Repressed Read online

  “Don’t miss your appointment. And keep your mouth shut.”

  Petrosky was staring at him, keys in hand, car still in park. Morrison looked frantically around the lot, but there was no one, only the silvery threads of rain on the window and the thunderheads obscuring his view of the sun. How did they know he was leaving? Petrosky was staring at him but he couldn’t speak, couldn’t answer the question written in the lines on Petrosky’s forehead.

  Breathe. He felt the rain as if it were thrumming through his veins. Breathe. But he was drowning in the downpour, every drop that hit the windshield trying to wash away his family and send everything that mattered out to sea. He typed:

  “I need to talk to her.”

  The phone buzzed:

  “No.”

  Nothing else, no instructions, no ransom demands, nothing. Just “no”: the severing of hope.

  They had her. She was dead. Evie was dead. They were dead already.

  Morrison:

  “Please.”

  Shannon:

  “You’ll do what you’re told or I’ll take it out on her. I’ll save your baby girl for when you get here, if she doesn’t starve to death first. Be the same selfish asshole you’ve always been and I’ll take pleasure in watching them bleed.”

  Evie. Starving. They weren’t feeding her? Panic and fury and helplessness roiled in his abdomen.

  Morrison:

  “Please don’t hurt them.”

  Shannon:

  “Fuck off, Curt. Let me know when Roger’s taken care of, then you can talk to your lovely wife. I’ll call tomorrow night for a progress report.”

  Morrison:

  “Give me time. Please let them go and I’ll help you with whatever you want.”

  He stared at the phone, waiting for another reply, another answer, but none came. How’d they know he had decided to skip McCallum’s to head to Toledo? He had texted Decantor but … they must have tapped Morrison’s phone. Or bugged the car.

  Petrosky was frozen, keys in his palm. “What’s up?”

  Keep your mouth shut. Morrison felt the weight of the phone in his palm. “Nothing.” But he rested his cell on the console and turned it so Petrosky could see.

  “You’re a fucking liar.” But there was no anger in Petrosky’s voice as he read the texts, just the whisper of helpless apology and a panic that mirrored Morrison’s own.

  “We should go see McCallum.” Morrison’s voice wavered. They wanted him here, so this was the last place he should be. Yet without any idea where Shannon and Evie were, he was helpless to get to them. He needed time. Needed to buy that time by doing what these fuckers wanted … but killing Roger? He pictured Natalie Bell, her smile when she played with Evie, then later, nude, bloody, disfigured by something sharp, the same object used to kill Acosta. They’d done that to her. They’d do that to his wife. To his child.

  Everything vibrated, and Morrison flung the door wide and vomited bile onto the pavement. When his stomach was empty he hauled himself onto the seat again and leaned back against the headrest. They took my family. Shannon might be dying, carved up like Acosta, like Bell. Evie might be—

  “Buy that tiger for Evie yet?” Petrosky snapped, the harshness in his voice betraying his fear. “She’ll be happy to see it when they get back.”

  Morrison balked, but when he met Petrosky’s eyes, he saw the earnest question. Tiger. Tiger. Then it clicked. Tiger kidnapping: an abduction carried out to coerce another into committing a crime on the kidnapper’s behalf. While putting Roger away wasn’t illegal, killing him most certainly would be and there was no way Roger was going down for anything as long as he had a breath in his body.

  Morrison’s breath shivered through his lungs. “Yeah, she’ll like the tiger.”

  “Shouldn’t take too long here with the doc. Ten to thirteen minutes? What do you think?”

  McCallum liked to talk—they’d never been there less than half an hour. Focus. Think. The way Petrosky was talking now he seemed to think his car was bugged. So … ten-thirteen, that meant civilians were present and listening. Were they, or was it a ruse? Their suspect had been aware how they’d spent the morning, and they’d known Morrison was planning on canceling the appointment with McCallum even before McCallum did. Morrison nodded again, trying to think, but every thought seemed to run through his brain like sand through a sieve.

  His baby.

  His wife.

  These monsters had his whole world.

