Ignoring the tears in Gramma’s eyes, he continued to shovel. “I don’t care what he has to say, and I don’t want you talking about me or my business with anyone, understand?”
“Pastor Landen said that some people are born a certain way, while others are created.”
“Nature versus nurture? It’s a tired argument and one I don’t feel like having with you right now.”
“Adeline, she was born a certain way,” she continued anyway. “I just know it. No one can create a person like Adeline. And no one can fix her. She has the devil inside and—”
“Enough.” Rodney turned on Gramma. “I don’t want to hear another word about the devil. Ever. There’s no such thing. What’s wrong with Adeline has nothing to do with demons and everything to do with her brain. This is a medical, not religious issue. And I will fix her.”
“Why bother? She’s a lost cause, hopeless and pure evil. You’ve already destroyed your career for her. She’s killed your child, and I know to the marrow of my old bones that she killed the college girl and your cousin. Do you want to live with the guilt when she kills again? Because you will be guilty. You could have stopped her, but you chose not to.”
“Like you could have stopped my father from beating my mother?”
Gramma stiffened. She lifted her chin and averted her eyes. “That was different. A woman has a place. That’s what I was taught by your granddad, and your father needed to teach your mother the same.”
“And you think Adeline is crazy.” Rodney shook his head. “Go away and let me finish digging.”
“Fine. I’ll finish preparing the child for burial. Would you like to see her?”
“No. Just do what you have to do.”
“Oh, I will. You have until the end of the week to make a decision about Adeline. Either she leaves, or I’m going to contact the sheriff and tell him about what she did to the baby.”
Rodney stepped away from the small, shallow grave and crowded the old woman’s space. His size should have intimidated her, but the tough old bag held her ground, despite being over a foot shorter and one hundred pounds lighter than him. “You will tell no one about the baby. You will not discuss me or Adeline to anyone. You will mind your business or the next grave I dig will be yours.”
Gramma gasped. “How dare you threaten me? After all that I’ve done for you, for that crazy little ingrate. Your loyalty should be to me, not her.” She took a step back and narrowed her eyes. “I won’t go to the sheriff, but if you won’t make her leave, then I want both of you out of my house. See how well you do on your own without the money you no longer have.”
When the old woman turned away, he stared at the back of her gray head. If he were a different man, the mad scientist the press had claimed him to be, he’d sic Adeline on Gramma and give new meaning to the Big Bad Wolf.
A tap at his shoulder had him flinching. He quickly turned and glared at Adeline. “How long have you been here?” he asked.
“The entire time you’ve been. You should take off your shirt,” she said, her tone seductive, as she ran her hand along his chest. “I love seeing my man’s muscles work. It’s so sexy.”
“Stop it.” He gripped her wrist, love and hatred hollowing his heart and soul. “You need help.”
“Or Gramma’s going to kick us out of her shitty, rotting house? Sounded like the old woman doesn’t think anyone can help ease my wicked ways. Maybe I should go see Pastor Landen and let him try to drive the devil from my mind. A pastor’s semen would be just as good, if not better than holy water, don’t you think?”
Jealousy ripped him in two. He gripped her tighter and pulled her close. “Stay away from that man.”
She shrugged. “Since my man won’t touch me…”
“You shouldn’t be thinking about sex, but about the baby you broke. My God, Adeline. You carried her for eight months. Your body kept her alive. She was part of you, of me. How could you do it?”
Adeline sighed. “How could I not?”
“Because deep down you’re a good, kind, caring person. I know it. I feel it. It’s why I can’t ever stop loving you.” He touched her cheek. “We used to be so close. We had the same goals, the same dreams. If I can make you better, we could still make those dreams happen.” Like him, and despite being accused of murder, Adeline had graduated with a Doctor of Medicine degree and also had a Ph.D. in pharmacology. She had worked alongside him when he’d been developing his drug, and had quit her position with Medizen Pharma when he’d been fired. She was smart, creative and business-savvy. Once she was well, together they could become unstoppable. “Whether you want to go back into medicine or not, I’ll support you. I just want you better. But you have to help me help you.”
