Love Me to Death

FORTY-ONE

“Twenty-six unsolved residential arson fires in Baltimore during those years,” Sean told Hans. “Two fatalities.”

“How many were within five miles of the first Wilmington house or his second house after his mother left?”

Sean typed rapidly. “One five miles from his mother’s house; fourteen within five miles of his father’s rental.”

“I’m surprised the investigators didn’t nail him. They look at teen boys in the area when there are clusters like this.”

Sean was growing increasingly frustrated. His head ached and he itched to get in his car and look for Lucy—even though he knew it was futile. He had always been a slave to computer science; anything could be found using the Internet. And normally, he was patient with research. But today? After Lucy had been missing for fourteen hours? He felt helpless and hopelessly lost. He wanted Lucy back safe, and he didn’t see them getting any closer to finding her.

Dillon came downstairs. He walked to the coffeepot and poured a cup. “You should have woke me,” he told Sean, then asked, “Any news?”

“No. I want to find out more about his ex-wife, but can’t find her anywhere,” Hans said.

“If she came to realize that she’d married a psycho,” Sean said, “she probably changed her name and moved far away.”

“You’re right.”

Sean didn’t want to be right.

Hans flipped through files. “It’s odd that he went into teaching, which is considered by many to be a female profession unless you’re a college professor. I would think his misogynist tendencies coupled with his computer science background would put him in the science and technology field.”

Sean could hold it in no longer. “How the fuck is this going to help us find Lucy?” He jumped up and left the room.

Dillon watched Sean as he slammed the front door, and his face fell. “He’s right,” Dillon said, pained. “But I don’t know what else to do until Noah gets Miller’s financials.”

“He reminds me of your brother Jack,” Hans said.

Dillon frowned. He didn’t see that at all. “Jack?”

“A man of action. His reliance on technology is because he understands it. For him, it’s usually expedient—he can find anything he wants. Until now.”

“I still don’t see Jack in Sean,” Dillon said. “Jack is a mercenary. A soldier. He takes orders and gives them. Sean is not a soldier.”

“No, he doesn’t take orders well. I didn’t say he was Jack’s twin brother.”

Dillon raised his eyebrow. “Touché.”

“You and I find answers in the give and take of psychology. We figure it out based on what we know about people and human nature. Sean and Jack? They see facts, they act. Sean is just … more modern and refined than your brother.”

“But he’s right about this—none of this is getting us closer to finding Lucy.”

“It is. We’re close.”

Sean stood in the cold, the air thick but the snowfall light. It would get worse. He called Duke, who answered on the first ring.

“Any news?”

“We don’t know where Lucy is,” Sean said.

“I’m doing everything I can—”

“Any way I can, legal or otherwise, I need to find out about Miller’s ex-wife. She was Rosemarie Nylander, then—”

“I have her stats here. We haven’t been able to find her under her maiden or married name.”

“She very likely changed her name.”

“I’m sure you know this, but—” He stopped. “The FBI isn’t going to appreciate our involvement.”

“Who cares? Hans Vigo thinks if we can find and talk to Nylander we’ll find out where this freak is. I need your help.”

“I won’t be able to get you out of this if you get caught with information that you shouldn’t legally have.”

“I never asked you to.”

“What state?”

“Virginia, where Nylander was born and went to college, or Delaware, where they lived during their marriage.”

“I’ll call back in ten minutes.”

Sean hung up. Duke knew what Sean needed—the technical specs on the court computers. Once he knew what kind of security and systems the courts employed, Sean could hack in faster and pull out the information he needed: Rosemarie Nylander Miller’s new legal name.

He hacked security for a living, but only because people paid him to test their systems. He hadn’t illegally hacked since college, and he didn’t like the idea. He didn’t want to go to jail, but jail time wasn’t the greatest risk. He’d have his P.I. license revoked, wouldn’t be allowed near computers, and RCK East would be disbanded.

But Lucy would be alive and safe, and that was all that mattered.

At this point, he was in limbo. They knew exactly who had kidnapped her, and why; Miller had figured out WCF had set him up. Yet with all the talk, all the research, and all the investigation, they still didn’t know where Lucy was. His head told him that investigations took time, and after fourteen hours during the night, when business and government were shut down, they already knew a lot. But a lot wasn’t good enough, and his heart told him Lucy was in immediate danger.

Dillon stepped outside. “It’s twenty-three degrees,” he said.

“So what?”

“Noah called. They got the administrative warrant for Miller’s financials. He pays his Wilmington mortgage with a check that lists a P.O. box in Wilmington. The mortgage company believes it’s his primary residence.”

“That doesn’t help us.”

