Death in the Family

by Tessa Wegert

  And I was. An hour, I could do. Minutes from now this depraved, perverted family would be in my past.

  “You’re new to these parts. I get that,” he said. “But you can’t seriously still think the cavalry’s coming.”

  “What? But you said—”

  “You want them knowing we’re on our own indefinitely? I sure don’t. Call McIntyre, by all means. Tell her what happened. Maybe skip the part about shooting Flynn. But understand, it’s just you and me out here tonight, on an island with one skilled killer—maybe more—who won’t hesitate to slit our throats. They have the numbers.” The trace of alarm in Tim’s eyes belied the steadiness of his voice. “They might hate each other, but who do you think they’ll side with if it comes down to family or the cops? These people are angry and scared. They’ll turn on us in a heartbeat, and as you demonstrated earlier, you’re a lousy shot. We’ve got to have trust, Shane. I have to be able to rely on you a hundred and fifty percent, because you were right, okay? It’s us against them. So tell me why you freaked out back there so we can make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  Us against them. Hearing my own words thrown back at me had a paralyzing, hornet-sting effect. No one was coming. It was just us.

  I’d never seen Tim take a firm stance on anything—the man hated making decisions, would happily defer to someone else on everything from his sandwich order to where to park the car—and here he was making the biggest demand of all. It was the ultimate trust exercise, and I didn’t know if I could do it. Tim would judge me. Who wouldn’t? No amount of compassion can turn off that mean little instinct. It’s inborn, even in guys like Tim, who claim people are fundamentally good. Once he knew the truth, he’d understand how badly I’d failed, and he’d never look at me the same way again.

  “It’ll change things. The way you see me. It won’t be the same.”

  “You don’t know that. Give me a chance.”

  There was another possibility, I thought as I regarded him. Maybe Tim and I didn’t see eye to eye about Jasper because I was looking through a filthy lens. My point of view was tainted by what happened with Bram—but Tim’s wasn’t. Tim was still pure. If I could explain myself, maybe we could help each other. Solve this case together, the way we were supposed to.

  I listened to the angry moan of the wind as it grappled with branches that wouldn’t give in. I took a breath and felt my throat sting in a way that was terribly familiar.

  “A year and a half ago, I was abducted.” The words hung in the air like black smoke with no visible source. Part of me wished they would scare him away, but Tim didn’t move. Behind me in the parlor I heard a hard clink as the mouth of a wine bottle met the rim of a glass. The sound shot up my spine, but I focused on Tim’s eyes and pushed onward.

  “The guy who did it stabbed three women and then came after me,” I said.

  “I should have been his fourth.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I woke up reeking of beer. Ran my hands down my body in search of pain. The room was dark with a seam of light visible under the door. I crawled to it and rattled the handle. Locked.

  Then came Bram. He carried an oil-soaked sack of takeout, set it on the dirty cement floor, and flicked on the light. From his messenger bag he pulled a water bottle that dripped with condensation. My mouth was cotton-dry and tasted vile. I wanted that water so bad I could feel it splash over my tongue and numb my teeth, but one at a time the memories scrambled to the surface. Our banter. The drinks. He’d drugged me. Bram drugged them all.

  “You hungry?” he said, sitting cross-legged on the floor. The smell wafting from the paper bag provoked a gut-twisting reaction in me, a feeling dangerously close to carnal. He knew I’d be starving and had picked the most fragrant dishes he could think of, so the part of my brain wired for survival would compel me to eat. What if he’d drugged the food, too?

  “Don’t be scared, Shay.”

  Without a second’s hesitation, I lunged. Threw my weight into the strike and landed it on his jaw. I’d trained for this, hours upon hours of self-defense and martial arts. No sooner did I feel my knuckles connect than he was on me, his hands tight around my throat.

