before I was kidnapped.”

  “Interesting and on that note, we leave you again. When are your movers scheduled to arrive?” Reece asked.

  “In a couple of weeks,” I frowned. “How’d you know?”

  “The FBI isn’t the only agency that can keep tabs on people. We singled you out because of your uniqueness, so we keep track of you. Have for several years now. How many eight year olds survive a serial killer?” McMichaels asked.

  “He’s lying, we’ve known about you since you were kidnapped. My dad was a bureau man and worked your case. He brought his work home all the time. It was interesting back then. Now, it is downright mind boggling,” Reece said.

  “So, you’ve been stalking me for nearly 20 years?”

  “My dad kept track of you after you survived. When he died, I got all his paperwork. By then Lucas and I were both Marshals. My dad had copies of your essays and things that shouldn’t have been in your file. It finally dawned on me that my dad thought you were special. So we looked into it and we agree.”

  They left.

  Chapter 8