The Prettiest One: A Thriller

by James Hankins

  Hunnsaker’s car crept up the first part of what looked to be a long, winding driveway. She reached a curve where it started to bend back on itself and shut off her headlights, keeping her engine running. A moment later, two black-and-whites pulled up behind her and did the same. Padilla had left cops at Michael Maggert’s house with the dead bodies and was on his way here, but he was several minutes away still and Hunnsaker didn’t feel as though she could wait. Quietly, she opened her car door and slipped out of the vehicle, leaving the door open. The officers in the patrol cars did the same.

  She spoke in a soft voice. “We’re going on foot from here, quietly.” She pointed at two of the officers. “You, head around the right side of the house and watch the back. You two,” she said, pointing to the remaining cops, “split up and watch the sides of the house and make sure no one comes out a side door or window. You’re with me,” she said to the last cop. She looked at the first two again and said, “I’ll let you know when we’re about to go in. Everyone got it?”

  They nodded.

  “Good. Let’s move.”

  Chops had seen headlights through the window, stretching for just a split second across the dark yard before they snapped off, and in that instant everything changed for him.

  “I gotta admit, I didn’t think you’d call the cops,” he said. “Guess you don’t care if your girl here goes to jail for killing my brother.”

  “We were more worried about you than the cops,” the guy without the gun said.

  “You were right to be more worried about me,” Chops said, while never taking his eyes off the other guy and his handgun.

  Chops was frustrated and saddened by this development. His mind raced. There was no way now that his wife wouldn’t find out just what kind of person he really was. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing the disappointment on her face, if indeed he lived to see it. And he wasn’t certain he would even want to live, knowing that his daughter would grow up with a father behind bars. Chops knew what that was like. Knew the shame of it. Knew the things the other kids would say about her family, and about her.

  No, he couldn’t allow that to happen. Which meant that he couldn’t be arrested, no matter what. He didn’t think it likely that he’d be able to kill everyone in the room, and then every cop that was about to storm the house. That left him with three possible outcomes. Either Chops would be killed, which he didn’t intend to let happen, or he could use Caitlin and the others as hostages, but that rarely worked out for the bad guy. Or finally, he could escape out the back before the cops got the rear covered, which meant leaving almost immediately and not leaving witnesses. He had to escape and call Rachel right away and tell her to take Julia to a location where he would meet them once he found a way to get back to them . . . and it was critical that he make that call before the police discovered his involvement in all of this and put the clamps on his family. Rachel wouldn’t understand why she had to run, but if she loved him enough, she’d do what he asked; if she loved him enough, she’d understand who he was, what he’d done, and why they now had to go on the run and start over somewhere. And that was the big question, of course: Did she love him enough? He had to find out, which meant that everyone in the room—including his father—had to die and do so quickly. Since Chops had traveled under a false name, if he could get out of this house clean, it should take the cops a good while to figure out that he was involved, which should give him time to get in touch with Rachel . . . unless someone in the room told the cops about him. Which meant that Chops had to make sure that no one could.

  “My problem,” Chops said, “is that I don’t want to be arrested tonight. Which means this has to end now.”

  Chops’s plan was to kill the woman and shove her toward the guy with the gun. That should distract him enough for Chops to disarm him. Then he would shoot both of the boyfriends or whatever they were, fire a few rounds out the window to slow down the cops, let them think this could turn into a standoff. Finally, he’d kill his father. Then he’d leave through the back door—while the cops were thinking about trying to negotiate with him—and hope like hell he made it to safety before they caught up to him.

  It was a lousy plan, almost certainly destined for failure, but it was all he had. He wasn’t going to prison. He couldn’t allow that. He couldn’t live with what that would do to his family.

  “Close your eyes, Katie,” the guy with the gun said to Caitlin.

  Chops understood. The man cared for her and didn’t want her to see her own blood spilling out in buckets. Better for her to die without that image in her mind. Chops respected that. Still, he didn’t have time to waste.

