by Blake Pierce
She nodded and the curiosity on her face was replaced by sadness. “I was angry, sad…and very dumb,” she said. “A few years back, my husband and I divorced. He badly wanted kids and I was unable to have them. But we did some tests and found that there were fertility treatments I could take. He didn’t like the idea. He had this macho idea that those treatments were cheating. He decided that if couldn’t have kids the old-fashioned way, he didn’t want them. So, it led to lots of arguments and an eventual divorce. But the idea just stayed in my head and I decided that even without him around, I wanted to try. I’d get a kid and manage to have it and raise it without him.
“I met with doctors and they all told me the chances were slim. But I set up an appointment anyway.”
“With Regency first, correct?” Rachel asked.
“Yes. Now, of course, my little incident in the park occurred a bit before I first tried the treatments. There was this fundraiser for Mary’s House—this sort of recue home for young mothers with nowhere to go. I went by to show my support, maybe even make a donation. And when I was there, I saw that there was a booth for one of the local pregnancy centers. There were these two women there, talking about their recent pregnancies and it just…I lost it. Looking back on it now, I know it was absolutely foolish of me to even be there. I knew it would depress me, sort of be a trigger So yes…the woman I attacked was talking about how she delivered twins and their laughing…it got to me. I acted irrationally, and I have regretted it every day since.”
When she stopped talking, she took a deep breath in and when she let it out, a trail of tears came spilling out of both eyes. They came seemingly out of nowhere, taking Rachel slightly by surprise. They came with such suddenness that Rachel was inclined to believe they might be genuine.
“When was the last time you visited either of the clinics?” Jack asked.
“It’s been about three months ago, I suppose. It was at Greenfield…sort of a check-up.” She eyed them both and the reality of why they were here slowly dawned on her. There was fury there, but a deep sadness as well. “I guess you’re here to see if I’m the killer, is that it? The crazy bitch that can’t have a baby…the one that attacked that perfectly nice and happy woman at the park. Sorry to disappoint you but, no…I’m not a killer. And it’s fucking insulting to think you’d even come here to suggest it.”
Rachel and Jack both sat in stunned silence for a moment. Gemma had not quite exploded on them, but it had been close. And it had seemed to come out of nowhere, making Rachel wonder just how deeply wounded she was over her failed marriage and the inability to have a child. How long had she been holding on to it…and did she blame herself for her infertility?
“Can you provide proof of your whereabouts for the nights over the last week or so?” Rachel asked.
“I’m not sure how to prove I’ve been sitting here at home,” she said. “Because that’s all I’ve done. It’s all I’ve done since I got back home from my little three-day stint in prison. Sitting at home, not wanting to go outside. Only going out when I need groceries, or to work, or…it’s been miserable.”
Rachel wasn’t sure if the woman was trying to make them feel sorry for her or if it was just starting to come naturally for her. Whichever it was, Rachel could not deny that she was truly starting to feel bad for coming her to question her. Sure, she had beaten a new mother rather badly in a public park, but there were clearly scars of self-rejection and loathing holding the poor woman down.
“We can prove it if there is any traceable internet activity,” Jack said. “Though, to be honest, these killings we are looking into took place late at night. So if you aren’t a night owl…” He shrugged, apparently starting to feel just as bad as Rachel about being here.
“Well, I guess I’m in luck,” Gemma said. “I’m not sleeping much these days, and when I do it’s usually a nap on the couch mid-day. I have a pretty bad habit of Amazon-shopping far too late into the night.” Then an a-ha sort of look came over her face. “Oh, and four nights ago, I was out of town…in Bethesda, visiting my mom. I stayed over and we had breakfast together before I left. So maybe that will help, too.”
She didn’t say these things in an angry or condescending tone. To Rachel, it seemed as if the woman truly wanted to help. “Would you be willing to provide your computer and your mother’s address?” Rachel asked.
Rachel saw Gemma struggling to keep her anger down, trying her best to keep from having a legitimate outburst. “I regret what I did,” she said, speaking slowly and looking to both of them with an intense stare, “But I don’t deserve this. I had nothing to do with these murders and it’s things like this that make me think I’ll never outlive what I did. It’ll always come back and back and back.” With each back, she stomped hard on the floor.
“I apologize for that,” Rachel said. “But if you’d just—”
“Yes, you can have the damn laptop. My phone, my laptop…anything else you need. Car, house…you need a blood sample?”
Something in this almost brazen way of granting their request told Rachel that Gemma Chapman was very likely not their killer. That, plus what she’d said about online shopping and the visit to her mother, added up to yet another strike for her and Jack. She was so certain of Gemma’s innocence that even as Jack took down the number of Gemma’s grandmother, Rachel was already rummaging through her mind, trying to figure out what their next move would be.
And much to her dismay, she was not coming up with much.
As she and Jack headed to the door, leaving a frustrated Gemma Chapman scowling in her living room, Rachel felt her phone buzzing in her pocket. She was somehow certain it would be Dr. Greene with more bad news for her. Maybe he had been wrong and had given her too much time to look forward to. Maybe she really only had a few months left, maybe even less.
