The Darkness of Evil

by Jacobson, Alan

  “But how he treated his daughter, that did matter to him. He probably couldn’t take it anymore.”

  Vail thought about that. “At some point, before Jasmine’s mother was killed, I have to think she realized her daughter was different, that she didn’t form bonds, that she had little to no emotion—certainly no feelings for her, no more attachment to her than to a piece of candy.”

  “You’re right. Rhonda knew something was wrong.”

  “How do you know? Jasmine said that?”

  “Rhonda said it. There’s a diary.” Underwood stood up, steadied himself for a second, then took a couple of steps across the room and pulled a small bound notebook from the shelf. “I found it one day after Jasmine left. I don’t think she realized I read it. But I doubt she’d care.” He opened it, and as he thumbed to the right page, said, “Jasmine had turned twelve and Rhonda—her own mother—wrote something that, in retrospect, is chilling.”

  He handed Vail the five by seven inch notebook.

  “She wrote about some behaviors she found ‘disturbing,’ and ‘strange for a young girl.’”

  Vail read the neat handwriting:

  I came home this afternoon to find that Jas had gotten out of school early. When I walked in I saw her in the backyard. She didn’t realize I was there. I watched her pulling Tabby’s ears until the poor kitty shrieked. I stood there in shock. She then picked up a stick and chased it around the yard, trying to hit it. I ran outside and screamed at Jasmine to stop. I asked her what she was doing and she looked at me with this, I don’t know. I can’t describe it. This … these eyes … it was a cold stare. She just looked at me and didn’t answer. I punished her, told her to go to her room and if I ever saw her do anything to hurt an animal again she’d be grounded for a month. The next day I walked into my bedroom and found Sparky, her favorite stuffed animal, the one she slept with every night, cut into pieces. His arms and legs stacked in a pile on top of his body, which had a deep slit across his stomach. I know it was just a toy but I felt like throwing up. What if it represented something else? Me?

  Vail looked up and met Underwood’s gaze. Nothing more needed to be said. If there was any doubt as to who and what Jasmine Marcks was—and there wasn’t at this point—this passage sealed the deal. Classic psychopathy.

  “Read this one,” Underwood said, turning the page and tapping it with his right index finger.

  Today I went into the yard to take the garbage out and found a hamster dead, tossed on top of a dead raccoon. The coon’s stomach had been cut open. I asked Jasmine what she knew about it but she refused to make eye contact. She claimed she didn’t know anything about it. I talked with Roscoe when he got home. I told him I thought Jas was responsible, a tough thing for a mother to admit. He said it’s just a phase she’s going through, to just leave her alone and she’ll grow out of it. Truth is, I’m sick to my stomach. I don’t know what to do.

  “And this one.”

  I confronted Jas about it today, told her I was going to take her to a doctor. Just to talk, maybe there’s something bothering her that she needs to get off her chest. She picked up a hammer and threatened to hit me with it if I made her see a doctor. I told Roscoe I’m going to go to the police tomorrow, to ask them what I should do. He said he would talk to her to see if she’ll tell him what’s bothering her. But she’s his little girl, his perfect little girl who can do no wrong. He doesn’t say it, but I think he thinks I’m overreacting. Or making these things up. I don’t know what else to do, how to reach my daughter. It’s tearing my heart out. She’s my little girl, but she’s turned into … she’s turned into a monster. There, I wrote it. I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud. But I’m not doing her any good by ignoring what I’m seeing. It’s only getting worse. And I now fear for my safety. If Roscoe’s not taking this seriously, I need to do it myself.

  Vail looked up. Tears pooled in her eyes. “This is …” She cleared her throat. “This is heartbreaking. There’s nothing Rhonda could’ve done for Jasmine.”

  Vail turned the page but that was the last entry. “Is there another notebook?”

  “That was the last entry, Karen. Rhonda Marcks was found dead the next morning.”

  Jesus Christ.

  “It’s hard to know for sure, because we’re only making reasonable assertions about the degree of Marcks’s psychopathy, but it’s possible he would’ve eventually looked at his daughter as a lost cause, too. Jasmine shocked him, I’m sure, when she threatened to go to the police and rat him out for killing Rhonda. When exactly their relationship totally deteriorated, I don’t know. Even though it probably happened over time, that’s the point when he started to see who his precious daughter really was. But you’re only looking at one side of the equation. Jasmine wanted her father dead, too. In the worst way.”

  “Why?”

  “Who’s the only person who knows the truth about what she’s done? That she’s the Blood Lines killer?”

  “Her father.” Vail thought a second. “Jasmine knew how he’d react. The only thing that could spoil her time in the limelight would be her father coming forward with a story that his daughter was really the Blood Lines killer. Who knows if anything would have come of it. He’d have little to no credibility.

  “Curtis would’ve had to reopen the investigation to dot the i’s, but really, unless Marcks could provide key evidence that would definitively prove that his daughter was the killer and that she framed him, it’d be just a lot of noise from a convicted killer who’s trying to save his ass and use a get out of jail free card.”

  “All true,” Underwood said.

  “So she hired the biggest, baddest dude at Potter to attack him? To kill him?”