  “Trust me, Katie,” the man added. “Close your eyes.”

  Josh watched events unfolding and felt impotent. There was simply nothing he could do but observe. He didn’t have a weapon. One move on his or Bix’s part could make Bookerman’s son cut Caitlin’s throat. This was a standoff with Caitlin in the middle. And now it sounded as though Bookerman’s son was about to bring this to a close. He looked ready to use the knife. Why didn’t Bix do something? He had a gun. Time was running out. And all he could think to do was tell Caitlin to close her eyes, like he had when he wanted her to remember how to shoot pool . . .

  Could that be it?

  “Close your eyes, Katie,” Bix said calmly.

  Caitlin looked into Bix’s eyes for a moment, then closed her own. Bix raised his gun an inch. “You can do it, Katie,” he said.

  “Sorry it has to end this way, Dad,” Bookerman’s son said, “but I’ve got to finish this right now. Say good-bye to pretty Caitlin.”

  “No!” Darryl Bookerman cried in a broken voice.

  And then it all happened fast . . .

  Caitlin opened her eyes and swung her leg far out in front of her, then brought it back hard and fast, her heel connecting with George Maggert’s shin with enough force to sound like a Louisville Slugger crushing a fastball. Maggert cried out and released his grip both on his knife, which dropped from his hand, and on Caitlin, who fell to the floor. For a second, Maggert had no one in front of him to take a bullet for him, which must have been Bix’s plan because the instant Caitlin was clear, he pulled the trigger and . . .

  He missed. The bullet sizzled past Maggert and shattered a window behind him while Maggert lowered his shoulder and charged, reaching Bix in three long strides, slamming into him before he could fire another shot. The two crashed into the far wall. Maggert clamped one hand on Bix’s throat and the other on his gun hand, and somehow, despite Bix’s own considerable strength, wrenched the weapon from his grip and was turning it on him as Josh darted forward and threw a punch as hard as he could, with all the force of his momentum behind it. The blow caught Maggert on the ear and his head snapped to the side and he released his hold on Bix and staggered a few steps to the side. Josh looked for the gun in Maggert’s hand, but his punch must have knocked it loose.

  Hunnsaker had heard the report of the gun.

  “Gunshot,” she cried. “Go, go, go.”

  She pulled her own piece and ran toward the house fifty yards away, with four cops in uniform at her sides.

  Josh thought that the good guys might have actually won the fight. George Maggert was both outnumbered and unarmed now . . . until he reached down into his boot and drew out a second knife. He slashed at Bix, who jumped back, narrowly avoiding having his midsection sliced open, but as he dodged, he stumbled and fell backward. Instead of finishing off Bix, though, Maggert went after the only man still on his feet . . . which was his mistake, because as he bore down on Josh, covering the distance between them in four long strides, knife raised and ready to strike, Josh saw Caitlin streaking toward him from his right side, swinging the knife Maggert had dropped when Caitlin kicked him. Just before Maggert reached Josh, Caitlin drove the blade up to its hilt in the side of Maggert’s neck. Maggert stood for a moment, tottering unsteadily, blood flowing from his mouth.

  Chops dropped to his knees, then fell on hi
s side. He couldn’t believe how fast it had all come apart. He couldn’t believe it would end like this for him. He wondered if his wife and daughter had gone to the circus that evening without him. Then his last thoughts were of little Julia’s face and how disappointed Rachel was going to be with him.

  Caitlin looked down at the second Bookerman she’d killed in two days, then turned to face the only one still alive. He had risen from the couch, leaving his oxygen tank behind, and was shuffling quickly away across the room on his frail, spindly legs. At first she thought he was heading for the doorway to the hall and she marveled that he thought he would be able to run away. Then she saw the gun lying against the wall and realized that reaching it was his objective. She flew after him, over Bix, who had just started to rise from where he’d fallen. Bookerman was closer to the gun but Caitlin was far faster, and as he bent to pick up the weapon, she grabbed his shoulder and yanked back, spinning the old man around. He staggered backward, losing his footing, and dropped to the floor where he lay with his long limbs stretched out, looking like a spider dying on its back. Caitlin calmly picked up the gun.