But when she checked it, she saw that it was Paige’s babysitter, Becka, FaceTiming her. A flash of worry sped through her. “I have to take this,” she told Jack as she hurried through the front door and onto Gemma’s porch.
“Hello?” she said, answering on the third ring.
The face that appeared was not Becka’s but Paige’s. As usual, she was smiling. The kid was used to the often hectic schedule of her parents so a few days away from her mother wasn’t going to bring her down. And even though Rachel felt a bit let down from the way things with Gemma had gone, she found that she was happy to hear from Paige.
“Hey, Mommy. You busy? Can we talk?”
Before Rachel could answer, she heard Becka calling out from off-screen. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Gift! I told her to wait until later!”
“It’s okay, Becka. So…what’s up kiddo?”
“We got a handout at school today for soccer try-outs,” Paige said. “It’s next Saturday, and I really want to go.”
Jack passed by, leaving the porch and heading down to the car to give Rachel some privacy. He grinned at her, as he always did when he knew she was on the phone with Paige. Typically, speaking to her daughter cheered her up considerably when they were on the road.
“Well, go ahead and put it on the calendar.” What she did not say was that she’d not once ever heard Paige mention being interested in soccer. But she knew that Paige was in a very experimental phase right now. She wanted to try everything, and Rachel and Peter supported it.
“Will you be back in time?” Paige asked.
“Before next Saturday? Absolutely. Honey, I’m hoping to be back home in another couple of days.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Everything else good?”
“Yeah! Becka is making pancakes for dinner. And then Daddy is going to take me out for ice cream.”
“That’s whole lot of sugar. Make sure you brush your teeth really good before bed.”
“I will. Bye, Mommy!”
It had been a brief conversation but, as was always the case when Paige called, it felt as if she’s been tossed into a whirlwind and spit out. Even in little conversations, her daughter
was a little force of nature. As Rachel slowly placed the phone back into her pocket, she realized that she missed Paige more than she usually did when she was on a trip.
It’s because you’re keeping a secret from her, she thought. Really, you’re lying by omission.
This was true and she knew she’d have to deal with it eventually. She slowly made her way down Gemma Chapman’s porch steps, suddenly feeling guilty for leaving Paige in the dark. She was likely too young to fully understand what her diagnosis meant but, still…she deserved to know. So did Peter, and so did Jack.
The guilt ate at her for just a moment, but she then shoved it away. For now, she had to focus on this case. This case was an island off the coast of every other part of her life and she could not leave it until they had their killer.
And with no real leads to speak of, she figured they only had the papers and records back at the station. Maybe they’d missed some obvious connection buried in the mundane nature of lists of people’s names and medical records. There had to be something there. And once they found it, they could get their killer…and she could then devote her time and energy to figuring out how to break the news to her family.
But first…the case. She held that list of priorities firm in her mind as she got back into the car and, without a word, started the engine and left Gemma Chapman’s house.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Back at the station, she sat at the desk and scanned through all of the files and papers again. As she did, she found herself on the verge of getting sidetracked. She still had her big secret—her tumor diagnosis that still sat heavy on her shoulder like a parrot that would not shut up. The guilt she’d felt at Gemma’s house tried to keep coming back, fueled by the sight of Paige’s face during the FaceTime call. And even when she was able to look beyond that guilt, there was the memory of what had happened to her while chasing down Maria Oliver. More accurately, she was reminded of how she’d been shown yet another glimpse of the mortality she was going to have to get a handle on.
Hey, her body said. You’re not the invincible, star agent you’ve always been. There’s a tumor in your head, remember? What the hell are you trying to prove?
She also found herself thinking of Peter and Paige, back at home with no clue at all that she had essentially been handed her death warrant. She could sense the all-consuming guilt behind that little nugget, but she pushed it aside for now. She figured she could process through it when the case was finished. Because the longer her mind spent away from the facts and twists of this case, the more time the killer had to target his (or, as she was currently thinking, her) next victim.
With no further leads or hope of answers, they had no real path forward other than once again scouring the records, paperwork, and patient lists. Combining that with what they now knew of the Facebook group, she felt there had to be some sort of answer buried in it all.
While Rachel poured through the print outs, patient lists, and station network, Jack was online, searching for other fertility support groups—not just online, but local meet-and-greet type meetings. Every now and then, he would scribble down a name on a nearby pad and then continue his search.
“There’s at least three in the city,” he said, looking up from his scribbled notes. “But from what I can find, none of them really see all that much activity. Also, because it’s a public forum of sorts, it’s going to be tough to get names.”
“I think that’s okay, though,” Rachel said. “Our killer would have to be very stupid to go looking for victims at a public meeting.”
Jack nodded, but he kept looking. Rachel understood the mindset, though; sometimes there was gold buried in the most unlikely of places. Also, when there were no solid leads, this was the only real avenue they had to take.
Again and again, Rachel found herself distracted by her own running inner-monologue. She could not help but wonder if it would be less distracting if she just told someone. Yes, Jack was the more sensible choice because he was right there but she was still struck by the feeling that Peter needed to be the first to know.