“What about Gramma?”
“What about her?”
“She’s giving us the boot, unless you plan to stay here and want me to leave.”
“You’re not leaving.”
“So, again. What about Gramma?”
He let go of her, then went back to shoveling. “I’ll talk to her. She’s upset about the baby. Once she cools off, she’ll realize that she needs us here to help take care of the house and property.”
“You and I both know that’s not true. Gramma has plenty of money. She can hire someone to help her.” Adeline walked over to the bright blue lobelia bush, then knelt next to it and plucked a flower. “How close are you to finalizing the new drug?”
“I feel like I’m close,” he answered. “But even when I do have it right, I’m not sure how I can test it.”
She plucked another flower, then stood. “Of course you know how.” She grinned. “I’m the perfect lab rat. After all, it’s for me, right?”
Satisfied the hole was deep enough for the tiny baby, he stepped out of it, then used the hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. “I told you before, I’m not experimenting on you.”
“Afraid I’m going to off you and Gramma, then kill myself?” she asked.
He looked at her, saw her eyes trained on his bare abs, then dropped the shirt. “You know that won’t happen. Someone at Medizen Pharma deviated from the chemical combination we knew worked.”
“And yet you took the blame.” She dropped the flowers into the grave. “We could experiment on Gramma.”
He chuckled and looked toward the house. “Maybe the drug will knock the religion out of her.”
Adeline smiled. “I’m being serious. What did Gramma say? No one can create a person like me. And no one can fix me. Right?”
“Gramma doesn’t understand you the way I do.”
She held up a hand. “The old woman understands me just fine, and you know it. Hear me out—if you can’t prove the drug works, you’ll never be able to move out from under the mad scientist stigma. Do you really want to work at the local clinic making thirty-five grand a year? After spending ten years studying your ass off, I’d think you’d want more from life.”
Rodney hated everything about the clinic. The lack of equipment, resources and medication. Half of the six nurses who rotated shifts should have retired years ago. The receptionist was a gossip. One of the doctors was a drunk, while the other was a tree-hugging liberal who claimed he’d gone into medicine to help people and give back to society, not for the money or prestige of being a doctor.
That was well and fine for the tree-hugger, but not for him. He’d gone into medicine with the lofty notion that he could make a difference in other people’s lives, maybe be the brilliant scientist who found the cure for cancer. Hell, if he found the cure for herpes he’d be lauded as a saint by those stuck with the virus. He’d wanted the prestige and money the tree-hugger hadn’t. He still did. The only way he could salvage his career and his personal life would be to make his drug work. If he didn’t fix Adeline and she ended up institutionalized or, even worse, in prison, he wasn’t sure if he could go on with life. She understood him like no other. He loved her more than himself, even if he hated her for the horrible choices she’d made.
“Of
course I want more,” he said. “But I’m not going to experiment on Gramma.”
“Then I guess you’ll have to find a couple of psychopathic rats to test the drug. That should be easy,” she said with heavy sarcasm and a roll of her eyes. “What’s the difference? Gramma’s pushing eighty. It’s not like she has many more years in her.”
His grandmother might be seventy-eight, but the woman was as spry as a sixty-year-old. “No. I will not even entertain the idea. I doubt Gramma would, either.”
“Why in the hell would we tell her? Look, strap her to a chair, give her some hallucinogenic drugs, then fuck with her head. I have a journal filled with what to say to her while she’s going through the change.”
The change. Adeline’s words chilled him. “A journal you wrote?”
She nodded. “There wasn’t anything else to do while the baby was inside me and you were at work. I certainly wasn’t going to hang out with the old bag of wrinkles all day. So, I started doing a little experimenting of my own.”
“On Gramma?”
