Kill Her Again

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They were buzzed through half a dozen security gates before they reached the visiting room. The facility was decades old, smelling faintly of disinfectant and vomit.

This was Pope’s first visit to the place, and the long hallways and grated windows reminded him, oddly enough, of high school-although he doubted they had much of a senior prom.

A prison trustee in an orange jumpsuit was dumping a trash bin when they entered. She regarded them warily, exchanged a look with the guard escorting them, then quickly finished her business and left the room.

Jake stayed by the door with the guard. Pope and Anna took seats in front of a Plexiglas wall that was divided into visiting stations, each with an intercom.

They waited ten full minutes before a door beyond the glass opened and Susan was escorted inside. She was also wearing a jumpsuit-this one red-her ankles and wrists shackled.

Pope’s stomach clutched up the moment he saw her-a simple reflex, triggered by an intense, uncontrollable feeling of hate. This was the woman who had killed his boy. His Ben. That she was still walking the earth was a crime in itself.

It took everything he had to keep his cool. He kept reminding himself that he was here for McBride, and for Evan and Kimberly and their dead mother and babysitter.

He waited for Susan to make eye contact, but she was oblivious to him. She kept her gaze on the floor, her unkempt hair hiding her face as she shuffled over to a chair opposite them and sat.

When she finally looked up, Pope was surprised.

Prison had not been kind to her. The beauty he had once known was replaced by a haunted, disheveled wreck. He was reminded of photos he’d once seen in a magazine-before and after mug shots of methamphetamine addicts. She seemed to have aged twenty years.

The hatred he felt immediately morphed into pity. Not sympathy, just pity. And it was laced with a contempt so strong he had trouble containing it.

Susan’s brain finally registered who she was looking at. She blinked a couple of times, then-to Pope’s horror-broke into a smile.

“Danny?” she said, her voice distorted by the intercom. “You came?”

Pope forced himself to reply. “Hello, Susan.”

“I thought they were lying to me. Is it really you?”

“In the flesh,” he said.

“They always lie to me, you know. My lawyers. Trying to get me to come out. But I don’t want to come out. I just want to stay in my room. I’ve got everything I need there.” Her smile widened. “Except you, of course.”

Pope was ready to offer his own contribution to the smell beneath the disinfectant, but Susan spoke in a kind of singsong, faraway voice, and he was pretty sure the deputy warden had been right. She wasn’t all there.

To prove it, she said, “Where’s Jillian? They told me Jillian was here. Was that another lie?”

“Jillian’s dead,” Pope said. “She’s been dead for twenty-eight years.”

“Yes, yes, but I asked Ben and he said I should check anyway. Just to make sure.”

Pope felt his gut tighten again. “Ben?”

“You remember Ben, don’t you? Our boy? He talks to me all the time. Mostly in my head, but he’s there. I know he is.” Another smile. “He forgave me, Danny. He forgave me for what I did.”

All right. Enough of this. Choking back a curse, Pope started to rise, but McBride quickly put a hand on his knee and he sat back down.

That was when Susan noticed her for the first time. She stared blankly at McBride, but then her expression began to change, recognition spreading across her face.

“Oh, my god,” she said. “It wasn’t a lie. Jillian?”

Pope and McBride exchanged a quick glance.

“You look so different. All grown-up. But it’s you, isn’t it? I’d recognize those eyes anywhere.” She turned to Pope. “The eyes are the mirror of the soul, you know. They really are.”

A chill ran through him. What had always been something of an innocuous saying suddenly took on new meaning. New weight.

This was all too creepy for words.

McBride, however, had the good sense to go with it. “How are you, Suzie? I’ve missed you.”

Susan seemed startled by the sound of her voice. As if it were a slap to the face. Then she surprised them both by starting to cry.

“Oh, god,” she said. “Oh, god…”

Pope and McBride exchanged another look.

“What’s wrong, Suzie?”

“All these years,” she sobbed. “All these years I’ve wanted you to come back so I could tell you how sorry I am.”

“For what?”

“It was all my fault. I yelled at you that day, but if it hadn’t been for me, if you hadn’t been trying to help me, the bogeyman never would’ve gotten you. He would’ve gone away and left us alone.”

“Bogeyman?”

“That’s what he is, you know. They always tell you he hides in the closet and under the bed, but that’s not true. He’s everywhere. Always watching.” She paused and sniffed back her tears, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her jumpsuit. Then her gaze drifted toward the ceiling. With a surreptitious gesture to a surveillance camera in a corner behind her, she looked at McBride and said, “You’d better be careful. He’s watching you right now.”

This woman was completely unrecognizable to Pope. The Susan he’d once known was buried so deep, he doubted she’d ever come out again.

And he knew that they were wasting their time here. She could babble on for hours and they’d get nothing of value from her. All he wanted to do was leave.

But then she surprised him.

