14

Thirty-Nine

Nashville, Tennessee Monday, December 22 11:58 p.m.

“Father?”

Snow White was asleep in the chair in his expansive library. Charlotte looked at him, his body bent, the misshapen hands, and felt nothing. No pity, no sorrow for the pain he obviously suffered. It was fitting, actually, that a man who had been the source of such agony and misery, who had tortured the life out of ten young women, should be afflicted with a disease that crippled his tools of destruction.

She had that feeling again, fleeting as it may be. She’d always wondered what it would feel like to empty the soul from a body. When it came down to it, she didn’t have the power, wasn’t able to consummate the burning desire she felt. So she fed on others who could.

Which was the course that led her to her father’s apprentice. Where better to satisfy her lust than in the behavioral unit of the FBI? She was fed a steady diet of murder, of psychologically misfortunate beings who felt that same pull. She could study them, get to know them, and in some special cases, work with them on a more literal level.

She’d never done that with her dad. After her mother died giving birth to Joshua, she’d been in charge of the house. When she’d walked in on him murdering Ava D’Angelo, the second of his victims, she’d calmly shut the door and gone to the kitchen to oversee the dinner preparations.

He sought her out, later. He talked to her, discussed the murder with her. It was an experiment, he said. “Like the experiment I did on Joshua’s guinea pig?” she had asked. He’d seen it then, that he’d passed along the emptiness of soul that accompanies the desire to take life. Funny, she remembered the very moment when he kissed her forehead and entreated her to keep his secret. He was proud of her. As she was of him.

That was the last they discussed his extracurricular activities. She’d gone away to school, then went on to college, got her Ph. D., and joined the FBI. He was forced to stop killing by the advancement of the arthritis. They were both complete, yet empty.

Then Troy had come into their lives.

It had taken her weeks to write the special program, to upload it into the CODIS database. It was a brilliant deception, a Trojan horse that took the information inputted by the various law enforcement officials across the country and filtered the results. She’d built the program to warn her of possible anomalies in DNA matches before they made it into the official system. This gave her the freedom to examine the kills, then pass them along unscathed to the official database, keeping back the murders she was most interested in. To be honest, she was astonished the program had failed. The IT support at Quantico must have rolled out an update that kicked her Trojan out of the system. That’s why the DNA matches suddenly poured in. Her system wasn’t flawless, after all. That could, would be fixed.

She’d found Troy through a Web site designed for killers to talk freely about their escapades, had alerted her perverted CODIS program to his particulars. The sites were filled with poseurs and fakes, like wannabe vampires who had their teeth filed into fangs and drank the blood of their friends but weren’t really ever going to be burned to ash by sunlight. That was the kind of miscreant that usually populated these sites, the fantasy seekers. Fallacious seers and the unintended Apocrypha, murderous sycophants. After a few false alarms, she’d learned to spot the real ones.

Once she’d found Troy, she couldn’t help herself. She’d known it was a bad idea from the beginning, but was compelled. Obsessed. She wanted to lay eyes on the man who was already such an accomplished, sophisticated killer. She knew he was the one she’d been waiting for.

Troy was difficult at the start. He made no excuses, played no tricks. Except his name, of course. He refused to share his real name with her. It was nearly a deal breaker, but he was just so talented, she decided to let it slide. Feeling a bit like she’d been conquered, she christened him Troy.

Charlotte started to gather the remnants of her father’s tea and medications when the phone rang, surprising her. The tea tray clattered to the floor; her father jerked awake with a groan.

She answered the phone, then gave it wordlessly to Snow White. The caller spoke loudly; it wasn’t hard to overhear. Picking up the tubes and jars, the teapot and sugar, she listened.

The call was brief. Her father didn’t bother to say a word. When he handed the phone back to her, he almost look ashamed. That’s when she realized he was scared.

“Who was that?”

“An old friend. Where is Troy?”

“I believe he is teasing the girl.”

Teasing, that’s what Troy liked to call it. Unlike his mentor, he enjoyed conversing with his victims beforehand, getting to know them a bit. Instilling a tiny fragment of hope into their beings that they might, might, get away with their lives.

“Get him out of there, Charlotte. We must release her.”

“Are you kidding? That’s like taking a gazelle out of a lion’s jaws. He’s already sunk his teeth into her juicy little neck. I can’t just let her go. He’s decided on her.”