  Petrosky pulled out his cigarettes, glared into the rearview, mouthed fuck, and lit up.

  Morrison wiped his lips on the back of his hand, inhaled through his nose, and climbed from the car on shaky legs. He started for the building, the echo of someone else’s footfalls in his ears though each thunk matched the beat of his own shoes—marching to his own execution. Maybe he was. If he lost his family, he might as well be dead.

  “The boundaries which divide Life from Death

  are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say

  where the one ends, and where the other begins?”

  ~Edgar Allan Poe, The Premature Burial

  22

  Find Bell’s killer. Acosta’s killer. Find their killer, and he’d find his family.

  This was how you solved cases, caught the bad guys. But every fiber of his being wanted him to tear out of the building, leap into his car, head to Toledo and blast through the streets, gun drawn, until he found his wife and baby girl. Here he was impotent, helpless, and he was well aware of the fact that most kids are murdered within three hours of the abduction. Was Evie dead already? Was Shannon? Even if he got them back, they’d know—for the rest of their lives—that he couldn’t keep them safe.

  He’d known safety was tenuous at best—even an illusion. But he hadn’t wanted Evie to know.

  Please let them come home.

  Dr. Stephen McCallum met them in the outer office. He led them to the back room where he squeezed his three hundred pounds of shrink and sweater vests behind the desk, and watched them with the penetrating eyes of one used to uncovering secrets. Morrison’s already turbulent belly squeezed like a sponge, forcing bile up his esophagus so that he had to gulp it back down. His throat burned from the acid he’d vomited onto the parking lot.

  Petrosky nodded at him, almost imperceptibly. Act normal. Do the job. Work this case.

  But he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t breathe. If McCallum figured out what was going on and alerted anyone, Shannon would die. Right? And Evie … he couldn’t even consider it. No. He inhaled harsh, stale office air through his nostrils and tried not to retch again.

  Petrosky cleared his throat. “Let’s get right into it. Looking for two attackers.”

  “I read the reports,” McCallum said. “You have one definite rapist, a pedophile with a distinct pattern: from his previous attack on Zachary Reynolds, he rapes, he strangles, he leaves. That attack was carried out alone. Here, he followed the same pattern: rape, strangulation with the T-shirt, and leaving the boy alive. But you have another man at the Acosta scene—most likely the one who killed the child. If Acosta had died of strangulation, I’d say it was an accident, or escalation of your pedophile’s normal MO. But you have a totally different pattern here.” McCallum tapped a pen against the desktop and Morrison struggled to remember the doctor picking up the ballpoint. “Combined with the indications of struggle at the scene, I’d say your murderer is the other man, the one with the spiked boots and a penchant for stomping or stabbing, though how or why he was there is another question.”

  Petrosky had the notepad. When had he taken the notepad? Suddenly unsure what to do with his hands, Morrison dug his fists into the chair on either side of his hips.

  “We thought as much,” Petrosky said. “And now we have an additional killing: Natalie Bell, twenty-nine, stabbed in the lower belly and groin, penetrated vaginally with the same object. Bled to death. The weapon was distinct—likely of the same batch of metal as the one used on Acosta. Might even be homema
de.” Petrosky’s voice did not waver. How could he sound so normal? Nothing was normal. Nothing would ever be normal again.

  McCallum furrowed his brows. “I suspect you have one standard pedophile, and one with piquerism, a fetish that involves penetration. They tend to be sexually sadistic, brutal, and often stab areas of the body related to sex, like what happened to Natalie Bell. In these cases, the stabbing object essentially becomes an extension of his body and the source of sexual excitement. Many notorious serial killers like Albert Fish and Jack the Ripper are thought to have had piqueristic tendencies.”

  Jack the Ripper. Shit. His lungs were too small. Morrison sucked in a ragged breath, trying not to imagine what it had been like for Acosta as the air left him, trying not to think that his baby girl was wheezing her last, face down in the dirt somewhere.

  McCallum’s eyes swung to Morrison’s. “You okay, son?”

  “He’s fine. Bad sushi.” Petrosky’s leg bounced a steady rhythm, but his knuckles were white around his knee—the only indication that something was amiss, different, horrible.

