The Edge of Normal

by Carla Norton

  “What?”

  “Before he came downstairs, Randy would always come down first and blindfold me, handcuff my hands. It was, like, Mister Monster’s orders.”

  “You were blindfolded?”

  “Usually. Either that, or sometimes he wore a mask.” Tilly grimaces.

  “He wh—What kind of mask?”

  “Like a mask in the movies. Black, with eye holes.”

  Reeve inhales sharply. “Like a ski mask? Or like an executioner’s mask?”

  “Yeah, like that.”

  “Oh, god.”

  “It freaked me out. That’s why he did it, I think. He liked to scare me. And he did these,” she says, rubbing the pattern of scars on her arm.

  “And Vanderholt didn’t smoke.”

  Tilly looks down at her arm and stops rubbing. “Mister Monster smokes Marlboro Lights, I saw that.”

  “Okay, that’s good. Is there anything else you remember?”

  “Why? It’s not like you can do anything,” she says bitterly.

  “Just watch me.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll do something,” she mutters. “I’ve got to do something.”

  “But you promised! You swore on your mother’s grave!”

  “Yes, I promise I won’t tell anyone.” She grabs Tilly’s hand and squeezes. “But that man has to be stopped. So I don’t know what, exactly, but I’ll do something. I’ll figure it out. At least I can promise you that.”

  The room is charged with tension. “I can’t sit,” Reeve says, and begins pacing around the room. “How old is he?”

  “I don’t know. Old.”

  “Does he have gray hair?”

  “No. I don’t know. I was blindfolded, or he wore that mask. But he had dark hair, you know, everywhere.” Tilly swallows. “But I’m pretty sure they won’t find any DNA or anything.”

  “Why not?”

  She makes a face. “Because he always used condoms, for one thing. Plus, he was, like, hyperclean. Paranoid clean. He always brought a sheet with him and made Randy spread it out on the bed before he came in. Then, when he was finished, he’d fold up the sheet and take it with him.”

  Reeve groans. He was smart and careful, this guy. “What else do you remember about him?”

  “Nothing.… Oh, but he has brown eyes.”

  “Okay.”

  “And a mean voice.”

  “Like some kind of accent?”

  “No, he just had a mean kind of voice.”

  “What about height and weight?”

  “Tall. Taller than my dad, I guess. But not fat or thin, just, you know, with muscles.”

  “Bulky? Like a bodybuilder?”

  “No, more in a regular kind of way. But really strong.”

  “Did he have any moles or scars?”

  “I don’t know why you’re asking all this,” Tilly snaps. “It’s not like you’re going to see him naked. You can’t recognize him.”

  Reeve squints at her. “But what else do you remember?”

  “Um, he smelled bad, like garlic and cigarettes. And he had a tattoo. Right around here,” Tilly says, indicating her left bicep.

  “What kind of tattoo?”

  “Of barbed wire. It went around his arm, like this,” she says, encircling her thin arm.

  “That’s good. What else?”

  “Why are you asking all this? You can’t do anything. You promised not to say anything!”

  “He’s your enemy, so he’s my enemy,” Reeve says, smacking a fist in her palm.

  “No! I just want you to tell my parents that we need to move. That I need to change my name, and we need to move, like you did. You have to help me get out of Jefferson.”

  “Yes, I promise. I’ll do what I can.” Reeve glances around the ordinary-looking room, with its girly knickknacks and yellow wallpaper, which seemed so safe just minutes ago. This conversation cannot be happening.

  Jolted by a sudden idea, she faces the girl and grabs her shoulders. “Tilly, listen to me. Do you think this guy had something to do with kidnapping those other girls?’”

  Tilly shakes her off. “Maybe, but I can’t help them. They’re probably dead.”

  Reeve bites her lip and studies her for a long moment.

  Tilly heaves out a sigh. “Randy said, ‘Without me here to protect you, he’ll kill you.’ That’s what he always said.” Her eyes shine and her voice quakes. “And he said that if I ever tried to run away, if I—”

  “But you didn’t run away. You were rescued.”

  “It doesn’t matter! Don’t you get it? He’s out there watching!” She turns away and scowls at the floor. “Who do you think killed Randy? It’s like a warning. I’m next!”

