Dangerous Obsession

by Jessica R. Patch

  TEN

  “Hello, Mommy.”

  Unable to speak or breathe, Cosette lay on the princess-pink bed, paralyzed, stunned.

  “Have you missed me?” She carried a tray with peanut butter crackers and soda in teacups. “I missed you. I’ve been stuck with those stupid people for so long. They adopted me and called me their daughter. But I know who I really belong to. The minute I turned eighteen, I came to look for you. To be with you. And now we’re together again.”

  Her voice sounded like that of a small child. Her dark eyes were staring right through Cosette, vacant and glazed. She set the tray on the nightstand and walked to the dresser, then opened the jewelry box and wound the ballerina around until the tune “Somewhere My Love” started playing.

  Cosette found her voice. “Did you send me that video of my music box? Is that the one from my apartment?”

  “I know I’m not s’posed to go in your room and play with your things or your makeup, but I just had to!” She grinned. “Aren’t you glad to be home, Mommy?”

  “You drew on my mirror with the lipstick. Tried on my things and hid in my closet because you were afraid I’d get mad at you?” The intruder in her apartment hadn’t knocked her down to be mean, but to escape punishment. God, help me! Please!

  “Are you mad, Mommy? Because I’m a good girl. You know I am.”

  Those last words unlocked the past, and it rushed in like a wind. Cosette held back tears and whispered, “No, I’m not mad.”

  She’d been sent here over a decade ago to assess and counsel an eight-year-old little girl. She’d bonded with her over the jewelry box.

  “Hi, I’m Miss Cosette.”

  The little girl cowered, a thumb in her mouth.

  “It’s okay. I’m here to help you.” She studied the room. All done in princess pink. Eyeing the jewelry box, Cosette walked to it and opened it. “I had one just like this when I was a little girl.”

  “My mama gave me that. But she’s dead.”

  Cosette’s heart broke like it always did for the neglected, abused and lost. “I’m very sorry. Would you like to color?” The child might tell her more through drawings than speaking.

  She nodded.

  Cosette sat with her at the table coloring. “Can you draw me a picture of your happiest time?”

  The child beamed and went to task.

  “My mommy bought us a puppy. She loves puppies and I do, too.” She colored it yellow.

  “Where is your puppy now?”

  “Dead.” She scowled and broke her crayon. “Dead like Mommy.”

  “Do you want to talk about your mommy?” Cosette picked up a red crayon and drew a heart.

  “I like your lipstick. It’s red. I like red.” She pointed to the heart on the paper. “I like hearts, too.”

  Cosette smiled and studied her a little longer. She wasn’t exhibiting grief as expected for a child who’d witnessed her mother using a hair dryer in the bathtub to kill herself.

  The little girl drew another picture. A woman with blond curly hair. A child with dark hair—herself—and a man with the face of a monster. “Who’s that?”

  “Mommy’s boyfriend. She has lots of them. She doesn’t like me when they’re around. Sometimes she locks me in closets. That’s mean. She got what she deserved!”

  Neglect had been in the report. Her mother had suffered from depression. Diagnosed bipolar. Calls had been made before. Now she’d go to a foster home.

  Cosette had counseled her three times. The child exhibited signs of antisocial disorder, so Cosette had requested the case manager do further psyche evals. She hadn’t seen her again.

  Not until five months ago, when the girl had started dating Wheezer.

  Except Cosette hadn’t recognized her then.

  “Did you hear me, Mommy? Would you rather have ice cream instead of crackers?”

  “Yes, Amy. I would.” Swallowing down fear, Cosette gained control and reminded herself to stay calm and collected. She couldn’t reason with Amy. The young woman was irrational, and agitating her could get Cosette killed. If she could get downstairs to the kitchen, then she could find a way to escape and get help. “Amy, did you leave those earrings for me at my mommy’s grave?”

  “I knew you would like them. Remember them? I gave them to you for Mother’s Day. You took me to the fair to celebrate.”

  Amy may have purchased a cheaper pair as a child and her biological mom then took her to the fair—one of the better memories of her real mother.

