by Blake Pierce
That was, of course, after she’d been gang raped and beaten ten minutes after leaving a bar. Sleeping with her roommate’s boyfriend had been another mistake in the chain of bad decisions that followed.
But that was not the case now—the anticipation was not quite as good as the final act. No, what she planned to do—and had been doing for a little over a week now—was much more satisfying than the build-up. She still felt new to it…like she had no idea what she was doing. Then again, taking a life was taking a life. There were lots of ways to do it, she supposed, but the end result was the same: another death dealt out into the world.
She opened up Facebook and typed out the same search in the search bar that she’d been using for the past month or so: Family Focus Fertility. The page came up and she clicked on it…but something was different. Something had changed. She stared at the screen for a moment, a flood of rage storming her heart.
The screen was white and grey, with a simple message in the center: This is a private group.
She took a sip of her wine, hoping it would battle the anger that was rising up in her. She could feel it consuming every nerve and muscle and before she knew what she was doing, she threw the wine glass across the room. It exploded against the wall, red wine splattering the wall like blood spray.
Oddly enough, she briefly thought of her students. What would they say if they saw her reacting in such a way. Such rage…such hatred.
Well, they’d likely frown upon me killing people, too, she thought. It was a thought that brought a dry, breathy laughter up out of her throat. She went back to her phone and picked it up, doing her best to settle herself.
Yesterday, the page had been public. And all the days before that when she had gone on to hunt for victims, it had also been set to public. So why the hell was it private now?
Because they’re on to you, she thought. You knew at some point, the police were going to not only get involved, but probably even figure out how you were doing it. Now is that time. They’ve figured out how you found those women and have contacted the page administrators.
Having known something like this would probably happen did not make it any easier to accept. She’d had a simple way to find her victims right in the palm of her hand—easy access, as if it were meant to be. And now that was gone. Now, if she wanted to continue her work, she was going to have to find some other way to do it.
She tossed her phone down on the couch and walked over to where the glass had shattered all along the floor. Red wine dripped down the wall and created a puddle on her carpet. She knew how much trouble it would be to get that red wine stain out of the carpet, but she could figure that out later. Because even as she started picking up the portions and shards of glass from the floor, her mind was already moving forward.
While her easy hunting grounds had indeed been taken away from her, she still had one more visit to make. She had already picked her next target. She had a name, an address, and a pretty good idea of when the treatment date had been scheduled. She would attend to that business first. There was no sense in ruining that moment with worries about where she would find others to go after.
She was so distracted by these thoughts that she sliced right into her thumb as she was picking up a bigger sliver of glass. With a hiss of pain, she pulled her hand away. She looked to her thumb and smiled as she watched the little trickle of blood run down it. She sat there on the floor and watched the blood slowly run down her hand, transfixed by it and just as eager as ever to get on with her work.
The Facebook group being Private was not a big deal, but it still had her spooked. She knew she was not ready to strike right now. But she could still get out there and make sure the details of her next victim were unchanged. She had to be precise in all that she did, and sometimes that meant putting in some extra work. Besides…it wasn’t like that was the only Facebook Page for people having fertility issues. There had to be hundreds of them, and at least a few within areas close by—DC, Alexandria, maybe Pittsburg.
She went to the bathroom and washed the blood from her hand. The cut was shallow and she was able to easily cover it with some Neosporin and a Band Aid. With that done, she headed outside and got into her car. As usual, she felt as if some other person slid in behind the controls of her mind as she guided the car to the residence of her next victim. The night seemed thick, like sludge as she drove through it. Like always, the world felt a little different when she headed out with murder on her mind. Even if it was not the night she would be committing the act, it was as if the darkness knew.
It wasn’t a very long drive to the next victim’s house. The drive there was like a blur, as if she’d been teleported. She was aware of the road, the lines, the headlights that passed by her, but she wasn’t really there at all. She could have easily been somewhere else, maybe even back at the school, waiting for her children to arrive. There was something pleasant about such a feeling of detachment. It meant she could be somewhere else, some other place where she’d never killed, where she’d never been raped and left without the ability to give birth to a child.
Somehow, through her darkened haze, she arrived. She pulled in front of the house, in a small suburb. She parked on the side of the road opposite the house, not wanting to seem too obvious. She’d parked in this same spot multiple times as she staked out her victim—the same way she’d staked out all of the others.
It was after six, so the husband was not home. And because they had no kids, her victim was all by herself.
I could do it now…I could do it tonight.
It was tempting, but she was not in the right mind space. Plus, she’d left her knife at home. She’d come to understand that she did not mind the act of killing, but she couldn’t just do it at any time. She had given herself a timeline and dates to adhere to; she felt that straying from that in any way would be a recipe for disaster.
She sat in front of that unremarkable house in a flat, featureless suburb until she watched the last light go off. Without looking at her phone or the clock on the dashboard, she knew it would be somewhere between 10:40 and 11:00. When she did check the time, she smiled. It was 10:52.
