Her Final Confession

Chapter Seventy

ONE WEEK LATER

Gretchen sat at the conference room table in the station house. She had twisted the cap off the bottle of water Noah had given her and was now pushing it around the table between her index fingers until it pinged off one of her fingers and went flying across the table toward where Josie sat. Gretchen jumped up, trying to catch it before it hit Josie, but only succeeded in knocking over her bottle of water. A pool spread across the table. Josie caught the cap expertly, righted the bottle, and said, “Just a minute.”

She returned with a roll of paper towels and helped Gretchen sop up the mess.

Gretchen said, “I’m really sorry.”

Josie smiled at her. “It’s water.”

Instead of sitting back down, Gretchen paced the room. Josie sat down again and watched her friend move back and forth across the room, her own head swinging like a metronome.

“It’s going to be okay,” Josie told her.

“Is it?” Gretchen asked.

Josie tapped the glass top of the table. “Hey,” she said, stopping Gretchen in place to meet her eyes. “It is. It’s going to be okay.”

Gretchen put both hands on the back of one of the chairs and leaned in toward Josie. “How did you know? How did you figure it out?”

Talking, putting the puzzle pieces together, always helped both of them with their anxiety. Josie said, “The study—well, one of the studies—that Dr. Larson and James Omar were working on was one about twins separated at birth. That was the one that seemed to be of the most interest to Larson when I met him. He asked if Trinity and I would join the study, and when I said no, he called her and tried to sell her on it.”

“Pushy,” Gretchen said.

“No, I think committed,” Josie replied. “I mean, yeah, pushy, but I think his heart is in the right place. I think he wants to help people with this research. Anyway, at first I thought Ethan was just curious about his birth parents, and that James helped him find them through the genetic profiles of their distant relatives. You know there are all kinds of sites out there now.”

“Yeah,” Gretchen said. “I see the commercials all the time. Pay ninety-nine bucks and get your ancestry profile.”

“Right,” Josie said. “I think that Ethan took one of those tests and found that he had a twin. I think he approached him—”

“Her,” Gretchen corrected.

“What?”

“Ethan has a sister, not a brother. They are fraternal twins—a boy and a girl. One of each.” Her smile was sad.

“Her,” Josie said. “I think Ethan approached her and asked her to be part of James’s twin study. The separated-at-birth study. I think that’s how it started. He probably didn’t realize until he actually spoke to James about it that they had to be identical twins. His field was criminology, not genetics or epigenetics.”

“She agreed? That means Larson has her name and address somewhere in his files,” Gretchen said, urgency pitching her voice an octave higher.

“No,” Josie said. “Like I said, they wouldn’t have been eligible for the study since they were fraternal and not identical. I don’t think that she would have agreed to it anyway. I think she was interested in finding you and… her father. I think Ethan started doing more research. I think he figured out you were his mother, and when he dug into your life, he realized you were a victim of the Strangler.”

“Oh God,” Gretchen said, closing her eyes. “Why didn’t he just call the police?”

“You were the police,” Josie said.

Gretchen opened her eyes. They glistened with tears. “I wasn’t ready. When James called me—well he told me he was Ethan—but when he called, he never told me that… that…”

“That he was bringing O’Hara with him?” Josie filled in.

Gretchen nodded. “When he called me and said they were at my house, I thought he meant him and his sister. I got freaked out. I wasn’t ready to meet. I snuck up on them from the back because I just wanted to look at them first. I just wanted to see them. I didn’t know how it would be. I didn’t know if they would look like… O’Hara…”

Josie could tell trying his real name on for once was disconcerting to Gretchen. “That would have been distressing, I bet,” Josie murmured.

“Yes. I admit it. It would. But still, they were my children. I always wanted those babies. I always wondered if I should have made different choices. Maybe I wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t smart enough… I’ve spent twenty-three years going over it in my head. But, what’s done is done.”

“When did you realize he had brought O’Hara with him?”

“I came around the corner from the back of the house. I was walking down the driveway. James saw me, smiled. He looked so nervous. I had just reached the front of the house when I heard O’Hara’s voice.”

A shudder ran the length of her body. Again, she closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Then she opened them and continued. “He said, ‘Hello, sweetheart. I’ve missed you.’ You don’t know how many times I’ve heard that voice in my head, in my nightmares. It never went away. As long as he was out there, I was afraid he’d come back. He always said he would. It got better when I moved back here, but it never went away. The fear. No, the terror.”

“When did James realize that something wasn’t right?”