  “Tell me about the family that adopted you.” Had she hurt them?

  “I hate them! They kept me from you and I don’t want to talk about them.”

  Amy opened the bedroom door with no fear of Cosette running away. In Amy’s mind, her former therapist was her beloved mom and this was their home.

  How had Cosette not seen the signs in the last five months she’d been around the woman? Because Amy was good. She’d hidden everything so well. From everyone. But it was Cosette’s job to recognize the signs. Amy had always added in free pastries and took chances to be near her.

  “Did you get the job at Sufficient Grounds to be close to me?” Amy had said she’d been searching for Cosette since she was eighteen. Now she was twenty. How long had she stalked Cosette? Watched. Plotted.

  “I did. But your mean old boyfriend keeps cameras and I couldn’t come over. So I found another way.”

  “Wheezer.”

  She’d expertly manipulated him and planted herself in Cosette’s world. Coming and going. Wilder had given her free rein because he trusted Wheezer. Aurora trusted Amy. They all had.

  Cosette followed Amy downstairs, the front door beckoning her to make a run through it. If she shoved Amy hard enough, she could sprint to a neighbor’s house. Wait... The fuzziness in her head must have fogged her thoughts. Whose house was this now and where was the family? She’d been here more than a few hours, that was for sure.

  Cries and grunts sounded from the kitchen. A woman? Children?

  Oh, dear God, please don’t let there be hurt hostages.

  A shiver rippled down her back. “Amy, do we have guests?”

  Amy turned, her dark eyes reflecting pure hatred. A wicked grin distorted her features. This young woman wasn’t the coffee barista she’d come to know or the loving girlfriend Wheezer cared deeply for. She was a homicidal sociopath. As Cosette had feared the little girl would become when she’d counseled her as a child.

  Placing her index finger on her mouth, Amy paused midstep. “Shh...they don’t matter. They’ll get what they deserve for being in our house.”

  Cosette glanced at the front door again. This changed things. If she made a run for it, innocent lives could end. The kind of rage Amy would exhibit might be fatal to everyone. Hope deflated as Cosette stepped into the sunny yellow kitchen with white cabinets and homemade art on the fridge. The puppy she’d rejected bounded toward her, jumping up on her legs.

  Amy scooped him up. “She doesn’t love you, pooch. But I do.” She kissed him and let him down. Cries came from beyond the kitchen.

  “Do you want vanilla or chocolate?” Amy asked.

  Tiptoeing around the island, Cosette spotted the laundry room. “Whatever you like best,” she said and craned her neck.

  Sitting in a huddle were a woman, two elementary-aged children, a teenager and, lying on the floor in a pool of blood, a man. Amy had taken an entire family hostage.

  Ice ran down Cosette’s back and into her feet, freezing her like a stone statue. No wonder Amy was letting her roam free; she’d calculated this. And she was right. Cosette would never leave them. She had to find a way to free them and help the wounded man. The children—all precious blonde girls. The horror etched on their little faces made Cosette want to vomit.

  “Amy,” she said in a shaky voice. “That man in there
is hurt really bad. I need to check on him. Make sure he’s alive. Can I do that?”

  “Why do you care about that man? Is he another boyfriend?” Her eyes darkened. “You always care about boyfriends over me.” Anger was simmering in her voice, and if Cosette didn’t play this right it would boil over and scald them all.

  “I don’t care about that man.” Think fast. “I care about you. If he dies, Amy, then you could go to jail and we’ll never be together. You don’t want that, do you?”

  She seemed to think about it. “Fine, but if you so much as do anything bad, Mommy... I’ll punish you. Just like I had to punish you before.”

  Cosette’s mouth turned dry. “Tell me what I did, Amy. What did I do to deserve punishment?” She slowly made her way toward the laundry room.

  “You know what you did! I don’t like doing bad things to you, but you make me! You make me do it.”