  Reeve reaches out, but her fingers only brush past the cotton pajamas as the girl collapses onto the bed and faces the wall, resuming her tight fetal pose.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Winter cold reaches inside Reeve’s jacket and under her sweater. She shudders and clasps her arms tight as she clicks the Jeep’s locks and hustles away toward the trail. She has fled the Cavanaughs’ house saying she needs to get some air. She evaded Dr. Lerner and bolted, craving solitude, needing to get away from everyone to grapple with Tilly’s awful disclosures.

  She jogs away from the road, across a footbridge, and finds the trail that heads upriver.

  How could she have been so dim, so self-absorbed? All this time, while she’s been missing her mother and envying Tilly’s intact family, the poor kid was wrestling with a double dose of terror. Two kidnappers!

  A lone runner darts past without making eye contact and Reeve hurries on, keeping a brisk pace, carrying Tilly’s secret with her. The trail follows the rush of green water winding through the winter landscape. Thick, ominous clouds mass overhead and the twisted limbs of huge oaks claw the air. She pauses to catch her breath. A single duck wings low over the river’s surface. The air smells of rotting foliage, of wood smoke.

  She shivers and pushes on, following the trail farther along. Pines darken and sway overhead. The trail turns right, away from the rapids, climbs, then dips to where it crosses a swollen stream. She hesitates on the bank, choosing her path, then starts across, wobbling, navigating from rock to slippery rock, stepping unavoidably into the mud on the other side.

  The path narrows and abruptly climbs higher. Her skin warms as the trail rises in steep switchbacks.

  Tilly. Abby. Hannah. The girls’ names echo in her head. Images of concrete walls and locked handcuffs swim through her thoughts. She has promised not to tell Dr. Lerner and cannot confide in Nick Hudson, but what if everything Tilly fears is true?

  As she hurries upriver, something seems to breathe on the back of her neck. She senses what’s coming and hurries deeper into the rough terrain.

  Now the river has disappeared and she wheels around, disoriented. She steps off the trail. Dense foliage seems to crowd around her, and she pauses, breathing hard, searching for a way through the brush. She squats, drops to her knees, and crawls through a cluster of dry manzanita, branches scratching her face and catching her hair.

  She rises to a crouch and emerges before a wall of granite. Scanning the rocky ridge, she considers turning back. But with a whiff of what’s looming, she trembles, presses herself to the rock face, and begins climbing. She breaks a fingernail, sharp stones cut her palms, but she keeps climbing, scrambling upward. Her boots lodge awkwardly into footholds, her hands wedge into cracks. Sweating, balancing, she scrambles higher, cramming her toes into notches, searching for handholds in the lichen-pocked rock, thrusting upward until she emerges on top.

  She stands unsteadily, exposed on a high, narrow shelf. The chill air whips around her as the icy river twists and pools below. She looks down at the gray-green water, lowers herself onto the rocky ledge, and hugs her knees to her chest, unconsciously stroking the tongue of her boot, seeking brief comfort in the secret spot where the handcuff key stays hidden.

  Abruptly, the phantom she has been fle
eing closes in. Tilly’s captor morphs into another sadist with dark eyes, another criminal who covered his tracks. She smells his stink. She sees his wet lips, his filthy whiskers. She swoons slightly, and as Daryl Wayne Flint nuzzles her ear like a physical presence, she dangles her legs over the long drop to the rushing river.

  Emotion knots in her throat. “You filthy bastard,” she croaks, grabbing a handful of pebbles and flinging them into the void.

  “Four years of captivity.” She pitches a rock. “Six years of therapy.” She throws another rock, and another, crying, “A whole fucking decade of my fucking life!”

  She hurls fistfuls of rocks over the edge and watches them splash into the fast water, then gets to her feet and scrambles along the ledge, searching for more. She tosses anything she can find—gravel, fallen branches, stones as big as melons—and doesn’t stop until every loose object has been pitched.

