Kissing Trouble

by Morgana Phoenix

  He turned on his heels and scurried down the steps. They watched him move with a slight limp in the direction of his car.

  “What do you think?” Mason asked her.

  “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “I suppose it explains things. I guess it also means that if the police get evidence that there’s someone else doing these things, we’ll be free to go home.”

  Mason turned those brilliant blue eyes in her direction, but said nothing.

  The doctor returned, rifling through a battered wallet. He removed a plastic hospital ID card and passed it to Mason. Julie leaned over his shoulder to read the print.

  “Doctor Wallis Nixon,” she read out loud. “Head physician at Saving Angels.” Her brows furrowed. “Where is that?”

  “Saskatchewan,” Dr. Nixon said.

  “You’re a long ways from home, Doc,” Mason said, passing the ID back to him.

  “Yes...” He stuffed the card into his wallet and closed the flaps. “I have been following Jimmy’s reign of terror for nearly five years.”

  Mason stepped back and ushered the doctor into the foyer. “You alone?”

  Dr. Nixon limped inside and the door was shut behind him. “In a manner of speaking. I feel it’s my responsibility to bring him home. After all, it was my fault he escaped in the first place.”

  Julie led the way down the hall into the kitchen. The coffee had finished brewing and she poured three cups. Mason helped her take them to the table where Dr. Nixon had gratefully fallen into one of the chairs.

  “So he’s done this sort of thing before?” Julie asked, claiming the seat next to Mason.

  Dr. Nixon nodded. “Jimmy has always had a problem adjusting. He...” Nixon took a timid sip of his coffee. He sighed and closed his eyes. “I haven’t had real coffee in days.” But he set his mug down and faced them once more. “He’s gone too long without his medication and I can no longer predict what he will do next.”

  “What does he suffer from?” Julie asked.

  “Dissociative identity disorder as well as schizophrenia, paranoia, anxiety, and bipolar.”

  Mason whistled through his teeth. “Wow! And he’s just out there right now doing who knows what, huh?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Dr. Nixon said. “He’s very good at blending. He can become anyone and, half the time, he doesn’t even realize he’s being someone else.”

  “How did he find us?” Julie asked. “Neither of us are from here originally.”

  The doctor took another, longer, sip of his drink. “I can’t say for certain, of course, not until I’ve spoken to him, but I am guessing he’s always been here.” He set his mug down again with a muffled clink. “That he had been using this residence as his hideaway. When you arrived, he considered you a threat.”

  “How would he get in?” Mason demanded. “The place is alarmed.”

  Julie nodded. “It was armed when I arrived.”

  Nixon shrugged. “Like I said, I’m only assuming.”

  “What if you’re wrong and it’s not him?” Mason asked.

  “I could be,” Dr. Nixon agreed solemnly. “But this seems to be his choice of murder.”

  “Why are you here?” Julie wondered. “Why not go to the police?”

  Nixon dropped his gaze to the mug. “The police, for all their good intentions, are quite narrow minded when it comes such matters. A few mere coincidences will not sway them without concrete evidence. I felt it best to warn you and hopefully help keep you alive.”

  “So we should leave?” Julie said.

  “I’m not leaving,” Mason muttered. “This is my place. I’m not letting some lunatic run me off.”

  Dr. Nixon flinched. “I don’t like that word—lunatic. Jimmy isn’t a lunatic.”

  “He killed newborn kittens and hung them over the door like Christmas ornaments.” Mason arched a brow. “What do you call him?”

  “Sick,” Dr. Nixon said at once. “He is severely sick and needs help. When he was under my care and taking his medication regularly, he was making remarkable progress. Had he not escaped, I do believe he would have been nearly fit for normal society. With strict supervision, of course.”

  Mason leaned back in his chair. “The fact that you were even considering that after everything he’s done makes me think you’re just as crazy.”

  “Do you have a photo of him?” Julie interjected when the doctor’s cheeks darkened with indignation.