“Noah is now talking to the bank. Somewhere in the files is an address that leads back to him. Or a check he wrote that we can trace.”

“The address he uses will be the Wilmington house,” Sean said. “That’s what I would do—it’s his house, but he doesn’t live there. It’s a front.”

“Then what? We’re covering every base we have.” Dillon’s voice cracked and he averted his gaze.

Sean realized then that his anger and pessimism wasn’t helping. “More information is coming,” he told Dillon.

“What are you waiting for?” Dillon asked.

Sean couldn’t answer because his phone rang. “Duke, what do you have?”

“Her name is Marie Fitzgerald. She lives in Austin, Texas.”

Sean’s heart skipped a beat. “Duke, I didn’t want you to risk—”

“I didn’t. I got the information through a judge in Virginia who has helped us in the past, and I went that route. Sean, I know you would do anything and risk your future to save Lucy. You’re also my brother, and I couldn’t let you lose everything you worked so hard for. Once you go down that slippery slope, it’s hard to stick on the right side of the law. We walk the line close enough.”

“Thank you.”

Duke’s trust and understanding surprised Sean, but maybe it had been there all along and Sean hadn’t seen it.

He said to Dillon, “Duke found Miller’s ex-wife. In Texas. Let’s talk to her.”

The door opened and Lucy’s captor stomped down the stairs, whip in hand. He lashed out at Carolyn three times, and she cried out and burrowed into the corner. “I will punish you later,” he said. “I know who the guilty one is.”

Lucy’s heart beat so loud that she couldn’t hear herself think. She tried to get away from the edge of the cage but of course that was futile. He slapped her with the whip. It cut her ear and she bit back a scream.

He bent down and unlocked her handcuffs, leaving one end dangling from the cage. He then walked around to the opposite side and unlocked the cage door.

“Crawl out,” he commanded.

Lucy didn’t move.

He whipped her through the slots in the cage. “Move, female! Move!”

She yelped and crawled as fast as she could away from the whip, toward the door.

He smiled. “Very good,” he said like a proud parent.

She slowly stood, using the side of the cage to support herself. He used the whip on the back of her legs and she fell to her knees again.

“You will stand when I tell you to stand.”

What the Hell was this guy about? Lucy swallowed the pain and realized that he was using the whip with great restraint—a sharp sting, but it didn’t last.

Female.

He called her “female.” What was with that? Female?

“You may stand.”

She slowly pulled herself up. She couldn’t see a gun on him; it looked like the only weapon he had was the whip. But she was weak from the drugs and bruises. She couldn’t fight him, not yet. She could run. But could she out run him? At her peak, yes. But she may not have a choice. She’d seize on the first chance she had to escape.

She glanced at Carolyn. She couldn’t leave her. He’d kill her. Even if Lucy ran to get help, he’d kill Carolyn.

She needed to get Carolyn out and find a car. Right. A car with keys in the ignition, just waiting for her.

She then remembered her bare feet. She looked around but didn’t see her shoes anywhere.

“Walk,” he ordered and gestured toward the stairs. Lucy obeyed the man behind her.

“What is your name?” she asked.

The whip came down on her shoulder and she stumbled, grabbing onto the thin wood railing to prevent falling.

“If you want to speak, raise your hand and I will call on you.”

Even if he didn’t look crazy, he was thoroughly insane. Nevertheless, he spoke clearly. His eyes weren’t red or watery or bloodshot—no sign or smell of drug abuse. That scared her more.

At the top of the stairs, she raised her hand.

“Speak, Female.”

“What do I call you?”

“Teacher,” he replied.

In bright red, the digital clock on the counter of the old-fashioned, well-worn kitchen told her it was 9:37 a.m. She looked around for a phone but didn’t see one. She didn’t see anything she could use as a weapon, either. No knives, no guns—as if he’d leave them lying around.

“I have something to show you,” he said. “We’re going outside. You will do what I say, or you will be punished. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said.

The house was two stories, an old farmhouse. The furniture was old, from the 1940s or 1950s. His grandparents’? It was clean, covered in plastic, and there were plastic runners on the floors.

You’re going outside! You can run.

She had no shoes.

And she couldn’t leave Carolyn.

He opened the door and they stepped out onto the porch. The snow had all but stopped, a few stray flakes falling to the ground, but more was to come. The air was cold and damp, the light from the farmhouse reflecting on the thick gray mist that surrounded them.

“Walk,” he said. “We’re going to the barn.”

She couldn’t see anything in this thick mist. At her first step into the snow, she winced. She would get frostbite just walking to the barn. If there was one farm, there had to be another, right? She didn’t see a car as she walked, her bare feet burning from the cold, then numb.