  She stands there, hot and panting. A single raindrop hits her cheek. She frowns up at the sky, feeling as if she’s just awakened from a trance, suddenly aware that she must get moving before she’s caught in another storm.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  There is always cleanup after any crime, particularly murder. Which is why Duke’s crimes are so brilliantly planned and executed. It’s always best to have an alibi, for example, so Duke’s coworkers believe that he’s in Reno, gambling.

  He put in his vacation request the same day that Randy Vander-dolt was arrested, and then took off the day after he was killed. Not ideal circumstances, but he looked at the vacation schedule and instantly decided it was necessary. A calculated risk.

  Before leaving the office, Duke had made sure to flash a thick wad of cash. Everyone knew he’d inherited a fair bit of money, and after years of this sort of behavior, they weren’t surprised by his last-minute “gambling trips” to Reno or Vegas. They imagined him to be a high roller. He enjoyed cultivating this image.

  Years ago, when he was still a young man testing his appetites, he had in fact spent a fair amount of time in Vegas. It was his very own adult playground, where he could make up his own rules. He had exploited it to the fullest, finding all sorts of young flesh for sale. And during his experiments, he had attained new sexual peaks. But he soon realized that once he was finished, he preferred to relax and indulge in reliving the experience rather than having to deal with complaints or consequences.

  One whiny whore provoked him so much that he had to strangle her just to shut her up.

  He immediately regretted this loss of control. Murder is messy, he discovered. Killing a human is much more inconvenient than killing, say, a dog or a deer.

  It still disturbs him to think how close he came to getting caught. He was reckless. And the risk and difficulty of disposing of the body was so distasteful that it fully negated the pleasure he’d gained up to that point.

  While driving back from that hectic and overheated visit to Vegas, he’d reviewed the entire episode and revised his thinking. He needed a less hazardous way to enjoy his habits.

  He smoked and drove and thought about this for hundreds of miles. He weighed risks and rewards. He already had a fine collection of state-of-the-art surveillance equipment at his disposal, but while watching was sometimes interesting, it was a poor substitute for hands-on experience.

  In Barstow, he stopped for gas. And while he was filling his tank, another car had pulled in and stopped. A door opened and a young girl in a tank top and tight shorts popped out. As she bounced toward the mini-mart, Duke studied her tight little rump, then noticed another man watching her as well. When the pubescent girl disappeared inside, the man caught Duke’s eye and grinned.

  That was the seed. Over the next several hours, while Duke drove, the idea germinated, took root, and bloomed into a thing of beauty. By the time he pulled into his driveway, he was marveling at its perfection.

  Over the next several days, he lovingly worked and reworked the elaborate steps that would ultimately lead him to his keepers and his pets. First came J.J. Orr and Hannah Creighton. Next, he found Randy Vanderholt and Tilly Cavanaugh. Months later, he arranged for Simon Pelt to capture Abby Hill. And now Fitzgerald is in place, waiting and eager for a future assignment.

  In retrospect, it had been a mistake to trust Vanderholt. Duke had let himself believe that a keeper already living in a house with a basement was a bonus. But Vanderholt had pretended that he owned the place, and when the real owner had decided to sell the old dump, Vanderholt had turned the whole business of moving Tilly from one house to another into a fucking disaster.

  But now Vander-dolt has been taken care of, and Duke’s two other keepers aren’t so stupid. Orr was convicted of fraud and embezzlement, not simple crimes. Plus, he managed to get away with it for several years, which took brains. And Simon Pelt had at least enough intelligence to get a degree before he screwed up and went to prison on narcotics charges.

  Smarter keepers, Duke reasons, will not cause trouble. They can follow the news, they can read between the lines. So no further bloodshed should be necessary.

  When things calm down, Duke will initiate the next phase of his plan with his new keeper, Fitzgerald. Once he has found the appropriate victim, he’ll arrange for Fitzgerald to capture a girl to replace Tilly. But for next time, he’s considering somewhere outside Jefferson County. Maybe Oregon. Or Nevada. Lots of runaways in Reno.

  With Vanderholt eliminated, he can take his time. And thanks to recent budget concerns, he’ll have many extra hours to indulge in his favorite pursuits. His hours at work have been cut. And his coworkers believe he wastes his inheritance on gambling trips, when in fact he stays put, because he has everything he needs close at hand. Disguises. Extra vehicles. Fake IDs.