  Underwood frowned disapprovingly at Vail. She suddenly felt like a rookie profiler being schooled by the mentor.

  “No,” Vail said, correcting herself. “This is personal. And having someone else do the kill wouldn’t be fulfilling.”

  He winked at her. “You got it.”

  Vail stood up and paced, thinking it through. “So the only thing that makes sense, then, is that she would somehow try to facilitate the escape.”

  “Right again.”

  “Did she tell you this?”

  “In so many words. I had hours to piece it together. But from what I was able to gather, she did, indeed, help Marcks escape.”

  “What could Jasmine possibly do to—”

  “She worked at the Department of Corrections as—”

  “Oh shit.” Numbers. “She worked in the back office. She had access to their computer systems.” Vail brought a hand to her forehead. “She studied computer science.”

  “She hacked into the system,” Underwood said. “She said she replicated a judge’s transfer order for another prisoner, forged it to read as a transfer for her father to be moved to Potter.”

  Vail sat down hard. “Where Marcks’s childhood buddy, Lance Kubiak, was a correctional officer.”

  “I didn’t get the full story, but Kubiak was involved on some level.”

  “She did that before the book came out, before he wanted to kill her.”

  “I bet she regretted that move.”

  Vail shook her head. “Don’t think so. She couldn’t be sure he’d attempt an escape, but she knows her father and felt he would try to exploit the situation. The book, and the media attention it’d bring, would drive the nail in further, baiting him, getting his ire up and motivating him to attempt an escape. She manipulated him, just as she manipulated me. And she gave him the tools he’d need to break out.”

  “So he played right into her hands.”

  “For her, it was a no-lose scenario. He’d either get killed in the escape attempt or he’d make it out and come after her. And she’d be ready for him. She’s not afraid of him—but it had to be on her terms, when she could control the circumstances. Being larger and
stronger, he’s dangerous—so she’s got to be smarter.”

  “She’s definitely smarter. Formidable. She manipulated all of us. Did such a great job that no one saw what was really going on.”

  Vail pulled out her phone and called Curtis. “You guys find her?”

  “Almost there. You still have a reading on her?”

  Vail pulled out the device. “No. Shit—even if she ditched it, it should still be transmitting, right?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  Dammit. Vail ground her molars. “I’m gonna have a friend of mine—Aaron Uziel—email you a link to download the app to your phone so you can track it in real time in case she hasn’t found it. Hang on a second.”

  Vail pulled her Samsung away from her ear and texted both Uzi and Curtis, making the request preceded by the word “URGENT” in caps.

  “Install the app,” she told Curtis. “And let me know what happens when you get there.” She hung up and began pacing, trying to clear her mind, refocus on Underwood. “Why kidnap you? Why keep you alive?”

  Underwood was quiet a long moment.

  Vail stopped, then turned her head slowly to face Underwood. “Because you helped her.”

  He looked away. “Not willingly.”

  “Of course not.” Vail glared at him, waiting for him to elaborate. “But you did help her.”

  “She took Rusty and put him in her basement, hooked up that internet camera and put it on the screen in my ‘prison cell.’ Constant inducement to do what she wanted.”

  “Or she wouldn’t go over there and feed him.”

  “Worse. She’d make me watch while she killed him. And I fully believed her when she said she’d do it. After reading Rhonda’s diary entries, after realizing who I was dealing with, I had zero doubt she would follow through on that threat. After my wife died, Rusty’s been … he’s been my life. I couldn’t let her hurt him in any way.”

  Vail thought of Hershey. She could not fault Underwood.

  “I told her things to do that would shield her from your scrutiny,” Underwood said. “Ways to stage the crime scenes. But I didn’t give her everything she wanted.”

  “The clues you left me. To read your books so I’d figure out what she was up to.” She shook her head. “But I didn’t catch on, not fast enough.”

  “You eventually got it. You read the cases.”

  The cases. Vail thought a moment, then stood up as she replayed a conversation in her mind.

  Underwood watched her a moment. “This isn’t over, is it?”

  She turned to face him. “Not by a long shot.”

  59

  Vail started for the door, trying to work it through her mind.

  Underwood was right behind her. “What’s wrong?”

  “There was a case—one of the agents I assigned to read your books called me before I came looking for you. The killer went after the cop’s kid.”

  “Fernandez. He’d killed four children. The fifth one he kidnapped was the detective’s, who was working the case. Does Curtis have any kids in the area?”

  “No.” Vail quickened her pace, running toward, and then up, the stairs.

  Underwood followed. “Where are you going?”

  “I know where she’s headed. She’s going after my son.”

  “How would she know how to find him?”

  Because I told her.

  Vail ran out the front door and down the steps, not even thinking about slipping on the ice. Not thinking about anything other than getting to Jonathan. She sprinted to her car, suddenly realizing Underwood was right behind her as she fumbled for the remote, attempting to unlock the door.

  He took it and hit the correct button. She grabbed the key fob back and got in. Underwood jumped into the Honda’s passenger seat as she turned the engine over.

  “I’ll kill her, Thomas,” she said as she accelerated hard away from the curb. “I’ll kill her.”