  McCallum cleared his throat and glanced at the file. Nodded as if this wasn’t the worst fucking thing he’d ever seen, as if Shannon and Evie were just hanging out at home. “Your murder suspect went after Bell right away. The scuffle with the other suspect at the Acosta scene might have dampened the excitement of the killing itself, leading your murderer to attack soon afterwards to release that frustrated energy.”

  “Our pedophile is sick too—has some creepy clown tattoos. Sadistic stuff even if he wasn’t the one who killed Acosta.”

  McCallum nodded knowingly.

  Petrosky scribbled a note on the pad. “We might have a woman present as well, or someone with a higher voice. Could be using something to alter their voices though.”

  A woman. A woman who hated Roger. But there had been no trace of a woman anywhere at either crime scene … where did she fit into all this? Morrison’s stomach lurched, but McCallum was already answering: “It’s also possible that either of your suspects is effeminate. If this is the case, he’s likely triggered by any challenges to his masculinity—maybe afraid of women if he believes they’ll reject him—and that may beget rage. If it’s your piquerist, he might be expressing his masculinity through the stabbing. Enough sexual rejection for being effeminate and he might have begun to enjoy punishing those who reject him; he might even enjoy it more than penetrating them with his penis.” McCallum leaned toward them. “He’s clearly still angry. He wants to punish someone for perceived slights and rejections.”

  Morrison could hear the words, but was having trouble sorting them—as if each sentence crumbled apart as it hit his ear, rearranging itself like the nonsensical ramblings of a schizophrenic. Focus. Who had Shannon? The killer who had gone after Bell, stolen Bell’s phone? As McCallum said, their suspects had widely different patterns—and this was definitely more in line with that of the killer. But what if both killer and pedophile were a part of this? Maybe they’d rape Shannon too. They’d rape her and rape Evie. Maybe they’d even taken Shannon for the killer and Evie for the pedophile and his whole fucking world was already gone.

  Petrosky wrote something on the notepad, but his scrawl was unreadable or maybe it was just Morrison’s eyes—everything seemed blurry and unfocused, even Petrosky’s hand.

  “Individuals with this fetish tend to have a type, just like other rapists. Do you have other female victims, or just Bell?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  “What’s her type, physically? Small? Vulnerable?”

  Morrison nodded, picturing Natalie Bell: her hand had been tiny in his own and the tension in her eyes could be perceived as vulnerability. She’d worn clothes that could probably have fit a fifteen-year-old. Was she chosen because she looked like a kid? If so, Shannon wouldn’t do it for this guy. She was thin, but no one would mistake the gleam in her eyes for that of a child.

  “You mentioned our suspect having to kill again to release energy.” Petrosky shifted in the chair. “This guy—our stabby bastard, the killer—must have watched his buddy rape the kid. Why would he watch if he’s only in it for the stabbing?”

  “He might have gotten excited and surprised them both by killing the child. I’m more concerned that he was watching because they’re feeding off one another. Your pedophile got off on the voyeuristic elements of being watched and your killer enjoyed the pain of the child so much he couldn’t restrain himself. Or your killer might be … learning, especially if he has a strong history of rejection and emotional shutdown.”

  Rejection. Had the killer been slighted by Roger specifically? Maybe he’d been pushed aside by a woman who preferred the affections of Shannon’s ex over some maniac.

  “Your killer might be thinking, watching, considering why people are attracted to his friend. Trying to figure out how to attract meaningful others and avoid rejection, or how to lure them in, specifically to cause pain.” He shrugged. “It’s just a theory, mind you, but an interesting one.”

  Interesting, his ass. Was McCallum some kind of psycho? How could he not see that the world was collapsing around them? Because we didn’t tell him.

  Morrison was wasting time. But he had to listen. Work the case. Ask something. Shannon wasn’t a target for pedophiles or an opportunistic abduction. She’d had been taken because … why the fuck did they take her? All the caller had demanded was Roger’s suffering—retribution.

