by Hadena James
Something in what she said had made him snap. She had said, “I wish I had her determination.”
In that moment, he had pictured her as Grace and the words leaving Grace’s lips. There was no way Grace could grow up like that. He had lost it and he had killed Gentry as a result. The moment she was in the tree, he knew he had to go forward with his plan. She’d tell everyone and he’d be arrested earlier than he planned. So he killed her as he had all the others, but he hadn’t savored it. He’d come home and checked on Grace and cried.
His eyes flashed over his son’s picture. The women in their lives had broken them. Beaten them down into nothingness and then left them broken wrecks of their former selves. He blamed himself for this. He had let his son grow up with that monster he called his wife. He’d let Henry Junior get involved with the whore from the wrong side of town who shattered his heart while he was away fighting for her.
Now, he would finish what his son had started. But not today. He’d need another day of rest before he could use his arm properly. He’d need another day before he could move without groaning. He cleaned up his mess and put it in a HAZMAT bag. He put the HAZMAT bag in a black garbage bag and took it outside to the trash can.
The kitchen was brightly lit with track lighting recessed into the ceiling. All stainless steel appliances of the highest quality furnished the inside. Marble counter tops and marble tiles completed the ensemble. It was a complete waste of money. His wife could burn mac and cheese. She was many things, but a cook wasn’t one of them.
It took a while, but he finally got breakfast cooked and eaten. He set the dishes in the sink, realized he’d be yelled at for it later and moved them to the dishwasher.
He considered going back into his office, but there was nothing there except memories. Memories he didn’t need at the moment. He shambled back upstairs to his bedroom.
The room was dark and not just because the lights were off. The curtains were heavy drapes with thick backing that blocked out most of the light. The walls were covered in a dark paneled wood. The floor carpet was darker brown, almost black. It smelled of musk and cigar smoke. The musk was his aftershave. The cigar smoke was on his coats that hung up here because his wife refused to let them hang with hers in the hall closet downstairs.
He climbed into bed and closed his eyes. US Marshal Aislinn Cain jumped out at him from behind the closet door and screamed “boo!” He woke covered in sweat and fumbled for the lights. He’d never had nightmares before, not even as a child, but this one definitely qualified as a nightmare. The light illuminated the room and provided no sign of the Marshal. He slumped against his pillow. They were close. He popped a Percocet and decided that pain or not, his wife had to die tonight. He’d send Grace to stay with a friend for her own protection from his pneumonia. He texted both his wife and Grace.
The reply from his wife said “fine. am eating dinner with friend. make soup for urself.”
He thought about that. A loving wife would come home and make soup for him. His made him make it for himself when he had pneumonia. He wondered which of her chums from the FBI she’d be with tonight. Would it be Agent Arons? Or someone else? He suspected Arons and his wife were having an affair but he couldn’t prove it. Maybe he could catch them together tonight.
That thought put a smile on his face. His wife was a forensic accountant during the day and his own personal overlord at night. That’s why she kept the books at his office. To make sure he didn’t have any money. It was one more way to control him.
He napped for a while. When he woke, it was nearly quitting time at the FBI offices. He got up, got dressed, grabbed a Taser and a couple of syringes filled with triazolam and headed downtown. If he was lucky, he’d miss the heaviest traffic.
He arrived just in time to see his wife’s car pull out of the garage. Another car pulled out behind it. He wondered whose it was and decided to follow both.
The cars pulled into Agent Arons garage. Slowly, the doors snaked closed, they would help conceal his crime. Henry parked down the street some ways. Here was his proof and his chance to exact revenge. He sat in the car and smoked a cigar. He should have brought a gun. That would have been better, but he felt fully enraged by Agent Arons being with his wife. They knew each other. Arons was always so chummy at the morgue when he needed his help. Now Arons was inside, fucking Henry’s wife.
Henry grabbed one of the halogen lights from the back of the SUV and crept up to the house. He rang the bell. Fred Arons answered the door with a look of shock and surprise on his face. He was shirtless, shoeless and covered in oil. Henry’s bitch wife was giving him a massage while she thought he was home with pneumonia fixing his own fucking soup. Henry tasered Arons and watched the body slump to the ground. He hit the button again and again and again.