Just like clockwork.
The confirmation of how well she knew the victim’s schedule was enough to remove the frustration of having the Facebook page taken away from her. Now, with this bit of confidence, she almost found it amusing.
They thought they’d stopped her, but she had at least one more surprise for them.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Rachel was expecting the third-degree from Jack when she returned to the station. She was back roughly half an hour earlier than she’d projected, and she found Jack still sitting at the desk in the back of the building. He was now on a laptop and when Rachel looked over his shoulder, she saw that he had accessed the station’s records directory.
“What are you looking for?” she asked. Her hope was that by starting the conversation on her terms about something he was doing, any questions about what she’d been up to would be temporarily set aside—or maybe even not asked at all.
“I could only find four more women in that Facebook group from Baltimore or any surrounding areas,” he said. “One of them had not posted in about six months, but that’s because she died in a car accident on the Beltway. She and her husband, both dead. Another seems to have moved several months ago, now residing on Orlando, Florida. I’m checking for any dings on her record right now and so far have found none. As for the other two, they have completely spotless records. Nothing to go off of at all.”
“So nothing, then…”
“Well, nothing new. I did place a call to the bureau and had someone of the task force get in touch with the group’s moderators. As of about an hour ago, it’s been set to Private. So unless the killer is actually part of the group—which, let’s be honest, would be a stupid move on their part—his hunting grounds are now closed.”
“That’s good news,” she said. She sat on the edge of the desk, as there wa
s only one chair. She was fully expecting him to ask her where she’d gone but it never came. She’d likely tell him before all was said and done but for now she was still trying to convince herself it had been a smart move. Visiting Alex Lynch had opened her eyes to some new insights and theories but some core part of her still felt cold and dirty for seeking him out for advice. The silence between them felt thick and she figured she may as well mention what she suspected before Jack could comment on the trip she’d just taken.
“Since you’re already on the network,” she said, “I’d like to pursue another avenue. I’d like to cross-reference the records of both clinics in the hope of finding someone that underwent fertility treatments at both Regency and Greenfield Women’s Health Services.”
“Why would they undergo treatments at both?” he asked. But the nodding of his head at the end of the question showed that he already knew the answer before the question had been fully formed.
Rachel went ahead and answered for him anyway. “Because the treatments could have failed. What if your killer had tried treatments at both clinics and came away with none of them working? What if these are revenge killings?”
“You mean wanting to take that chance away from other women?” Jack asked.
“Maybe.”
Jack nodded, leaning back in the seat and rubbing at his eyes. “So, you think the killer is a woman?”
“I’m not sure what I think,” she said. “I just think it’s one possibility that could be explored.”
“Okay,” Jack said, starting to look through some of the files and gathered forms they’d collected during the course of the case. So…how far back are we talking? Maybe a full year or so?”
“At least,” Rachel said, also starting to dig through the papers. “If we can find women that attended both clinics and had no luck at either place, it shouldn’t be too long of a list. We can check those names against police records and that might give us something to work with.”
It only took her a few moments to realize that they did not yet have the information she needed. She got on the phone with Regency as Jack called up Greenfield Women’s Health Services and just like that, it felt like there was a spark of hope to propel them along.
“Regency Fertility Clinic,” a cheerful female voice answered. “How can I help you?”
“This is Special Agent Rachel Gift,” she said, wondering if this was one of the several women she’d spoken to since arriving in town on the case. “I need a list of names of patients that have come in for treatments over the last year but had no success.”
“Well, I can’t exactly and that sort of thing out, ma’am.”
Ah, so it’s not someone I’ve already spoken to, Rachel thought. “Could you please connect me with Dr. Jergens, please?”
There was a heavy hesitation from the other end, followed by a resigned “Please hold.”
Apparently, Jack was having no such problems. He was speaking cordially into the phone, giving someone an email address to send the list to. When he hung up the phone, he gave Rachel a playfully taunting sort of look.
After about a minute and a half, another female voice sounded out in Rachel’s ear. “Agent Gift,” said Dr. Jergens. “What can I do for you this time?”
“As I told the receptionist, we’re now looking for a list of unsuccessful treatments. Anyone that has come in over the last year or so for treatments and had no success at all.”
“And I believe what my receptionist told you was absolutely accurate. We can’t just give out names like that. This is highly personal information, Agent Gift.”
“I appreciate and respect that. And I also understand the position I am putting you in. But I can tell you with one hundred percent confidence that if we don’t get this list, I’ll be calling you in about a day or two to ask for information on yet another dead woman.”
The silence that met this comment sounded like victory to Rachel. She honestly did not like to be so direct and forward when it came to this sort of personal information, but she did not see that she had any other choice, given the circumstances.
“You’re right,” Jergens said, though it was abundantly clear that she was not happy to admit such a thing. “I’ll get a list together and send it over within the hour. But I’ll also be sending a form for you to sign indicating that you’ll do nothing outside of this case with the information.”