  “That was uncalled for,” he said as he pulled me down to his level. I hit the floor with a thud and a groan. “Don’t you ever fucking do that again. We know each other, remember?” He knelt beside me, and his finger traced my scar. “Soon we’ll know each other better.” Bram sat back down and cracked his jaw. “Here, look, I’ll start. I love Thai food and long walks in the park. Your turn. Where are you from?”

  The Ninth Precinct, you fucker, and my squad’s going to tear you apart. “Vermont,” I croaked, my throat agonizingly raw. “Swanton.” I searched his face for something recognizable that went beyond our time at the pub. I tried to see past his features, to parse the characteristics he couldn’t easily alter and compare those to the high school boys I’d known back home. Looking at Bram lifted the hair on my neck. I felt it when we met at O’Dwyer’s, and here it was again. No question about it. I knew him.

  “Swanton. What do you know,” he said evenly. “That’s where I’m from, too.”

  Careful, Shay. This was early days, no telling what he’d do. He had issues with women, that was a safe bet. But what, if anything, did those other girls do to set him off? What if I did the same thing? It was dawning on me, what this meant. I’d been taken on a Friday night and wasn’t due back at work until Monday. I didn’t have a boyfriend or a roommate and talked to my folks only once a week. Bram had time enough to act out whatever sick fantasy he had planned. Monday was way too late.

  Keep him talking, I thought frantically.

  Make him forget why he brought you here.

  “You’re from Swanton?” I said it with as much surprise as I could muster. Recalling our conversation at the bar repulsed me. A little attention from an attractive man was all it took for me to let down my guard. I’d been the easiest of targets.

  “You said we know each other. Did we meet at school?” I asked.

  “No.” He smiled a little. “I wasn’t in town for long, but I don’t see how you could forget me.”

  “You moved?”

  “I left.”

  “Oh.” Did I know any runaways from my childhood? The question quickened my pulse.

  “Why did you leave?”

  “I had to. My mother wouldn’t let me stay.”

  It was ludicrous, talking like we were still at the bar swapping stories and smiles, but the detective in me was desperate to figure him out. If I got away, I could weaponize his candor. Prosecute and put the bastard where he belonged. For the time being, my body was free of harm; I had the luxury of skin without lacerations, bruises, pain. When the moment was right, I’d try again. Next time, I’d thrust my thumbs into his eye sockets and press until he crumpled to the ground. One way or another, I’d get out.

  But I wasn’t just a detective anymore; I was a victim—of kidnapping right now, but later maybe something worse. I couldn’t let that side of me take over. One weak moment, one more failed attempt, and I’d be added to his list. Becca. Lanie. Jess.

  Shay.

  “I don’t recognize your name.” Blake Bram. Was it an arbitrary choice? A reference to someone or someplace in town? What?

  Bram chuckled. “That’s okay. I recognized yours.”

  Hours upon hours I’d spent leafing through reports about those three dead women, looking for a pattern I could leverage. They were in their late twenties or early thirties, and all used that dating site, but jobs, leisure activities, the way they looked—those couldn’t be more dissimilar. I’d long since concluded that Blake Bram dropped a lure and took whatever he could reel in. But I was no random selection. A year ago my sergeant put everyone’s names and photos on the precinct website. He thought it would help create a sense of community. I was the only detective in Nine, and Jess was found
on my turf. Bram knew it would be me on the case and what was on my mind when I sat down, wiped and frustrated, at that bar. All he had to do was follow me from the station house, to the park, to the pub. By stopping in there alone, I’d given him the opening he was waiting for.

  “Not school, then,” I said, and his smile stretched wider. Bram was enjoying this game. I had to keep it going. “Were we neighbors?”

  “We were way more than that.”

  A frisson shot up my backbone. In a way, the realization of what he was saying was worse than any I’d had so far. This psycho wasn’t just a random person from my hometown. We had history. Again I scrutinized his face and Bram watched me with amusement as I flipped through decades-old images in my brain. I rarely thought about my high school days, didn’t keep in touch with old friends. After I left for the city, I left Swanton behind.