  The warning sounded like echoed words from Amy’s mentally ill mother. Cossette had heard this from children before, but right now was having a hard time finding sympathy for the young woman who’d “punished” her. She had to mean the muffins with nut products and running her down, whether it was Amy herself or Kariss. Now was not the time to ask that. Right now a man’s life was at stake, along with his family’s. She couldn’t let them watch him die before their eyes.

  “I won’t be a bad mommy.” She slipped into the laundry room.

  The mother’s hands were bound behind her back, like her children’s, and tied to the louvered laundry doors; their mouths were gagged and their feet were bound. The woman threw her body in front of her children and screamed through the gag.

  Cosette’s eyes filled with moisture and she held out her hands in a sign of surrender as she squatted, then motioned for her to be quiet. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “My name is Cosette LaCroix. I’m a psychologist and I’m going to get us out of here.”

  The question was how? Amy was diabolical. Homicidal. Unhinged.

  “I want to check your husband’s vitals. I won’t hurt any of you, I promise. I’m going to help.” Again, she had no clue how.

  The woman nodded frantically, eyes bugging out of her head as tears streaked down her cheeks.

  “I can’t take off your gag. It might produce behavior none of us want. Do you understand?” She didn’t want the children to hear that Amy might murder them all if she thought Cosette was being a bad mom.

  The children had tearstains on their faces. Eyes wide with fright, they shivered uncontrollably. They were in shock. Not good. The youngest had had an accident in her pants. God, cradle her right now. Cradle us all. “Be brave. We’ll get through this,” Cosette whispered and checked the man’s pulse.

  Slow. Faint.

  But alive.

  He’d been shot, but hadn’t bled out yet, which meant he’d been shot recently—maybe he’d tried to free his family and escape. It also meant Amy had a gun.

  That was another game changer. “Amy, this man could die if we don’t get him medical attention. You don’t want that, do you?”

  She entered the laundry room.

  The woman and her girls flinched.

  Amy shifted on her feet and tucked the corner of her bottom lip between her teeth, cocking her head. Like a small child unsure of how to answer. “He got what he deserved. He tried to keep me from my house!” Childlike eyes narrowed into a killer’s and her voice shifted back to a young woman’s, only with a hard, cold edge. “And if he dies then so what?” She stomped back into the kitchen and hollered, “Your ice cream is gonna melt. You asked for it. You better eat every bite.”

  What to do? If Cosette didn’t cooperate, they all could die. If she walked away from this family, a husband and father would lose his life. The woman’s eyes filled with tears. She knew the reality of the situation. That her husband was going to die in front of them all. And possibly her children, too.

  Cosette held back burning tears. Her own terror and uncertainty wouldn’t benefit anyone. It might set Amy off. The man needed pressure applied to his gunshot wound.

  Cosette was trapped.

  She grabbed a towel off the dryer and applied it to the wound near his shoulder, praying the bullet hadn’t hit something important. Even if it hadn’t, he’d lost so much blood. Spotting clothespins on the dryer, she snatched them and worked to make a tight tourniquet, sealing it with the wooden pins. Then she laid the woman’s legs over it to help with pressure. It wasn’t great, but it was all she could come up with.

  “Mommy!” Amy screeched at an ear-piercing level. “Get. In. Here!”

  “I’m sorry,” Cosette said with a strangled cry. “I’m so sorry. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She hurried into the kitchen and washed the blood from her hands, watching through blurry eyes as it swirled red down the drain. Then she approached the table, where her bowl of vanilla ice cream awaited. How was she supposed to force the cold treat down when she was riddled with nausea?

  Easing into her chair, she glanced at Amy, who had no problem wolfing down a bowl of chocolate ice cream. Amy looked up and paused, then grabbed a backpack and handed it over. “Look inside.”

  Cosette unzipped the bag with trembling fingers. Inside were several brochures and an itinerary. “It’s our summer vacation. Doesn’t it look fun?”

  “Do you have any big plans with Wheezer this summer?”

  “No, I’m spending it with my mom.”