“Oh, I think he knew before I showed up, but it was too late. He had picked O’Hara up and brought him to Denton. Then when he saw my reaction, he seemed to get more nervous. O’Hara said to me, ‘You never told me we had a son.’ That was when I realized James—well, I still thought he was Ethan—that he hadn’t brought my daughter and that O’Hara didn’t know about her. Anyway, O’Hara was angry. So angry. The coldness in his eyes—it was like nothing I’d ever seen except the night he killed Billy. He called me every name in the book. I told James to go into the house. I hoped he would get the idea—you know, call 911—and he started to walk up onto the porch, but O’Hara grabbed me—we tussled, he hit me, hard. He got my gun and put it to my head. He told James that if he took another step, he’d kill him.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, so James went back to the driveway. He looked like he was slowly trying to step away. I could see he was itching to run. O’Hara dragged me up onto the porch and tossed me onto the ground. He had the gun on me. He said something like, ‘We’ve got a real problem here,’ and that’s when James started babbling. He told us everything. That he wasn’t Ethan Robinson. His name was James Omar. He was Ethan’s roommate. That Ethan had tracked us down, and Ethan had some idea of getting his parents together—making it a surprise and having me arrest O’Hara. The only surviving Strangler victim now a police officer and gets to arrest him. He said it was all Ethan’s idea. O’Hara asked him where Ethan was, and James said he didn’t know, but he could find out. He mumbled something about going to call Ethan and turned to go, and that’s when O’Hara shot him. Just like that. He went right down. I was so shocked and so stunned. It’s like I wasn’t me anymore. I was that twenty-year-old girl again, and this man had just shot my husband.”

“I know,” Josie said softly.

“Then he took my keys. He kept the gun on me and made me go into the house. I thought—I thought he was going to hurt me again. Like he did all those years ago, but all he wanted was that stupid Wawa mug. Then he made me take him to my car, and no one saw us because we went through the back. He had zip ties, although he didn’t need them really because he hit me. He stopped at the bridge when he realized that the car was department-issued. He had to disable the MDT. That took a while. Then he pulled me out of the car, hit me again.” She pointed to her forehead. “And stuffed me in the trunk. I don’t remember much after that. Waking up in the dark, tied, my head pounding. At some point he took me out of the trunk. We were in the woods. He said things—so many horrible things. He went on for hours about what he was going to do to me and Ethan when he found him. He kept talking about how he had stopped, how he hadn’t killed in fourteen years, and now I made him kill again. He kept calling Ethan names and talking about how Ethan figured out who he was, and so Ethan had to die. On and on he went. It was almost like he was possessed. At some point it was like he didn’t even notice I was there anymore, he just circled and circled, muttering to himself. It got dark. Eventually he left. When he came back, it was daytime. I actually felt relieved to see him. I was afraid some wild animal would come along and eat me. Maybe that would have been better.”

“Did he let you go then?” Josie asked.

“Not precisely then. When he came back, he was like a completely different person. He was calm. It was almost like someone gave him a drug—he was so different. He brought me something to eat and drink, untied me, tossed me a blanket. Let me relieve myself. When he talked, he sounded so reasonable. I imagined this was what he must be like in his ‘real’ life. This must be what most people saw. Then I realized…”

She broke off.

“What?” Josie prompted softly.

“The night he killed Billy, he was wound up. Not crazy like he was this time, but he was… agitated. Angry. Mean. Once he had finished with me, he was so much calmer. Even when he heard the dishes topple, he wasn’t as high-alert as he was when he first broke in. It was like he needed to hurt us to satisfy some overwhelming urge. Like how a drug addict will be climbing out of their own skin for more of whatever they need, and then once they get it, it’s like this relaxed feeling takes over. That’s what it was like with him. It was subtle back in 1994, but still, I recognized it this time.”

“You thought he had killed someone?”

Gretchen nodded. “I asked him, ‘What did you do?’ and he said, ‘What your shit-stain of a kid made me do.’ Then he said he wasn’t going to get caught. That cops were stupid, and he hadn’t been caught in over twenty years—he wasn’t about to go down now.”

“So you tried to work out a deal with him?”

“I had to. He was going to kill me. No doubt. I knew once I was dead, he’d go after Ethan. I had told Ethan what to do, but I had no way of knowing if he would do it or if he would do it before O’Hara found him. I just knew I had to stall for time. Like I said, I didn’t care if he killed me, but my children…”

“You had to protect them,” Josie said. “I understand.”

“I didn’t know his name, but Ethan did. His name, where he lived, everything. I knew if he ever found Ethan, he’d find out about my daughter, and she’d be dead too. My only chance to buy my kids some time was to work out some kind of deal with him. Anything. I thought even if Ethan doesn’t do what I told him to do, maybe he’ll have the good sense to go to the police. To find my daughter and go to the police. That’s why I told O’Hara I would take the fall for James’s murder. That everyone would believe it was me anyway because he was so smart, he hadn’t left any evidence behind. He loved that.”

“He was arrogant, just like the FBI profile said.”

“Yes, very arrogant. He liked to have his ego stroked. I told him instead of killing me, he could put me in prison for the rest of my life. Like the cops have wanted to do to him for over twenty years. I said imagine that. Imagine getting away with that. Turning the so-called justice system on its head. I could tell by the look on his face that he was really liking the idea. It really appealed to his sense of egotism. Like the crime-scene tokens he always took and left. He didn’t have to do that to commit the crimes. He liked to fuck with people, that was his thing. That was always his thing. I think that’s why he attacked couples. He liked the idea of the husband having to listen while his wife was tortured in the next room.”

Gretchen stopped, a pallor coming over her features.

“Sit,” Josie said softly. “Drink some water.”