She could barely walk. She hugged herself, trying to get just a little warmer, but the more she tried, the colder she felt.

The barn loomed in front of them, a towering unpainted structure. When he opened the door, a familiar stench hit her—blood. Was this a slaughterhouse? It was a farm; the blood could be from cows or pigs …

“Go to the fifth stall on the right.”

She raised her hand. He seemed pleased that she followed his command.

“You may speak.”

“Why are you doing this? I don’t know you, I don’t understand—”

He hit her with the whip against her neck. The lash burned and her eyes teared.

“You don’t get it because you are stupid. Women like you need firm guidance. You need to be kept in line because you don’t know any better.”

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from spitting on him.

“You know exactly who I am. You think you’re better than me, because you can order pussy-whipped bastards to hunt down men you don’t like. If you had been one of my students, you would have learned how to be a proper and obedient female.”

The sudden wave of recognition washed over Lucy. She didn’t recognize his face, but she’d only seen his picture once.

If you had been one of my students …

Peter Miller. The teacher who had gone to prison for statutory rape. He’d been one of the parolees WCF had tried to lure, but was a no-show.

“H-how did you find me?”

“I’m smarter than you. I’m better at working through the Internet than you are. But I didn’t have to hack into the organization that tried to have me sent back to prison. I read the papers and learned about other parolees who’d been arrested. I put two and two together. That’s above you, isn’t it? One day, I slipped into the office. It was easy. I befriended one of the volunteers, you remember her. Stacy Swanson. We came in to stuff the invitations for the fund-raiser you had last week. And I listened. I listen well. And that’s when I realized it was you.”

Lucy was shaking. She’d have known if Miller was in the WCF office, wouldn’t she? Except—she didn’t recognize him now. He’d changed not one thing, but several things. His hair. His eyes. The way his face looked.

Stacy Swanson … she remembered her, she used to come in once a week, but she hadn’t seen her in a while.

He grinned, but the expression was more terrifying than his serious face. “I know how to make people see what I want them to see.”

She whispered, “You killed Cody.”

His smile disappeared and he didn’t answer. “Walk to the fifth stall.”

She turned and staggered like a drunk, her feet burning from the cold, barely able to hold her upright.

“Turn and face right,” he said, his voice far away.

She did, and he turned on the bright overhead lights.

A headless body lay sprawled in the hay of the stall. The wall behind it was splattered with blood and bone and brain matter.

Lucy didn’t know what was worse—seeing the body, or seeing the stains all around her. Blood on every wall.

She screamed and he laughed.

“That is lesson number one. Do exactly what I say or you’ll be in the next stall. Stacy did not do exactly what I commanded.”

Lucy sprinted, her only thought to get back to the house before him and lock him out long enough to find a phone and call 911. Her feet were numb from the snow, but she ran, willing herself to keep moving.

It’s life or death—run, Lucy!

He was pursuing her, he had shoes, but worse, he had his whip. She heard the sharp crack in the cold air.

He closed the gap and used his whip to hit her. She fell to her knees.

She tried to get up, then crawl, but he was there and Lucy believed at that moment her life was over.

* * *

I tie her like an animal and drag her through the snow back to the house.

Second lesson: Do not run.

She is screaming as I walk, but no one can hear her, so I let her scream. She will lose her voice. Most do after a day or two of futile noise. No one is near. No one will come. No one cares. No one but me.

I drag her down the stairs and now she cries. I put her in the cage. She cries and does not move. I handcuff her to the bars because I do not trust her. She is not like other women. She is tainted.

But she will learn.

I walk up the stairs and turn out the lights. I listen to her sobs. Then the female shouts, “I will kill you! You fucking bastard! I will kill you!”

I freeze.

She swore at me. She spoke without my permission.

I turn the light back on. I walk down the stairs and stare at her through the bars. The anger inside grows, bubbles.

The audacity of the female to speak to me in such a manner!

“What do you want from me?” the female screams. She is scared, but she is also defiant.

I want her scared.

“I did not give you permission to speak,” I say.

I reach into my pocket and turn the Taser on. I let it charge. She watches me, her lips blue from the cold outdoors, her face flushed, her body shivering uncontrollably. She’s rubbing her red, chafed feet. I take the Taser from my pocket. Aim. Fire.

She convulses. Her head hits the bars once, twice. She tries to reach out, but her hand doesn’t go anywhere. She falls to the dirt floor, paralyzed.

I look at the other female. “You spoke to her when I told you not to speak. Do not speak to her again. Not a word. I’m still deciding who is worthy of my teaching. Obey me, and you will live.”

At least for a few more days.

I walk up the stairs, turn off the light, and shut the door behind me.