  Dr. Nixon nodded. “Yes, in the car with my files.” He rose from his seat, tucked in his chair, and curled both hands over the back as he stared between them. “I strongly suggest that you pack up tonight and leave. If Jimmy is within the area, you are most definitely not safe.” He pushed away. “I’ll bring in that photo.”

  They watched him walk out, heard him scuffle along the hallway to the door.

  “I want to leave,” Julie whispered. “I don’t want to stay here. Maybe we can get the doctor to talk to the sheriff and they’ll give us our cars back.”

  She expected Mason to argue, to say something manly about how he would protect her. Instead, he swept back a curl off her cheek and slipped it behind her ear and said, “I agree.”

  Julie blinked. “You do?”

  He nodded. “I don’t like you being here with that psychopath just roaming around the place.”

  Relieved, Julie exhaled. True she wouldn’t have stayed even if he had asked her, but it was nice to know that they were on the same page.

  Dr. Nixon hurried into the kitchen once more, looking ashen and pasty. “My notes are gone!”

  Mason was out of his chair first. “What?”

  The doctor pointed to the door. “The doors to my car were open and all my notes are missing from the front seat.”

  “Are you sure?” Julie got to her feet.

  Dr. Nixon nodded, his face going a sickly shade of green. “I had everything, my notes, my research ... my laptop ... everything on the front seat and now they’re gone.”

  “I’ll help you look,” Mason offered, moving across the room.

  “It’s Jimmy,” the doctor blurted. “It has to be. He must be watching the house. He knows I’m here.”

  Cold terror swept through Julie, fisting around her gut until she was sure she would be sick. “I’m calling the police,” she said at once.

  No one stopped her as she hurried to the phone. Mason and the doctor left the kitchen to start the search for the missing files while she swallowed down the hard bulge wedged in her chest.

  After arguing with the bored receptionist that this was an emergency and she really did need the sheriff, Julie was assured that an officer would be sent to investigate soon and that she should hold tight.

  Muttering a curse, Julie hung up and followed the hallway to the front door. Dr. Nixon and Mason stood by the beat up car. All the doors were open and bags and clothes and an assortment of food wrappers, coffee cups, chip bags and soda cans lay strewn across the pavement. Dr. Nixon was tossing random bits of clothing into the backseat as he ranted at Mason. Julie couldn’t hear the exact nature of the conversation, but the doctor looked distraught and frustrated, if not a bit terrified. It did nothing to help ease her mind about the situation they were in; if the doctor who had considered Jimmy healed was scared, what should she be?

  Arms wrapped around her middle, she carefully crossed the porch and descended the steps. Her sneakers scuffled over concrete as she moved to stand next to Mason. He turned his head to her, met her eyes, but said nothing.

  “My life’s work!” the doctor was saying as he pitched a filthy shirt into the seat. “Everything’s gone.”

  “I called the police,” Julie murmured. “They’ll be here soon.”

  Dr. Nixon shook his head as he straightened. “They can’t do anything. Jimmy’s too smart. He’s been keeping off of their radar for a years. Every time the police get close, he vanishes.”

  “Then maybe you can help us convince the police that we’re not safe here,” Julie suggested with d
esperation in her tone. “They think we did all this,” she explained. “But if you tell them everything you told us, maybe they’ll return our cars and we can leave.”

  The doctor seemed to consider this a full minute before nodding. But it was reluctant. “Yes, of course.”

  They were still standing in the driveway, watching Nixon repeatedly empty and repack his car, searching for files that were no longer there when the sheriff’s cruiser rolled into view. The more he did it, the more agitated he seemed to become, Julie noted and she was actually relieved to see Reynolds.

  He was alone and harboring a glower that made some of her relief shrivel up and die. He stalked over to them, a man on a mission with his mouth drawn in a straight, thin line of disapproval.

  “You summoned?” he growled.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “I was robbed!” Nixon snapped, rounding on the sheriff with his own head of rage.

  Reynolds narrowed his eyes. “And you are?”