She pushed a fresh water bottle across the table, and Gretchen took it, gulping it down. Then she sat down again. This time she was more fatigued than nervous. “Anyway,” she continued, “he seemed to think me getting life in prison—especially now that I was a cop—was like the ultimate mind-fuck. I said I would do it, but he had to leave Ethan alone. He told me I was crazy, that Ethan knew his identity, and I couldn’t make a deal with him based on what Ethan might or might not do. I said if Ethan had wanted to turn him in, he would have already, that Ethan clearly just wanted to know his dad.”

“Did he buy that?”

Gretchen shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean it’s true though, isn’t it? Ethan knew O’Hara was a serial killer, or at least, he had a damn good idea, and he didn’t tell the authorities. I like to think he would have eventually.”

“Maybe it wasn’t real to him,” Josie said. “It was more like a game to him. Then when Omar started sending texts implying he was in over his head, Ethan got scared.”

“I think you’re right. Well, O’Hara and I went back and forth, and I agreed he could put a scare into Ethan, but he couldn’t kill him. If I found out Ethan had been killed, I would sing. I told him if he couldn’t convince Ethan, then I would try. It took hours. So many hours. Going round and round, trying to talk him into it. I think he was going to kill Ethan all along, and that he figured my confession would fall on deaf ears since there was no physical evidence he was at the Omar scene, and I didn’t know his actual identity. He didn’t think the cops would figure out the big clue he left at the Wilkins scene. He also didn’t even care if the police figured out the Seattle Soul Mate Strangler killed them. No one had ever solved a Strangler crime. It was his crowning achievement. I was the one who ruined all of that when I got away. He told me that he had spent years trying to track me down, and that he finally had about ten years ago. That was why he moved out to the East Coast. He liked the idea of spying on me, of always being within striking distance if the need took him. I often felt like I was being watched, but he never made himself known as far as I can tell. I’m not sure he wanted to kill me, because if he did, the game would be over once and for all.”

“It might have been that game that kept him from killing all this time. He was getting older, the murders were getting riskier, and knowing he had that power over you might have been enough to satisfy his urges.”

“Yes,” Gretchen agreed.

“O’Hara agreed to your deal then,” Josie said. “But you had already called Ethan.”

“It was a miracle, really. O’Hara was driving my car. Apparently, he had come to Denton with James in a rental, and he didn’t want to take that because it could be traced. I was laying in the back seat and had seen him toss the phones onto the front passenger seat. I knew I had to try. He had tied my hands in front of me, thank God, so there was a chance I could get Omar’s phone and make a call. If it had been password protected, I would have been screwed. I told him he had to take the MDT out of the car or the police would find him in minutes. I made sure to send him out to get the antenna off, and I was purposely vague about where it was so it would take him longer.”

Josie smiled. “It worked.”

“Yes. I got Ethan right away, and I just talked. I really had no idea if he’d take any of what I said to heart, but he said he already knew where my daughter was. I made him repeat back to me my instructions, the name of my contact in the Devil’s Blade. I told him that when he and my daughter were safe, to tell her to find a way to let me know. Then, once I knew they were safe, I was going to tell the truth.”

“Well, your plan worked,” Josie said.

“Josie,” Gretchen said, her eyes mournful. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you to help me.”

“No apologies necessary. You thought the killer was in law enforcement. That complicated things. I don’t know if I would have done anything differently. In the heat of the moment, we make decisions we might not make otherwise. When your world narrows down to surviving, everything changes.”

“Thank you,” Gretchen said. Another moment ticked by. A small smile curved Gretchen’s lips. “I’m sorry I hit you.”

Josie laughed and gave her a wink. “You may have to buy me a few Danishes to make up for that.”

A moment passed between them in silence. There was one last piece of the puzzle that Josie hadn’t yet figured out. “You gave birth to twins,” she said. “Why didn’t anyone pick up on that when the Devil’s Blade dropped you off in front of the ATF building? I know they did medical examinations. At the very least, you would have had lots and lots of stretch marks.”

A sad smile spread across Gretchen’s face. “Twenty-three years ago, at a hospital in San Diego, a young mother named Anne Carson went into labor prematurely. She gave birth to twins seven weeks early. Carson Baby A and Baby B. I called them Billy and Agnes—after my husband and my grandmother. They were barely three pounds each. They spent two months in the NICU. I stayed with them as long as possible, and then Linc set me up nearby in one of his safe houses. He was the one who got me the fake identity before the babies came, so that when I went into labor, there were no questions at the hospital. I didn’t worry about the bills, because I wasn’t really Anne Carson. But that was the first time I knew I couldn’t really hide forever, and I sure as hell couldn’t give those babies the care they needed. Linc cut me up real good before they left me at the ATF building, so what stretch marks I did have weren’t really noticeable. I hadn’t had a C-section, so there was no scar from that. It was a risk, certainly, but no one ever questioned me.”

A dull roar rumbled outside. Gretchen and Josie went still, their ears pricked to the sound. It got closer, sounding like a jet taking off. The chair Josie sat in seemed to vibrate as the noise got louder, closer, and rose to a deafening crescendo.

Gretchen’s eyes bulged. “Devil’s Blade. They’re here.”