  “Finish him, Katie,” Bix said.

  Bookerman looked up at her. Even now there was nothing in his eyes. Somehow, despite the tear rolling down from one of those black stones, there was still no emotion in them. But there was something in his voice, something pathetic, when he said, “I was so close . . . after so long, I had you again . . . the prettiest one . . .”

  “Do it, Katie,” Bix urged.

  “Caitlin?” Josh said.

  Caitlin stared down at a man who deserved death as much as any man did. She heard footsteps and someone shouted, “Police.” A woman’s voice. “Raise your hands, take two steps backward, and kneel on the floor with your hands above your head.”

  On the floor, Bookerman was still mumbling to himself. “H-how could she get away again . . . my pretty little Caitlin . . . after so long, so many years . . . I was so close . . .”

  “Caitlin Sommers,” the cop said again. “Raise your hands right now.”

  Caitlin was still pointing the gun at Bookerman, who was still lamenting the fact that he had lost her again. And even now she saw nothing, nothing at all in his eyes. Was he even human? Would killing him even be a sin?

  “Caitlin,” the cop said again, “don’t move anything but your head, but I want you to look at me.”

  Caitlin turned her head, just her head, and saw a woman in plainclothes pointing a gun at her. Two police officers in uniform stood behind her doing the same.

  “My name is Charlotte Hunnsaker, and I don’t know you, and I don’t know what the hell happened here or what this man may have done to you, but I know one thing for certain . . . he’s not worth it.”

  Caitlin looked into the woman’s eyes for a long, long moment, then without another glance at Bookerman, she took her finger off the trigger, raised her hands over her head, and lowered herself to her knees. One of the uniformed officers walked over quickly and took the gun from her.

  “Good decision,” the woman said as she stepped up, took Caitlin’s hands one by one, and snapped cuffs on them.

  Caitlin looked over at Bix. He was rubbing the back of his head, but he seemed to be okay. She remembered him calmly saying, Close your eyes.

  She said, “I guess you taught me a little self-defense, too.”

  “I taught you a lot of things,” he said with a half smile.

  Josh also seemed fine. Caitlin met his eyes and nodded tiredly. It was over.

  “Caitlin Sommers,” Hunnsaker began, “you’re under arrest for . . .”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  JOSH WAS WAITING FOR CAITLIN outside of Bridgewater State Hospital, a Massachusetts state mental-health facility tasked with housing and treating the criminally insane, as well as evaluating individuals for purposes of the criminal justice system. Among other issues, the experts at Bridgewater helped shed light on numerous important questions, including a patient’s competency to stand trial or, as in the case of Caitlin Sommers, her criminal responsibility. After forty days of comprehensive evaluation, a team of doctors and psychologists eventually came to several conclusions about Caitlin. First, even though it was not uncommon for patients and inmates to try to evade responsibility for their actions by claiming to have suffered amnesia, it was their opinion that Caitlin had indeed experienced a protracted fugue state, probably for at least the second time in her life. She had no memory of the seven-month period during which she had lived in Smithfield or of the events that had occurred during that time, nor was she likely ever to recall them. Second, given that she had adopted an entirely different personality during that time, it was almost as though a different person had participated in those events . . . and had shot Michael Maggert/Bookerman. Third, given that she had likely entered the fugue state as a reaction to the extremely traumatic abduction attempt by the man she eventually killed, a man who was the son of the pedophile who had abducted her when she was a child and who bore a striking resemblance to his father, and also given that she was almost certainly never going to find herself in a similar set of circumstances, it was highly doubtful that she posed a danger to others, even in the unlikely event that she entered another fugue state in the future. So, after having her mind dissected for almost a month and a half, Caitlin was deemed fit for release from the hospital’s custody.