“I used to watch him, too,” she said. “For a long, long time. Before I met Danny. Before Ben was born. I watched him for years and years and years. He’s left a trail, you know, and I kept very good track of him.”

McBride leaned forward. “I don’t understand. What trail? How?”

“All I had to do was look for the sign. It wasn’t easy, but I always managed to find it.”

“What sign?”

Susan lowered her voice conspiratorially. “The wheel,” she said. “The gypsy wheel.”

Pope and McBride exchanged yet another look.

“I saw it when he took you. On his neck? I’ve seen it over and over again. It’s always there, but it changes.”

“Changes?” McBride said.

Susan nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes. Eight spokes, twelve spokes, fourteen spokes. It’s all there in the book. Every single bit of it.”

“What book?”

“I tried to get them to bring it to me. But nobody would listen. They all think I’m crazy.” She paused, turning to Pope. “Do you think I’m crazy, Danny?”

Crazier than a goddamn loon. But he was intrigued now. Maybe there was something to what she was saying after all.

“Tell us about the book,” he said.

“It’s all there. I kept it for years and years and years.”

“A book about the bogeyman.”

“That’s right,” she said. “After he took Jillian, I was always afraid he’d come after me. But I was too young to do anything about it. So I stayed in my room a lot. Kept a light on at night. But when I got older, I started tracking him. Through every victim I could find. And I kept tracking him until one day I realized he wasn’t interested in me at all.”

“How did you know that?” McBride asked.

“Because of the eyes. His victims all had your eyes.”

McBride was suddenly silent and Pope could see that she was as creeped out by this as he was. And despite Susan’s obvious mental deterioration, they both knew that what she’d just said might not be crazy talk.

“What exactly is in this book?” Pope asked.

“I just told you. Everything. Everyone he hurt. It’s all there. I tracked him for years.”

“And where can I find it?”

“I tried to get them to bring it to me, but they wouldn’t listen.”

“Your lawyers? Do they have it?”

If Susan’s attorneys were successful in their bid for a new trial, they might be able to use this book as evidence of a sustained diminished capacity. Although two minutes in a room with her would pretty much prove that.

“No, no,” Susan said. “I hid it. A long, long time ago. Right before Ben was born.”

“Maybe I can bring it to you.”

“Really? You’d do that?”

“Just tell me where it is.”

“But if I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret.”

“You can trust me,” he said. “I won’t tell anyone.”

Susan considered this a moment, but her thoughts seemed to wander to another time and place, and when they returned she looked from Pope to McBride, then back to Pope again, and frowned. Suspicious.

“How do you know Jillian? I never told you about her.”

No shit, Pope thought. There were quite a few things she’d left out. But he was losing her and needed to get her back on his side.

“Jillian came to me,” he said. “She wants to help me. And you.” He paused, forcing himself to continue. “To bring us back together.”

“Really?”

He watched as Susan’s ravaged face lit up with such joy that he almost felt guilty.

Almost.

“The book, Susan. Where can we find the book?”

“What book?”

“The one about the bogeyman. The one you hid.”

She smiled, suddenly remembering. “I showed it to Ben, you know. I wanted him to see. To understand what kinds of monsters are out there, watching us. The demons who prey on children.” She stared directly at Pope now. “That’s why I did what I did. To protect him from the monsters and the demons. You can understand that, can’t you?”

Pope had to restrain himself from putting a fist through the glass. Unable to sit there anymore, he stood, turning away from her. He couldn’t stand the sight of her.

And even worse, he couldn’t understand how he’d lived under the same roof as this woman and not known how truly twisted she was. He had loved her then. But what he’d loved was a fraud.

She was the demon. And he’d failed to see that. Just like he’d failed to protect his son from her.

“What’s wrong, Danny? Did I say something wrong?”

He turned, his voice flat. “The book, Susan. Where can I find the book?”

“Ahh,” she said, and nodded. “I put it in the attic.”

“Of our house?”

“Yes. Under a floorboard. I marked it so I wouldn’t forget where it was. Every once in a while I’d pull it out again and look at it. To remind myself of what can happen to us if we aren’t careful.”

McBride leaned forward. “What kind of mark?”

Susan looked at her as if this were the most idiotic question she’d ever heard. “I swear to God, Jillian, sometimes you can be such a dumbo.”

Pope’s patience was at an end. He wanted to get the fuck out of here. “For chrissakes, Susan, just tell us.”

He knew he’d spoken too harshly the moment the words were out of his mouth.

She looked stung. “You don’t have to get mad.”

“I’m not mad,” he said, softening his voice. “I’m just anxious to get the book and bring it to you. You want it, don’t you?”

Another vigorous nod. “Yes. Very much.”

“Then, please, just tell me how you marked your hiding spot and I’ll go straight home and get it.”

She said nothing, as if weighing whether or not she could trust him. Then, glancing around the room to make sure no one else was watching, she pressed a finger to the glass and made a small, tight circle.

A wheel, Pope thought.

She’d marked it with a gypsy wheel.