  That’s what she’d said that first morning in the coffee shop, when Cosette had received the note that a present awaited her at her mother’s grave. She’d meant Cosette. Amy’d had a lovesick look in her eyes, which Cosette thought was over Wheezer, but Amy had been dreaming of being reunited with her mom, aka Cosette.

  Blood drained from Cosette’s face. She felt faint.

  “Say you like it.”

  She forced herself to reply. “I like it,” she muttered. “But I’d really like it if we could help that man in there. That would...that would make Mommy happy. You want to make Mommy happy, don’t you?”

  Amy’s eyes widened and she jumped up, slinging her bowl across the room. It shattered into tiny shards across the floor. The mother and girls in the laundry room began to sob again.

  Pointing her spoon at Cosette, Amy leaned forward. “I have tried to make you happy! I got us tickets to your favorite movie and when I showed up, guess who was sitting in my seat? Your boyfriend. I gave you your favorite muffin, and you know what? You gave it to your boyfriend!”

  “I’m allergic to nuts, Amy.”

  “I know that! Now. Aurora told me you were deathly allergic and kept an EpiPen. But that’s not the point—you still gave it to him. To. Him!”

  When Amy had asked what was in the muffin box, it had been for show. She knew because she’d planted them. The call! It had come from Amy. She’d been in the kitchen making it. Right there at CCM!

  “I bought you a puppy and you refused it. You’d rather have horses with your boyfriend! Nothing makes you happy!” She wailed and pulled at her hair, stomping on the floor. “And you took that other girl to the park!”

  Her punishments for the perceived rejection and neglect: the box of muffins with nut products. Burning down the stable. Running her over and targeting not only her, but Renny, and clipping Jody in the hip. “Amy, was that you in Kariss’s car or did Kariss punish me?”

  “Eat your ice cream,” she screamed at bloodcurdling levels, then stormed into the laundry room, pulling a gun with a suppressor from her waistband. “Mommy says I should help you. But I think you all deserve to die!”

  * * *

  Wilder shoved away the sandwich his sister laid on his desk. “I don’t want to eat.”

  “And if you don’t, you’ll lose strength and be good to no one. Now, shove it down, soldier!” Caley placed her hands on her hips.

  “You look and sound just like Ma.” He
half laughed—the first time since Cosette had been missing. Almost three days.

  They’d combed files, hacked mainframes, made calls. Everyone worked around the clock. They’d narrowed down about sixty-two patients that fitted the bill. Roger Renfrow sat in the conference room with Dr. McMillian this very moment going through them, profiling and making phone calls. Wilder probably owed them both an apology for threatening them. Every now and then, Roger’s coughs would echo through the house. A lonely house when it was void of Cosette.

  Caley pointed at the coffee. “Drink it. I know you haven’t slept. Just because you’re trained to go without sleep doesn’t mean you should. Y’all are in this together and everyone is equally capable of doing the work. Rest, Wilder. At least an hour or two.”

  “I’ll rest when I find her. That’s that, Caley.”

  “Well, at least shave!” She spun and stormed from the room.

  He rubbed the three day’s growth on his face. Felt the dryness of his eyes. He’d squirt some drops to help clear the bloodshot look. He had managed a quick shower every day. His sister should be thankful for that.

  Beckett knocked and stepped inside. Wilder saw his expression and knew this conversation wasn’t going to be about Cosette. Beckett hadn’t said anything about Meghan since Wilder revealed the truth. He deserved a major butt kicking. He’d take it like a man, too.

  Beckett sank into the chair across the desk, his hair disheveled. “I’m not angry that you found her first. I’m not angry that your words were the last words she heard.” He cleared his throat and his nostrils flared. Talking about Meghan would never be easy for any of them. “I don’t even think if you had told me the truth at the time, I’d have let you take the blame. I believed it was all my fault. Even when you said it wasn’t.”

  Wilder understood implicitly.

  “I get why you felt you couldn’t share that with me or anyone. We’re stubborn men. Gotta carry it all for everyone, and you did, Wilder. You carried me through that whole nightmare and refused to let me fall into an abyss. But it wasn’t your sole responsibility. It was God’s.”