His wife came around the corner wearing a skimpy piece of lingerie. Henry swung the light with the one good arm and caught her in the face. She fell into a heap on the ground.
The Taser made noise again as it zapped Arons. Arons was now drooling uncontrollably and he’d pissed himself. Henry hit the button again and the smell of Arons bowels opening hit him. He didn’t gag, he was used to it. He hit the button again and again and again. Finally, Arons stopped moving. His chest didn’t rise or fall. Burn marks at least an inch wide radiated over his chest where the prongs were stuck.
Henry moved to his wife and injected her with the hypodermic full of triazolam. As his wife struggled not to fall asleep, Henry went out to his car and got a large box and a dolly. She was out when he returned, he muscled her into the box with as little noise as he could manage. At least he managed not to scream as his arm protested against the usage. When she was safely tucked away, he took and slid the dolly under her and left the house, making sure to hit all he bumps along the way to the car.
A neighbor looked out at him. He waved and continued on. The curtain closed. At the SUV he had some trouble maneuvering the box into the SUV hatch space, but another neighbor, who knew him, helped. They talked for a moment, Henry explaining that he was picking up some used stuff for a charity drive. The box was heavier than Fred had said it would be. As proof, he even produced a key to Fred’s house. He gave it to the neighbor and said when Fred came home to give it to him. The neighbor agreed.
Dr. Henry Erickson knew that it was just a matter of time now, the Marshals might not be knocking down his door yet, but they were close. This would be his last victim, but at least he had got her.
Twenty-One
“We have another problem,” Gabriel announced as we stood clustered in the Marshal’s conference room. The lights were out and floor lamps had been brought in at Xavier’s insistence.
“A few hours ago, the FBI notified us that one of their employees had gone missing. Dr. Ericson reported to them that his wife, Hilary, who is a forensic accountant, had not come home. He currently has pneumonia and is laid up. However, when he woke up around two in the morning, his wife had not returned home. He tried to call her phone and got no answer. She was last seen talking to Special Agent Fred Arons who is also not answering his phone. Someone has been to his house and he and his car are missing,” Gabriel continued. “We have units canvassing the neighborhood for any witnesses, but so far, they haven’t come up with anything. No one saw him leave this morning or come home. Now we know that both were at work until five last night, but their whereabouts after that are unknown.”
“Do we think this could be another double?” Lucas asked.
“We don’t think anything at the moment. There is some indication that Arons and Hilary Ericson might have been having an affair,” Gabriel said. “If that’s the case, we are hoping to find them asleep in a motel room and they’ll have to sort that out themselves. We will be coordinating all the search efforts, but the FBI and the Marshals will be lending us agents. I’m going to sort them out and then figure out where to stick you guys. You aren’t exactly
good at playing with others.”
Gabriel left the room.
“I’m almost offended by that,” Xavier said. “It’s hard to play well with others, when everyone is out to kill you.”
“Some indication? Wonder what they have that says the two of them are having an affair?” I picked up a photo from a file on the table, ignoring Xavier. I wasn’t sure if he was really talking about all of us or just me. “Is it me or does Hilary have blue eyes?”
“She does,” Lucas said.
“Dr. Ericson showed me a picture of his daughter, she has brown eyes,” I said.
“How do you remember that?” Michael asked.
“Never know when eye color is going to be important,” I responded.
“Maybe she’s adopted,” Xavier said.
“She looks like her mother,” I said. “Remember?”
“Dr. Ericson even said she looked like her mother,” Xavier said.
“What are you two getting at?” Michael asked.
“Two blue eyed parents cannot have a brown eyed child,” Xavier said. “It is genetically impossible. Blue eyes are a recessive gene. Brown eyes are a dominant gene. If one of them had brown eyes or hazel eyes, she could have brown, but they don’t. So she isn’t Dr. Ericson’s child, even if she is Hilary