“Nope. But, damn, I was tempted.” She moved a little closer. “While you were trying to figure out where your drug had gone wrong, I had the foresight you didn’t. Without a test subject, your drug is useless and your career is dead. Since it’s not like you can run an ad offering money to any psychopath or sociopath willing to be a guinea pig, we would need to be creative.”
He wiped a hand down his face and stared at her. “What did you do?”
She grinned. “I didn’t hurt anyone if that’s what you mean. But I did create a kickass hallucinogen that doesn’t give the user rainbows and sunshine. It’ll give them gray clouds and darkness. It agitates the brain and stimulates emotions, namely the darker ones like hatred, jealousy, aggression. The user doesn’t care about the consequences of their actions or who they hurt.”
“Stop,” he shouted. “Who did you test this on?” Oh, God. She would go to jail and he would, too, if the police found out and thought he was mixing illegal narcotics in his home lab.
“Myself. But I wasn’t a good test subject. After all, I already tend to head to the dark side, and I was six months pregnant.”
“You took drugs during the pregnancy? Christ, our child—”
“Never had a chance anyway. Let’s move on,” she said with a sigh. “I video-taped myself while I was on the drug I like to call A-Line.” Adeline gave him a quick grin. “The thing was, I didn’t have to tape myself. I remembered everything I did. Yes, there were hallucinations, but it was strange how I could control them and make them work for me.”
Rodney had smoked weed back in high school, but had never taken any other drug. He had no personal experience to compare to what Adeline was describing, yet he was intrigued. “Define control.”
The glitter in her eyes should have scared him. He’d seen that same look before and knew what it meant. Adeline had been a bad girl.
“You know how much I hate Gramma, right? Well, this drug amplified my hatred. It made me want to kill her. I know, how is this so different from how I usually feel about Gramma? I can’t explain it, but it was different. The drug showed me the ugly, spiteful, hypocritical bitch she is. I swear, I could see past the granny façade and straight to her cold heart. It was amazing.” She let out a wistful sigh. “As much as I wanted to smash her head against the kitchen sink, then take a knife and split her wide open, I knew I shouldn’t.”
“Shouldn’t or couldn’t.”
“Shouldn’t.”
“Because I’d be angry.”
She laughed. “No. You’d get over it. You always do. I didn’t kill her because it wasn’t the right time. I knew I’d have to be smart if I were going to get away with murder.” She gave him another quick grin. “Again.”
He ignored that last remark. Adeline loved shocking people, and he wouldn’t allow her the satisfaction. “So you think you’ve created a drug that could give the user temporary homicidal impulses, correct?”
“Oh, I know I did. But that’s not all. I think if you continuously give it to a person, and heighten their surroundings with violent videos, music, subliminal messages, it’ll warp them enough that they’ll maintain those homicidal impulses even after the drug is out of their system.”
Rodney folded his arms across his chest. “And you want to do this to Gramma.”
She nodded. “Let me finish. Once the drug is out of their system, we give the psycho we created your drug and, voilà,” she said with the snap of her fingers. “He’ll be back to being a model citizen.”
What Adeline suggested went beyond wrong. No matter how much he wanted to prove that his product had worked, he wouldn’t experiment on his own grandmother.
“The journal I mentioned has the drug facts, along with pages of what I think we could use for subliminal messages.” She took his hands, and forced them from his chest. “Rod, I believe in you. I always have. I know you can prove to the world that your drug works. Let me help you do that.”
“You can help, but I’m not experimenting on people.”
She gave his hands a squeeze. “Okay, so suggesting we use Gramma wasn’t a good idea.”
“It was a terrible one.”
“What about someone who’s homeless?”
Appalled with himself for being remotely intrigued by what Adeline presented, Rodney pushed her away, then bent and picked up the shovel. “This conversation is over.” Gripping the shovel tight, he walked away.
“No one would ever know,” Adeline continued as she followed after him. “We have acres of places to hide a body. That is, if something goes wrong.”
He turned on her. “Listen to yourself. What you’re saying has murder written all over it. I’m trying to stop you from killing, not encourage it.”