“Of course. Thank you, Dr. Jergens.”
She ended the call with a restless hope in her heart. She felt that this hunch was a strong one and there would, at the very least, be answers to be found there. She did her best to keep looking through Facebook groups and the existing paperwork as they waited for Jergens’s email.
It came twenty-two minutes later, and Jack printed it off right away. The list was much shorter than Rachel had expected; it consisted of just a single sheet of paper with thirty-nine names. Jack also handed Rachel the other form Jergens had mentioned. She signed it without really even looking at it, her eyes and full attention already on the list of thirty-nine women Jergens had sent over.
“How many names on the Greenfield list?” she asked Jack.
“Twenty-six. And according to the administrative assistant I spoke with, she said she did not think the chances of a woman going to two different clinics would be very high. The sheer cost of it alone would be a significant deterrent, even with insurance kicking in.”
Rachel scanned Regency’s list, quickly eyeing each of the thirty-nine names. “Okay, so let’s compare,” she said. “Your list is shorter, so you read the names off to me.”
He did, starting with a woman named Alyssa Cole—who was not on Rachel’s list. It was tedious work, like some sort of odd word puzzle, but it paid off when Jack read off the eleventh name.
“Next, we have Gemma Chapman.”
Rachel read down the list, quite sure she’d seen the name while eliminating others. Sure enough, she was right there, four names from the bottom. Her treatment with Regency had occurred nine months ago.
“She’s right here,” Rachel said. She stood to her feet, tapping excitedly at the name on her list. “Her treatment came back as negative a little over nine months ago. You?”
“Three months ago at Greenfield.”
Rachel pulled up the station network, navigated to the criminal database, and typed in Gemma Chapman. Jack filed in behind her, watching the screen load over her shoulder. Rachel could feel a collective surge of adrenaline between the two of them as the possibility of a strong lead began to spring up in front of them.
“Well I’ll be damned,” Jack said from over her shoulder.
Rachel read the details of the page out loud, a habit she had never been able to break herself out of. “DUI four years ago but most recently, she did a very brief stint of jailtime for assault against a woman in a public park a little over a year ago. The other woman required stitches and pressed charges.”
“Seems like someone filled with aggression to me,” Jack said. “Throw in failed fertility treatments from two different clinics…yeah, I think that might be a pretty good fit.”
“Same,” Rachel said, clicking on the tab for personal info. She plugged Gemma Chapman’s current address into her phone and got to her feet. “So, let’s go pay Miss Chapman a visit.”
***
Gemma Chapman lived in a modest home in a blue-collar neighborhood. A tilted plastic flamingo sat all alone just in front of an entirely dead flowerbed. A few hanging ferns gave the porch a bit of color but other than that, the house was unremarkable. The porch showed signs of disrepair—paint flaking from the posts, a single spot where termites had feasted at some point in the past.
Rachel took the lead and knocked on the door. As she waited to see if there was anyone home, she was answered in the form of a television at low volume. Shuffling footsteps could be heard a few moments later and then the door was opened just a crack.
“Who’s there?” a woman said, revealing only one eye and a long, angular nose.
<
br /> “I’m Special Agent Rachel Gift, and I’m accompanied by my partner, Jack Rivers. We were hoping to ask you a few questions.”
“Me?” she asked, sounding genuinely confused.
“Yes, ma’am.”
The woman, presumably Gemma Chapman, opened the door the remainder of the way. “Can I ask what this is about?” she asked. She was dressed in a ratty tee shirt and a pair of sweatpants. She was slightly overweight, most of it showing in her face. Her brown hair looked as if it had not been washed in about a week. And though Rachel hated to think such a thing about anyone right off the bat, the woman just looked straight-out sad.
“You’re Gemma Chapman, correct?” Rachel asked.
“I am. Please…come on in and have a seat.”
She gestured to the couch and armchair in her small living room. A TV was mounted on the wall, currently tuned to the Weather Channel. Rachel sat down, always aware that it was best to look at ease and non-threatening when getting information out of people.
“Mrs. Chapman, we are currently investigating a series of murders that seems to be targeting women that are scheduled for fertility treatments.”
Gemma nodded, as if she understood perfectly. “I saw something about those killings on the news this morning. It’s terrible.”
Rachel watched the woman’s face, trying to get a proper gauge on her reaction to why they were here. She knew Jack would be too, and that he was typically very good at reading the immediate reaction of people that have just received any sort of jarring news. From what Rachel could tell, Gemma Chapman did not seem scared that they were here; confusion remained, genuine and unmoving, from her face.
“Well, we’re visiting you because we’re doing cross checks of women that have done business with both clinics,” Rachel said. “And as you might imagine, your criminal history gave us a bit of concern.”
“Mrs. Chapman, do you mind walking us through what happened about a year or so ago out in that public park?”