  They moved their talk into the house. It was only after she had shut the door behind the small group that Julie glanced up the stairs towards the second landing. It struck her that they were missing two from their group. A glance at her watch indicated that it was well after two in the afternoon, late enough for Shaun and Luis to have awakened from their coma sleep.

  Letting Mason guide the sheriff and the doctor into the kitchen, Julie ventured upstairs. Part of her dreaded what she might find. She had horrible visions of mutilated bodies strewn across the room. It was ridiculous of course, because no one could get in so long as the alarm was activated and she had been making sure that it was every night before she went to bed. Yet she couldn’t stave off the coiling chill her overactive imagination triggered.

  “Luis?” she called even before she reached his door. Her palm was sweaty when she raised a curled fist to knock. “Luis?”

  The knock echoed into silence. It ticked by slowly until one minute faded into two.

  Gingerly, she grasped the doorknob, claimed a calming breath and eased the door open. A dull, grayish brown darkness stifled the room. Most of the light spilled from the lace covered window. Julie’s hand trembled as she groped for the switch. She fumbled before sweeping the lights on.

  The room was empty. The bed was made. Had it not been for the open laptop on the desk in the corner and the book on the nightstand, there would have been no other indication that anyone had ever slept there. It was all so immaculately kept. Even she had the odd shirt lying about on the back of a chair in her room. Luis had nothing. Even his toiletries were in a straight, neat line on the counter when she poked her head into the bathroom.

  For a guy who spent the majority of his time locked up in his room, she mused, he certainly didn’t do much.

  She glanced at the laptop and wondered what he did all day when he wasn’t mildewing on the sofa with Shaun. Then she wondered where he was now if he wasn’t in his room and he wasn’t downstairs...

  Frowning, she backed out into the hallway once more and crossed it to Shaun’s room. She knocked briskly twice before letting herself in.

  Where Luis’s room was every mother’s dream, Shaun’s room liked like someone had set a bomb off in a thrift store.

  There were clothes, shoes, magazines, and piles of dirty dishes strewn everywhere. The bed was in shambles, the covers roped and peeled off the mattress. There was a pillow on the floor, next to the blanket that had slid off one corner of the bed. A bright, red t-shirt hung over a lamp, painting the room in a ghastly crimson hue. But the worst part was the smell. It was like something had crawled into the room, gotten lost, and died. Flies buzzed in the air. Julie sprinted across the room and yanked the shirt off the lamp, attempting to stave off a house fire. Her foot caught on a mountain of dishes and she slammed into the nightstand, rattling the lamp. Her arm knocked into a glass of what looked like pop and it tumbled over, splashing like a dark fountain down her legs and across the carpet. She cursed as she ripped off the shirt and used it to dab at her legs and soak up the stain before it set.

  She was still kneeling there when Mason walked in. He looked over the room with annoyance before his gaze settled on her.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  Shirt dripping in her hand, Julie rose. “I spilled something. I was just cleaning it up.”

  He eased another step deeper into the room. “What are you doing in Shaun’s pigsty?”

  Julie sighed and brushed a stray curl off her cheek with the back of her free hand. “I was trying to see where Shaun and Luis were. I mean, they should have been up hours ago, right? So I got here and there was a shirt on the lamp. Not wanting it to catch on fire, I tried to take it off, tripped and spilled whatever was in that cup.”

  She gestured at the glass she had set back on the nightstand, empty of its contents.

  Mason shook his head. “Typical,” he muttered.

  Moving across the room, Julie followed him out with the shirt still clutched in her hand. She felt bad for using it to clean spilled pop, but she hadn’t been thinking when she’d grabbed for it, only that she needed to get the stain before it set in. She took it downstairs with her with the intention of tossing it in the washer and putting it back before Shaun realized it was gone.

  “How are things with the doctor and the sheriff?” she asked Mason, who followed her to the laundry room.

  He shrugged as she tossed the shirt into the washer and closed the lid, not turning it on; she had clothes upstairs she could toss in with it later. “They’re talking it out in the kitchen,” he said, answering her question.

  She faced him. “Do you think he’ll let us go?”