“I know all that, silly.” She tapped his chest with the tips of her fingers. “And I wouldn’t let you get involved in anything that could jeopardize your career. If you went to prison, what would I do without you?”
She would become worse and have no one left to care for her. She could take a job and survive, but for how long? And how long would it be before she killed again? When he glanced away, she took his chin in her hand and forced him to look at her. “I love you. You’ve stuck by my side no matter what I’ve done. The choices I’ve made…I can’t take them back. And I’m truly sorry that I’ve burdened you with my secrets. I’m also sorry that my actions don’t show how much you mean to me.”
This was the Adeline he missed and loved. He brushed her long, dark hair away from her face and cupped her head. “I love you, too. But we can’t hurt people.”
“And we might not. We’re both doctors. We can make sure that the person is healthy enough to handle both of our drugs. We’ll watch their reactions and make sure they can’t leave and hurt anyone, or try to hurt themselves.”
She made it sound so simple, yet there were a couple of huge flaws in her plan. “How do you suggest we keep the test subjects from going to the police?”
“We pay them. Just like the sperm donor clinics. We’ll offer a homeless man seventy-five bucks per day, plus food and a bed.”
“And Gramma? This won’t be something we can keep secret from her.”
Adeline wrinkled her forehead. “Yeah, the old lady’s a problem.” She brightened. “We can send her on vacation. Doesn’t she have a sister or cousin living in Arizona?”
“A cousin.” Good God. Was he seriously entertaining Adeline’s idea? If they were caught drugging homeless people, they’d both go to prison. But, if they were successful, he could have Adeline and his career back. They could start fresh. End up working side-by-side developing new drugs to help people. Hell, if his drug was a success, he could help rid the world of violent psychopaths and sociopaths. He could possibly win the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
“See? We can send Gramma to the cousin’s for a month, do our little experiment and not have to worry about her blabbing to her church people.” Adeline looked over his shoulder and frowned. “Her
e comes the old lady now.”
“Are you about done digging?” Gramma called.
Rodney stepped away from Adeline. “I’m finished,” he said, walking toward his grandmother. “I’ll take care of burying her.”
Adeline took his hand in hers. “I’ll help you.” She looked between him and Gramma. “I’m sorry for what I did to her.” Tears trickled down Adeline’s cheeks. “I know that doesn’t mean much now, but I truly am sorry. She deserved better. I think the both of you do, too.” Her face crumpled as she let out a sob and bent her head. “I’m so sorry.”
Adeline shocked him by falling against Gramma. Based on the widening of the old lady’s eyes, Adeline had shocked her, too.
Gramma’s face softened. “We need to get you some help, honey. Let Gramma make it all right,” she said, hugging Adeline close. “You’re sick. I know deep down you didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
“I didn’t,” Adeline sobbed. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”
As Gramma comforted her, Rodney kept his hand in Adeline’s and gave her a gentle squeeze. She looked over Gramma’s shoulder and met his gaze.
Then smiled and winked.
PART II
“I really screwed up this time.”
—Jeffrey Dahmer
Chapter 1
Tallahassee, Florida
Thursday, 3:42 p.m. Eastern Daylight Saving Time
AIR HISSED AS a baseball bat sliced past his head. Cash Maddox knocked the kickstand back, climbed on the Harley Davidson Fat Boy, then shot from the driveway, kicking up gravel in his wake.
“You son of a bitch,” the motorcycle’s former owner shouted. “I’m coming for your ass.”
Cash gave the man the finger when he made the turn onto the main road, where Jude Kendrick waited for him in Cash’s pickup truck. Once Cash rode past the truck, Jude made a quick U-turn and followed behind. When Cash saw his truck in the bike’s mirror, he let out a sigh of relief and decided to enjoy the Fat Boy while he had it in his possession. He used to own one, but couldn’t bring himself to replace the bike he’d lost. Not lost. Not exactly stolen, either. More like bike-napped for a ransom he’d been considering paying. He was damned tired of being alone.
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