  But Roger wouldn’t get that close to another guy—Shannon had said Roger kept his friends at arm’s length. It had to be someone Roger knew intimately. Forget McCallum—they weren’t looking for an effeminate man unless he’d tucked his dick back and tricked Roger too. And transsexuals were almost never perpetrators in sex crime cases—victims, yes, perpetrators, no.

  Morrison cleared his throat. “If there is a woman involved … what would we be looking for?”

  Petrosky was staring at him. McCallum was staring at him. Morrison dropped his eyes to his knuckles.

  “Opportunity is the biggest precursor to abuse. Women often have an easier time gaining access to kids, and it is common to see female pedophiles in positions of power over children. Teachers, babysitters, nannies, and the like. But your crimes don’t fit what we typically see in those cases.”

  Teachers. Someone at Acosta’s school? Morrison’d had a whole bunch of babysitters and nannies cycling through his own house in the last month, but that didn’t mesh. If a sitter was seeking an opportunity, she’d have waited until she was hired and alone with Evie. She’d have waited until—

  “Obviously a profile is tricky because you have more than one suspect; you may have a mastermind and one along for the ride. But one of them is cunning. They staked out the playground beforehand so they would know exactly where to take the child to avoid being seen from the school itself.” McCallum cleared his throat. “Now, I didn’t see much evidence that Acosta was singled out ahead of time, but the number one scored into Acosta’s skin, carved along his rib cage—it feels intimate. If he’d been chosen earlier, you’d expect grooming for weeks or months: gifts, kindnesses.”

  Acosta’s parents and friends had denied any such attention being paid to the child and it hadn’t been present in the Reynolds case either.

  “The T-shirt could indicate a need for silence, a fear of being caught, or perhaps even not wanting to hurt the boy, maybe letting him sleep through the attack itself if your pedophile convinced himself that he loved the child, as many do. He might even see it as part of the romance.”

  “Romance?” The word was out of Morrison’s mouth before he could stop it and more words kept tumbling, louder and faster. “It’s fucking rape, not dinner and a goddamn movie.”

  McCallum’s eyes widened and he stilled, though his training was probably preventing him from expressing much surprise at the outburst. More than that—he was fucking calm. They all were.

  They were liars.

  “Some see it as seduction,” McCallum began, h
is voice slow and even as if talking to a rabid dog he feared might bite. “You know that. Some believe they’re in love. Some convince themselves of this because they don’t want to accept the guilt that they did something horribly, atrociously wrong.”

  “What the hell kind of delusional—”

  Petrosky stiffened too. “Easy, Morrison. We’re dealing with tigers.”

  Tigers. Morrison’s shirt had adhered to his back with sweat. The woman on the phone had told him … he’d remember her. That he’d know where to find her. Was she going to tell him where his family was if he did as she asked and locked Roger up—or killed him? He’d trade Roger’s life for the safety of his family in a heartbeat.

  McCallum was watching him, fingers laced on the desk, eyebrow cocked. Waiting. Or … examining. Morrison wiped away the sweat beading on his forehead. He had to go. Had to leave. Every muscle screamed with the need to act, to save the people he loved.

  But there was nowhere to go. Not yet. The killer had texted him about going to this meeting.

  How could he just sit here?

  Did he have any other choice?

  “Delusional might not be far off,” McCallum said, and Morrison scoured his brain trying to recall what question the doctor was responding to. “Some even manage to convince themselves that everyone has these same fantasies, though at first most are genuinely upset that they are sexually attracted to children. Of course with the advent of online communities and chatrooms, camaraderie spreads and eventually it becomes normalized, acceptable, even just within the group. And that in and of itself can trigger escalation.”

  Escalation. Murder was sometimes intentional, sometimes accidental, he knew that much. But Shannon and Evie’s kidnapping was purposeful—premeditated. Stealing a cop’s kid and his prosecutor wife meant you knew what you were doing—had to if you thought you were going to get away with it. Right? And killing Acosta … was that purposeful too, or was it a fetish that got out of control? A tornado waged war inside his brain, tearing snippets of thought from their foundations and mixing them up until all he could make out were disjointed words as they were carried away on the wind.