Snow White struggled up from his chair, stiff and slow. He shuffled to the wet bar, poured a measure of whiskey into a lead crystal highball. His hands shook now; he spilled as much as he got in the glass.

“That was Malik. He is convinced the police are on to us.”

“Us? You and Joshua?”

“You and Troy, too. I told you he was more trouble than he was worth.”

Charlotte tossed her hair over her shoulder in disdain. “Please. You’ve loved him like a son.”

“And now he must go. Malik is furious at the transgression. Troy is out of my control, Charlotte. He is out of your control. He must be excised.”

“Who is out of control?” a voice boomed from the doorway. Troy came into the room and poured himself a drink. Charlotte and Snow White froze. What had he overheard?

“You are.” Charlotte advanced on him, purring. She could distract him, that was certain. Her father’s commands were buzzing through her mind. She wasn’t ready to give this up. She was having fun.

“I’m not out of control at all. I’m just getting started. What do you think, old man? We’ve waited long enough. I need her. Let us climb the stairs together, now, and I will hold my hand over yours on the knife, and fuck her with my dick while you stroke her face and watch the light leave her eyes.”

“No!” Snow White slammed his drink down on the table. “You must let her go. We’ve been over this already. We will find you another. We can go right now, we can take two, three. Whatever you wish. But the girl must go home. The police are too close. I’ve received a warning from an old friend who would know. Release her.”

Troy started pacing through the library. “You can’t dictate to me, old man. Maybe I’ve already killed her. Maybe I’ve been lying to you all along.”

“You haven’t. I would smell her blood on your hands.” He softened his harsh tone, tried to make the boy see reason. “You must understand, sometimes this is what has to happen. Not every hunter gets his buck each time out in the woods. We will find more. That is all.”

Snow White collapsed in his chair, his energy exhausted.

“You can’t stop me.” Troy turned to Charlotte, his fury palpable, barely contained. “I’m going to take her now. She is mine.”

She grabbed his arm. “Troy. You need to see reason here. You’ve gotten us in a lot of trouble. Maybe it’s time for you to listen instead of act. Aren’t you having fun? Aren’t we giving you everything you ever desired? Aren’t we a family? I brought you into our lives because I knew you wanted a chance to grow, to learn. We’ve given you that, and more. We’ve given you love.”

Troy wasn’t going to take that. Charlotte could see the slow burn flame into a raging inferno. He was dangerous when that fuse was lit, and she consciously took three steps back. He noticed her retreat, and that infuriated him all the more.

“What, now you’re leaving me, too? What is this, Charlotte, some kind of game? Get me involved only to pull the rug out from under me?”

“No, Troy, that’s not it.”

“Liar!” he screamed, and slapped her. Her head rang with the blow. This was getting out of hand. Her service weapon was in her purse, but it was on the other side of the room.

“How dare you hit me? When all I’ve done is help you. You bastard!”

“Stop it now, both of you.”

The commanding tone was enough to startle them both. They continued circling each other, warily testing for weaknesses, but the tension came down a notch.

Snow White slowly, painfully lit a cigar. “Let’s all just sit down and talk this through. I’m sure we can find an equitable solution.”

“No, old man. That isn’t how this works. I will not be directed. I don’t want to star in your sad little play. I don’t need you. I don’t need either one of you.” He stormed from the room, leaving Snow White to gaze at his daughter, his face etched in a combination of love and abhorrence for her.

“Your plan will fail, Charlotte.” He rubbed his hands together, trying to ease the aching joints. “You can’t control a man who doesn’t know his own desires.”

The shurring noise coming from her father’s hands was grating on her nerves. “He knows what he wants.”

“Oh, come now, daughter. Surely you aren’t that stupid. Why do you think he copies? Why do you think you were able to bring him here, to emulate me? He doesn’t know what he is, and is still testing the waters to find out what he’s truly capable of. You should be wary, Charlotte. Your mother thought she could control me. Look where it got her.”

They were arguing again; he could hear them through the walls into the conservatory. There was a way to settle their dispute. The man she called Troy would be angered, but Father would be pleased. Yes, it was a good plan. He only hoped his father and his sister were powerful enough to keep the bad man away from him.