  “Your son’s gonna be fine.”

  Vail was comforted—slightly—by his words. But she knew they were just that. Words. Without any power behind them. Well, perhaps faith. Is that enough?

  Vail pulled out her cell and handed it to Underwood. “Call Jonathan. Look in the call log.”

  Underwood made the call, then swiveled it away from his mouth. “Voice mail.” He pulled it back to his lips. “Jonathan, call your mother immediately. Very important.”

  Vail clenched her jaw and shook her head. “She hurts him, I’ll hunt her down, anywhere in the world, if it’s the last thing I do.” Thoughts of Uzi and DeSantos and their OPSIG black ops buddies flashed through her mind. Would they do that for me?

  “Karen,” Underwood said firmly. “He’s going to be okay.”

  “He’ll be okay if I make it okay. He’s a young man, in college. He doesn’t know the darkness of evil. He’s not prepared for that kind of malevolence.”

  “He grew up with a mother who’s a cop. Who’s a profiler. Give him more credit than that.”

  “I’ve done my best to shield him from that stuff.”

  “He watches TV. He plays video games. He’s got an idea.”

  And he had an abusive father. Thomas is right. He’s been exposed to more than I’d like to admit.

  As Vail screeched around a corner, she thought about that. Again, she asked herself, was that enough? Against a prolific, unfeeling serial killer? An attractive, intelligent, manipulative female serial killer who had no problems getting close to her male and female victims?

  “Call Robby. My fiancé. He’s DEA, he’s in town.”

  He handed the Samsung back to her. As she read off the number, Underwood began tapping the digits into his iPhone—then nearly dropped the handset as she swerved around a curve. He pushed his right hand against the dashboard to steady himself. “If we get killed in a car accident, we’re not going to be able to help Jonathan.”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  “Is this Robby? … This is a colleague of Karen’s, Thomas Underwood.”

  “Put it on speaker,” Vail said.

  Underwood pressed the button and held up the cell.

  “Robby. I think Jasmine’s taken Jonathan.”

  “Taken—why would she do that?”

  “Because I fucked up. And because Jasmine’s the Blood Lines killer.”

  There was silence.

  “I need you to head toward GW. I don’t know where Jonathan’s class is. Can you look it up? He’s not answering his phone.”

  “I’m on it. I’ll text it to you and head over there. I’m on my way but I’m out by Silver Hill. Just hold it together, Karen. We’ll find him.”

  More hollow assurances.

  Vail’s phone vibrated. “Gotta go. Let me know what you find out.” She looked at her Samsung and tried to read the text.

  “How ’bout I drive?” Underwood said, his gaze fixed on the streets ahead of them.

  “Under the seat, I’ve got an auxiliary light.”

  He scooted forward against the shoulder restraint, reached for—and found—the device. He rolled down the window and a blast of cold air wrapped around Vail’s exposed neck.

  She heard the magnetic clunk as it attached to the roof.

  “Done. Now please, drive carefully.”

  “Curtis has the app and he’s got a location,” she said, dropping the cell onto the seat between her thighs. “Whole task force is en route.” No. Too easy. She grabbed up the Samsung again, called Uzi.

  “Karen, got your text, sent the link to Curt—”

  “I need you to help me find Jonathan. He’s not answering his phone and I think he’s in danger.”

  “What kind of phone does he use?”

  Vail accelerated around a Hyundai waiting to make a turn. “iPhone.”

  “You can track him
using the Find my iPhone app, but you’ll need his Apple ID. And it’s not pinpoint accurate.”

  “Don’t have his ID. What about Stingray? The Bureau’s got that equipment, right?”

  “Even better,” Uzi said. “You’re working with the Marshals Service. They’ve got mobile Stingrays, vans outfitted with the devices that can—”

  “Got it. Call you back if I hit a roadblock.” She hit “end” and struggled to bring up Hurdle’s number on her handset. He answered on the third ring.

  “Kinda busy,” he said. “I’m on my—”

  “You got a mobile Stingray deployed in the area? Anywhere near Foggy Bottom?”

  “We do. Why, you think Jasmine Marcks is using her phone?”

  “My son. I think Jasmine’s taken him—or she’s gonna take him.”

  “Give me his number, I’ll try to get a location.”

  After Vail read it off to Hurdle, she swerved around a slow-moving pickup and nearly sideswiped a parked car.

  “What’s Stingray?” Underwood asked, gripping the door handle with white-knuckled intensity.

  “A mobile device that mimics a cell phone tower. It sends out a stronger signal than nearby towers to force a specific phone to connect to it instead of the real tower. It then triangulates the signal strength of that cell signal and uses software to give you a location. It can do a lot more than that, but if it can find Jonathan—”

  “That’s all we need,” Underwood said.

  “No, that’s not all we need. We’ll be blocks from the White House in a matter of minutes. Law enforcement all over the place. Let’s call in the troops.”

  “And say what? I think a prolific serial killer’s on the loose somewhere in Foggy Bottom, but I’m running on pure speculation without an ounce of proof? Once they hear she may have your son they’re gonna write you off as a hysterical mother trying desperately to save her boy.”