“Jesus,” she murmured as she tossed down the file she had currently bene looking through. The papers, the files, the laptops, Jack…suddenly, her world felt far too hectic and crowded.
“You okay?” Jack asked, peering up from the laptop screen.
“Yeah, just flustered.”
“You’re not going to abandoned me for another three-hour excursion, are you?” he joked.
“No. Just…just going to go to the restroom.”
Hey, look, another lie, she told herself. Or maybe it was some disembodied voice on her head—hell, maybe it was the voice of the tumor, calling her out.
Still mostly unfamiliar with the station, Rachel did indeed head for the restrooms but passed by them. She wandered around the back of the station and came to two conferences rooms. One was a bit larger and was slightly messy, an indication that it had been used at some point during the day. But at the end of the hall, she found a smaller one. It looked as if it had not been used any time recently. When she walked in and closed the door behind her, she noticed the smell of stale whiteboard cleaner spray and the ghost of a lingering coffee smell. With the room in total darkness, Rachel found her way to the corner and sat down.
She closed her eyes, letting the peacefulness of her makeshift isolation chamber sink into her. Her parading thoughts slowed down, allowing her to better prioritize them. In the dark, she could temporarily shove aside all matters pertaining to the tumor and her secrecy of it. She could now better focus on the case, trying to find some straight and narrow thread she and Jack had not yet been able to unravel.
She re-examined each crime scene in her mind. She went back through every conversation she’d had with people that had all eventually ended in dead-ends. Standing out above them all was her brief meeting with Alex Lynch. While it was a bit creepy to think of his deadened stare in the darkness of the conference room, she made herself go back there. Rachel did her best to replay the entire conversation. And though she could not remember it all, the highlights were very easy to recall.
Why would the killer want these women dead?
It was the core of the entire case. They thought they’d stumbled across the reasoning a few times but it had never quite panned out. Even the way they’d found Gemma Chapman had seemed promising at first—and there was still something to that reasoning that stood out to Rachel. Maye there was something there. And if it was…then maybe it would be advantageous to stop looking it the entire ordeal through the eyes of a killer. Maybe it would make more sense to look at it through the eyes of someone that wanted to be a mother but couldn’t.
Alex had said it perfectly: the killer is going after these women because the treatments will give them the chance to conceive.
Rachel thought of how she might have felt if she had been trying to get pregnant but everyone around her seemed to be having no problems. While it was a sad scenario, she felt like there had to be more to it. What if the killer already knew what it was like to be a mother and something about the treatments was triggering her? If that were the case, what could possibly happen to make a woman snap so badly that she would go after women trying everything they could to have a baby. How could…
Slowly, Rachel got to her feet. Could it be that simple? Had they been looking at this thing through the wrong lens the entire time?
Maybe it wasn’t just about the killer losing their chance. Maybe they had no chance to conceive at all.
It was an interesting thought, but there had to be something more to it. There had to be some catalyst that spurred it on. Rachel then started to wonder what would be the one thing that might drive a mother to absolute madness…?
She rushed for the conference room door and left the darkness behind. She did not run back to the desk where Jack was still at work, but she moved much faster than she normally would while inside. When she approached the desk at something of a trot, Jack looked up to her, perplexed.
> “I know you’re getting tired of hearing this question,” he said, “but…are you okay?”
“Listen…I think we’re on the right track,” Rachel said. “But I don’t think we’ve pushed the line enough What if the killer—assuming it’s a woman—did once have her chance but now it’s gone. What if the killer once had a child but the child died and now, for whatever reason, she can’t have more?”
The skepticism on his face was brief, almost instantly overruled by excitement and clarity. “Damn, that does make a lot of sense.” Nodding, he looked back to the laptop and to the files and papers spread all around their desk. “Looks like we need to start looking for something a bit more specific, huh?”
“Looks that way,” she said, already starting to sift through the paperwork again.
***
The day was coming to a close and at some point, during their renewed and refreshed search, Rachel had somehow managed to drink three cups of coffee. She felt it in her nerves, making her slightly jittery. They’d been at it for about an hour and a half, working so feverishly through the papers and on the phone that Rachel almost felt as if they had some weird-part time job at a call center.
She was looking back through the limited criminal records of the staff from both clinics when Jack spoke up, his voice somewhere between doubtful and hopeful. “Hey, Rachel…do you have the copy of the full employee list from Regency?”
“Yeah,” she said, thumbing through the papers and finding it. She slid the list over to him, trying to latch on to the tone of hope she’d heard in his voice. “Do you think you might have something?”
“Maybe,” he said, placing the list next to another sheet of paper. He eyed them back and forth, his eyes bouncing as if he were watching a tennis match. Slowly, he started to nod and his eyes grew just a bit brighter.
“What is it?” Rachel asked.
“There’s a doctor currently employed by Regency Fertility Clinic named Pauline Vick. She’s been working for Regency for seven years, but she’s also on the consult list for Greenfield. Not sure how long she’s being doing it, but there she is, on both lists.”