  Mason chuckled grimly. “Probably not. I think the good sheriff is convinced it’s one of us. Well,” he scratched the side of his nose with a finger, “I’m sure he thinks it’s either me or Shaun.”

  Julie shook her head. “Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?”

  “See that’s what they want you to think. In reality, it’s actually guilty until proven innocent. Unless the good doc can convince the sheriff of our innocence, we’re stuck here.”

  Groaning, she stepped around him and made her way back down the hall towards the kitchen. Reynolds and Nixon sat at the table. Nixon was talking. Reynolds was scribbling in his notepad.

  “And you’re saying this Jimmy fellow is the one responsible?”

  Nixon nodded. “He’s done this before in multiple cases. I would show you records, but everything I had is gone.”

  The sheriff hummed. “And he was in your care when he disappeared?”

  Again, Nixon nodded. “I believe now that he played me. He let me believe he had gotten better when, in fact, he was gaining my trust, allowing me to lower my guard. When the opportunity aroused, he drugged me and left.”

  Reynolds looked up. “He drugged you?”

  “It was step five in his rehabilitation,” Nixon explained. “To let him become self-sufficient by means of cooking meals for himself and I. We started out with small items like sandwiches and the occasional pasta. Later on, I allowed him to use the stove independently without my supervision. Clearly that was a mistake.”

  “Uh huh,” the sheriff muttered, looking about as impressed by the explanation as a pile of dirt. “So you knew he was dangerous and yet you allowed him—”

  “He had been making progress!” Nixon stressed. “He had been doing very well. It was incredible.”

  “But as you said, he was playing you,” Reynolds muttered.

  Dark patches appeared on Nixon’s cheeks. He dropped his gaze to the table. “Yes, well...”

  Reynolds tapped his pen on his pad in a way Julie recognized as frustration. “Doctor,” he began slowly, “why do you believe these incidents are connected to your patient?”

  “Well, I don’t,” Nixon confessed. “But the patterns are the same. In every case, Jimmy has reinvented himself to become the person he is playing. Jimmy Deschanel and Frank are only two of the ten or so personal
ities he has claimed during his crimes.”

  “So he knows what he’s doing?”

  Nixon shook his head. He leaned closer to the sheriff and lowered his voice. “He has no knowledge of his actions when one of the other personalities takes hold. During my observations, the other personalities remain dormant until the urge to kill becomes too much for him to ignore. I was able to muffle the voices with medication, but it has been years since...”

  The sheriff raised an eyebrow. “Just how long has this maniac been on the loose?”

  Nixon stiffened. “I do not like that word, Sheriff.”

  Reynolds narrowed his eyes. “Pardon my frankness, Doctor, but that is what he is. Now, can you please answer the question?”

  Nixon shifted in his seat. He picked idly at a piece of lint on his pants before responding. “Four, perhaps five years.”

  He said it low, as though mumbling it to himself, but in the silence of the kitchen, there was no mistaking it.

  “Are you serious?” Reynolds dropped back in his seat. “And you’re only now reporting this?”

  “Of course not!” Nixon snapped at once, offense squaring his shoulders. “I have sent every scrap of information I have on Jimmy to every law enforcement department in Canada, warning them to call me the minute something comes across that might sound like him. I have been from coast to coast. I left my practice, my other patients, and my life to get Jimmy the help he needs, because I feel responsible for every life he takes.”

  “No offense, Doc,” Reynolds folded his notepad and stuffed it into his pocket. “But this boy needs more than help.”

  “Jimmy isn’t dangerous!” Nixon protested.

  Clouds of fury darkened over Reynold’s face. “I have a girl in the morgue who would disagree with you.”

  “That wasn’t Jimmy,” Nixon insisted. “That may have been his other personalities. Jimmy is incapable of harming anyone.”

  The sheriff dug out his notepad once more, flipped it open. “Describe his MO.”

  Nixon drew in a deep breath. “I can’t.” He splayed his hands open, palms up. “It all varies on which personality he’s playing. Each one is unique and very different from the others.”