  When I took too long to speak again Bram said, “I’m hurt. You really don’t remember?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, swallowing a hot gob of bile.

  His expression darkened as he leaned toward me. “That’s too bad, because you’re going to have to figure this out, Shay. Who I am. Why you’re here. Why I did what I did to those girls. It’s the only way to make me stop.”

  I was backed into the corner, nowhere left to go. If Bram killed me, it wouldn’t just be my parents and brother who’d suffer. Bram would hurt others, too. He wanted something from me. Whatever relationship he thought we had, it was the key to everything. There was no guarantee I’d figure it out, but if I did, maybe I could stop him from taking more innocent lives.

  Bram picked up the bottle and rolled it toward me. It wobbled as it crossed the floor, the water inside sloshing like waves, and came to rest by my foot.

  And when it did, I took it.

  TWENTY-SIX

  I gave Tim only what he needed, but I didn’t spare the details. He listened silently while I talked. I swear he was holding his breath.

  After I was found, I saw a video of my abduction. Footage from the security camera mounted behind the bar caught Bram as he dropped the Rohypnol in my beer with expert stealth, his pinkie peeling back quick as a wink while he diverted my attention to the drunk girls nearby. He couldn’t have wished for a better distraction. The bartender swore she’d never seen him in the pub before, or since. Every newspaper in the city splashed his picture on page one, but it was all too easy for Bram to change his look again and melt into the masses.

  I told Tim about Bram’s stories, too. Each time he came to the cellar, Bram brought another memory to share. He didn’t have a white-picket childhood. Didn’t often get new things. As a kid, toys still sealed in plasticized boxes elicited nothing but panic. When he brought home a rare gift from a teacher or a birthday present from a friend, his mother yanked it from his small hands. She’d pry a tire off a Hot Wheels car. Twist an arm off his action figure. As she inflicted these flaws, she told him perfection was dangerous. It was his defects, Bram’s mother said, that would keep him safe.

  He was bullied mercilessly at school, but still preferred it to being at home, where Mom—crippled by an anxiety disorder and left to raise two kids alone—cut Bram’s hair with a paring knife and forbade him from brushing his teeth. Once, he got up the courage to go looking for his estranged father at the manufacturing company where he worked, only to be told his dad had quit and left town. Bram dragged his cousin along on that adventure, and when he got home again his mother hit him with a jug of expired milk. For eight days I was Bram’s captive and his confidante. I hoarded those glimpses into his past and prayed I’d live long enough to use them against him.

  “I read about that case,” Tim said, his voice flat as farmland. “It made the news here. Everywhere, I guess.”

  “The NYPD petitioned to keep me anonymous. The articles never used my name.”

  “Did he . . . hurt you?”

  I shook my head. “Not like you think.”

  His eyes traveled to my scar.

  “No,” I said. “That was something else. A long time ago.”

  I saw the bewilderment in Tim’s face and knew what he was thinking. Eight days was a long time. Bram killed those other girls within hours of taking them. Why didn’t he do the same to me? Mercifully he didn’t ask. Instead, he said, “I remember a cop found you. That’s how you got out?”

  I nodded. “A rookie who shouldn’t have been there. One day a tenant wandered downstairs looking for Bram to help her unclog a sink—Bram worked in the building, that’s how he had access to the cellar. She heard him talking to me, and between his new hair color and his evasiveness, she got suspicious and grabbed the first cop she could find on the street. Jay Lopez was his name. His partner was getting them coffees. Lopez went into the basement alone.

  “I’m sure he didn’t expect to find anything down there. Must have been the shock of his life to round the corner and see Bram closing the door on a stunned, unwashed woman crouching on the floor. Lopez tried to draw his weapon, but Bram was faster. He took the guy down. There was a struggle. Then I heard the shots.”

  Tim swallowed, and I went on. “Lopez took two bullets to the stomach at close range from his own Glock 17. He had a wife and three kids at home, was up for a promotion. He shouldn’t have been down there, but he was. Because of me.”