  While medical professionals had been evaluating Caitlin’s mind, law enforcement and legal authorities had been examining the facts of her case. There was no doubt that Caitlin Sommers had been a victim. But there was also no doubt that she had killed not just one man, but two. The second could be justified easily under the circumstances. She had been abducted and been forced to stab a man to protect her husband. The accounts of two of the witnesses supported that. And even though both witnesses had reason to lie to protect her, seeing as they were her husband and boyfriend, respectively, the facts supported their statements.

  The death of the first man Caitlin had killed, though—Michael Maggert, aka Michael Bookerman—had proven to be more troublesome for the authorities. They had it all on video, which Sommers herself had urged her boyfriend and husband to give to the police—along with half a dozen robotic prosthetic hands. Despite the fact that her victim had been a rapist who had stalked her and tried to abduct her, there was considerable doubt as to whether she had committed premeditated murder. And Sommers, unable to recall the incident, couldn’t give a statement shedding light on her frame of mind or her intentions. Though the naked woman in the video looked glassy-eyed and all but unaware of the events unfolding around her, she gave a statement to the police in which she claimed to have believed at the time that Maggert was about to attack Caitlin. Of the officials who viewed the video, some believed Caitlin shot Michael Maggert in cold blood. Others seeing the same footage swore that Maggert had started to make a move toward Caitlin and she’d had to pull the trigger to protect herself and the naked woman handcuffed to the sofa bed. Still others had no idea whether Caitlin had been forced to pull the trigger but didn’t blame her one iota either way for doing so.

  For what it was worth, Detective Hunnsaker, who had worked the case and made the arrest, wasn’t anxious to see Caitlin prosecuted after learning all the facts. What Hunnsaker didn’t know, though, what no one but Caitlin knew—though she wondered if Bix suspected—was that Hunnsaker was the main reason Caitlin wasn’t going to spend most of the rest of her life in prison . . . because Caitlin had indeed decided to kill Darryl Bookerman. She was going to shoot him where he was, lying on the floor. It might have been morally wrong, but Caitlin wasn’t even positive about that. He wasn’t human. But with the clarity of hindsight, she knew that under the circumstances, if she had shot an unarmed man to death with three cops as witnesses, a jury would have had a difficult time not convicting her.

  But because Hunnsaker had arrived in time to stop her from killing him, Caitlin wasn’t going to stand trial at all. In the end, the prosecutor who drew th
e case decided not to file charges against her. The suspect was sympathetic, the victim was far from it, and his and his entire family’s history and recent criminal activity involving her would have made it a tough case for the prosecution. So when Caitlin was released from the hospital, she was allowed to go wherever she wanted.

  Darryl Bookerman wasn’t so lucky. He may have had only two months left to live now, but because he had violated the terms of his release agreement by conspiring to kidnap Caitlin Sommers, he was going to spend every last second of that time in prison. Caitlin wondered what was the worst thing for Bookerman—his cancer, being back behind bars, his sons being dead, or Caitlin escaping from him again. She knew it didn’t matter, though. They would all make what little remained of his life a living hell, and she couldn’t make herself give a damn. And if millions of people in the world were right, he’d be in an even far greater hell before long.

  With a small bag of her clothes and toiletries hanging over her shoulder, Caitlin walked to the parking lot to where her husband was leaning against the door of his car, which he had parked near the main entrance in a no-parking zone. Once Josh had been allowed to see her, he had visited almost every day.

  As she approached, he smiled, though sadly. She thought her smile probably mirrored his.

  “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you walk out of there,” Josh said.

  “It feels good.”

  “You’re a free woman. In more ways than one.”

  She nodded, thinking about the divorce that would be final in a few months.

  Josh looked at his shoes for a moment, then raised his eyes. “And that’s it, then? Nothing I can say?”

  “No, Josh.”

  “Seven years together, six years married, one mistake, and it’s over?”