  He’s not worried. Certainly he fits the classic profile of a predator, being a loner with private habits, a white male of a certain age, but so do uncountable other men, including dozens at work.

  Many are ex-military. Few are better marksmen.

  He smirks. Duke can understand the need of lesser men to join a militia, though he personally could never tolerate years of taking orders. So, after his father’s death, he trained himself, long and hard and for years before even considering the benefits of joining law enforcement.

  Being a highly disciplined individual, he takes pride in his fitness, making regular use of his home gym. And he rarely drinks.

  Beer is for fat boys. Like his keepers. All of them: Pelt-blubber and Orr-ca and even Vander-fat. When Duke wants an alcoholic beverage, he opts for something more sophisticated: a single shot of fine scotch, no ice. One shot, no more.

  True, he smokes a pack or two a day, but so what? This is another calculated risk. If he gets cancer, he’ll man up and eat a bullet, far better than being eaten alive by chemo or disease.

  Other than nicotine, his habits are clean. His few, select vices are well thought out, which is why the dogs found nothing.

  Investigators will nurture some vain hope for a break, saying that DNA takes time to process, but they are fools, and he is not. He always brings a clean sheet for playtime with his pets, which he later takes away with him, then destroys.

  Need heats his groin and he stiffens in frustration. But he won’t let himself risk visiting either of his girls. Not yet. Not until the investigation cools and the FBI goes home. Not until he’s sure that old Clyde Pierson has nothing to say and that Tilly Cavanaugh is keeping her nasty mouth shut.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Thursday

  Trouble nudges Reeve awake. It’s too early to get up, so she tosses and turns, worrying, feeling overwhelmed.

  How is she supposed to keep her promise to Tilly if it requires lying to Dr. Lerner? He knows her too well. Even when she says nothing, her subconscious gives her away, tensing her musculature, shouting body language.

  The truth is, she’d love to tell Dr. Lerner. He’s like a rock. A smart and caring rock who always seems to have answers.

  But a promise is a promise.

  And that’s t
he problem. Because, just as Reeve would never break hers, Dr. Lerner would never break his, and it’s clear that he has already made quite a few promises of his own. To Jackie Burke, for one.

  Reeve tosses off the covers and heads to the shower, where she soaps up and tries scrubbing away her anxiety. The hot water and steam work their magic, and she’s feeling better when she towels off. She can make it through her regular breakfast meeting with Dr. Lerner. No big deal. She’ll eat and nod and volunteer nothing.

  But when she checks her phone, she finds a text message from him:

  We need to talk. Can we meet a bit early? I’m already here. Come down when you can.

  Dr. Lerner is hunched over an untouched bagel and a cup of coffee, intent on his cell phone, when she slides into the chair across from him. “What’s up?”

  He holds up a finger, asking her to wait. A moment later, he sets his phone aside, thanks her for coming. “I hope my text message didn’t alarm you.”

  “No problem.”

  “But I’m afraid we’ve hit a speed bump.”

  “Oh?”

  “A few speed bumps, actually.”

  She holds herself very still.

  “First, the Cavanaughs have asked for some time alone, a little peace and quiet.”

  She smiles with relief. “Understandable. After yesterday’s joyride.”

  “Exactly. So, I hope you don’t mind, but I need to fly back to San Francisco and take care of some important matters. This is my window.”

  “Oh, right. Obligations at UCSF?”

  “That, of course.” He sighs. “And a problem with my son.”

  She bites back the realization that she has been so self-absorbed that she has failed to even inquire about his son. What was he now, eight? Nine? Dr. Lerner rarely mentions his family, keeping their relationship on a professional, doctor/patient basis, but she has sensed, from time to time, that Dr. Lerner’s boy has some kind of chronic health problem. “Nothing serious, I hope.”

  “Not a crisis, anyway,” he says, yet his expression remains tight with concern. “But here’s the thing: I realize that you might like to head home, too. So, maybe you’d like to pack up? Or, if you wish, I can fly you down with me. You could leave the Jeep here for the time being, and then return with me.”