  Tim’s anger surprised me. “You didn’t ask to be taken. Nothing about this is your fault.”

  “There’s a lot of stuff those news stories left out, Tim. Like that after Bram shot Lopez and made sure he was dead, right before he realized he was screwed and had no choice but to leave me, he came back into my cell. Like the fact that I held his bloody hands in mine.”

  “What?”

  “He put the gun down right next to me.” I splayed the fingers of my good hand and swiped at the air. “It was right there.”

  “You were traumatized, out of your mind. I’m sure—”

  “I could have ended it. That man killed three women and a cop. I could have restrained him, and I didn’t.” I felt queasy, but I needed to finish. Get it all out. “Stockholm syndrome. Terror-bonding. Whatever you want to call it, that was the diagnosis.” God, how I hated those terms. They were go-tos for the press, just what the reporters who covered my story needed to romanticize my trauma and turn nightmares into content that sells online ads. “He could have killed me, but day after day he let me live. I guess some part of me was grateful for that.

  “At first, it was just about staying on his good side,” I said. “He could have easily left me there to starve. I depended on him to keep me alive, so I had to behave. But I also kept track of the hours and looked for patterns in his behavior and actions—anything I could use to my advantage when the time was right. Sometimes he showed up sweaty and smelling like synthetic lemons. I figured out Bram was the building’s janitor, and that he only worked part-time. He had less patience for me on the days he smelled, and I learned to be cautious when he jangled with keys. I’m sure he knew I was reading him. Once he asked if I was enjoying myself, trying to get inside his head. I told him I monitored his moods because I wanted him to be happy. I oozed obedience. Out in the world my precinct was killing themselves trying to find me, but I wasn’t holding my breath. There was the bartender’s eyewitness account and video footage of Bram, but nobody had his real name. He paid with cash the night he took me, and without a criminal record, his picture wasn’t in the database. If I wanted to live, I couldn’t count on anyone but myself.

  “After a while I stopped thinking of Bram as the killer we were looking for. We were both from the same town. There was no defense for what he did. But my emotions took over, and not a day goes by that I don’t hate myself for that. The bottom line is I let him go. And someone else is going to die because of it.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “No, Tim, I do. Bram had his reasons for what he did to those women, and for taking me. He wanted
something from me that he didn’t get.”

  “But, Shana—”

  “I made a choice. I wasn’t in my right mind, but I made it all the same.” I laughed a little. “You aren’t the first person to say this isn’t my fault. When the diagnosis came in, the NYPD absolved me of responsibility. There was no investigation into my conduct in that basement, but I resigned from the force anyway. I shouldn’t be here, Tim. This is the last place I should be.”

  We both fell silent. There it is. Take it. I’m done.

  He searched my eyes. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

  “McIntyre’s the only one who does.” I thought of all the conversations I’d had with her over the past few months, including our talk that day. “She’s been pushing me to tell you. She’s convinced that would make a difference somehow.” I paused. “I took a psych screening when I applied for this job. I want you to know that.”

  “I’m sure Mac just wanted to make sure you were okay to work.”

  “I didn’t do it for her. There’s a standard protocol for PTSD. It’s minimal—a debriefing, a mental health screening, and you’re done. I kept up with therapy way longer than I needed to. Technically, I was cleared to go back to work months ago. I wanted to take the test. Mac said it wasn’t necessary, but I insisted. I wanted to make sure. But I worry that deep down she’s still scared I’m going to lose it. I’m scared of that possibility, too. I have no business being here right now. What you saw before?” I said. “That was the memories rearing up. The fear. How do I know I’ll be able to tell the good guys from the bad? You saw what I did to Flynn. What if I hurt an innocent person because for a split second I look at them and see Bram? When flashbacks happen, I react. I don’t know if I can control it.”

  “What happened doesn’t erase who you are. You’ve got years of experience and instinct and skills to protect you. But if you thought you might lose it, why didn’t you tell me?”