Carolina Rain (31 page)

“What else did your research show you?”

“About you or about me?”

Her voice grew softer yet
,
and Manny sat up straighter. There was nothing about her mannerisms that made him comfortable with his expectations of Aphrodite. He’d thought this woman, this admitted killer of men, could very well be the coldest, most pure murderer
to cross his path
. His confusion and curiosity were fueled even more by her apparent change of behavior
,
with
“
apparent
” still existing as
the operative word.

“I think I’m more interested in you, Lily. You can’t believe everything you read
,
so your research regarding me might be a bit off.”

“Maybe, Agent, but you can’t bullshit a bullshitter and of that I’m sure.”

Sipping his coffee, Manny
’s
eyes moved to his hands. Test number two. He gave it a three count and glanced back at her. She’d already moved her head back into that defeated position like children do who’ve been caught doing whatever it was that had been forbidden. Except children were far more concerned with the consequences of thei
r disobedience than actually fee
ling any regret.
Except
in Lily’s case, he sensed something more. True sorrow?
He still wasn’t sure.

Manny searched Lily’s hands
.
As he
moved
his glance
toward her bowed head, she raised it again. Her eyes
said
again what his mind couldn’t grasp. Time for the third and final test.

“Fair enough. So let’s cut through the bullshit, Lily. Tell me why you came here. Why you think you can finish my statement regarding your profile.”

“Is this another way to get me to confess, Agent? I’ve done that. I’ve killed men and I gave details.”

“No
,
this goes beyond that. You came here for a reason and I want to know what that is.”

“Are you ready for it? Can you handle a truth that flies in the face of all your
other
truths?”

Taking a deep breath, Manny nodded. No reason to say another word because this was her stage.

“Maybe you are.”

Sitting back, she crossed her legs, gathered her thoughts, then began.

“It was always missing. I didn’t know what for sure
. F
rom as far back as I can remember, something was absent. What other kids had, what my dad had, what my mother didn’t. I won’t go into it much because you know the type, the profile of a typical psychopath; I was it, except
multiply
it by ten. Killing small animals, setting fires, bed wetting, right down to wanting to be a warrior that wiped out entire populations.”

“As I grew older, realizing how much trouble I could get into by not controlling those thoughts and urges, I learned to play the game, all the while searching for a piece of me that I wouldn’t be able to recognize anyway. It was kind of like trying to describe colors. I understood black and white, but not red, or green, or purple. My dad did his best because he knew there was something off
.
I think he also knew that he was shoveling sand against the tide. I just wasn’t like other kids
,
no matter how much he wanted me to be.”

Uncrossing her legs, she leaned forward, scanning his face. She must have been satisfied that she wasn’t being played and that he was genuinely interested in her story.

“Once I got into my late teens, I started writing serial killers all over the world, under the guise of research or whatever reason came to mind. I even visited a few back home. Oddly, most of them answered and most in the way you’d expect. Perverted, self-centered, seeking to control me by writing anything that might shock a seventeen
-
year-old. But I did get two responses that fascinated me. They said that they could tell I was part of the brotherhood simply by my questions
,
and one even wished me luck.”

“But still no answers to why you were you?”

“No, none. I figured I was the mutation in the gene pool and that was it.”

“So why start the killing now?”

“You mean the all-knowing trigger event? You can double mine. I was attacked and lost my left foot and
almost
my left hand. The doctors reattached the hand but the foot isn’t real and
,
oddly enough, that doesn’t bother me
. Also,
during my stay in the hospital, I learned my dad had been
shot and killed
. For one brief, unexplainable moment, I felt something. Anger, maybe, but it
passed
so fast that I still question if it had been real.
So,
since he was gone and I didn’t have to worry about being discovered, so to speak, I decided to see how this freedom
might
work when I didn’t
have
to
hold
back
. A couple of months later, I
moved
here, met Lan
ce
. . .
Lance Morgan and played out my wildest fantasy.”

Tears welled in her eyes but she never wavered.

“I-I thought it the most amazing experience of my life. The power, the pure emotion I received was beyond anything I’d ever imagined. That happened three more times and
,
each
occasion
, I needed it more.”

Shaking her head slowly, she set her jaw. “You don’t know, Agent Williams, what it’s like to be in the dark all of your life and then walk into the sun. All I wanted to do was stay there and not go back to where I’d been
. . .
until tonight.”

“I understand that, at least a little, Lily. I think we all do.”

There was something akin to gratitude residing in her
expression,
and Manny felt the chill run down his spine. She was the best liar he’d ever encountered, or
. . .

“What happened tonight?”

Making every effort to steel herself, Lily wiped at the new rivulet of tears and sighed.

“Love, Agent, love happened tonight.”

It was all he could do to stop his jaw from hitting his shoes. His mind was already swimming with the ramifications of the bizarre behavior
of
turning herself in, but
love
out of the mouth of a serial killer was beyond his scope of understanding
.

Manny cleared his throat. “Tell me about that.”

The tired, sad smile returned and
,
at that moment, Manny knew everything she would say was truth
. T
here was something else he knew
. H
e’d let her finish
, however
.

“Not much to say
.
I guess that old saying about having to be there applies. I was well on the way to number five when my boss,
J.R.
, called me. He knew, somehow, what I was and what I was doing, and had followed me, forcing me to open the door and talk to him. I did, fully intending to make him number six, but
when I saw the look on his face
as I raised the knife to kill a man that would sacrifice his life for his friends, something broke inside of me. I don’t know how else to explain it. It wa
s like someone opened the flood
gates
,
and all of the times my father had told me he loved me registered somehow through this old man, on his knees, begging
for the life of a friend. He stared right through my soul. A soul I never knew was mine. His eyes carried nothing except
. . .
forgiveness and
. . .
car
ing
. I-I still don’t
. .
.”

Turning her hands over
,
she shrugged. “The flood of emotion knocked me for a loop, literally. The next thing I knew I was on the deck and
J.R.
Saylor was helping me up. He hugged me and told me he’d be there for me
. He also said that
I had to do the right thing.
As s
trange as it seems
, I knew what that meant
. And
that’s how we met, Manny Williams.”

“You know what this sounds like, right?”

“I do. It’s classic behavior for people like me and lays a foundation for an insanity plea, whatever the hell that
truly
means. But to tell you more or less wouldn’t be the truth.”

He didn’t answer right away. She wasn’t lying, at least in her own understanding, and cases of sudden mental shifts were not unprecedented. Jeffery Dahmer claimed to have become a Christian in prison and at least two psychologists believed he’d actually changed and regretted his actions. Could this be real? The implications were enormous.

The shrinks, medical doctors, and every other card-carrying profiler would want a shot at her, but they’d find what he found
:
an unexplainable phenomenon. No question this woman would be the case study to fly in the face of all the others.

“I believe you’re telling the truth, Lily. But there are four dead men here.”

“I know, and I’ll see them in my mind for the rest of my life. I’ll cooperate anyway I can and accept whatever comes down as punishment,” she said, her voice carrying a sense of relief.

The metal door opened and Sophie strolled in, placing a file on the table containing information about Lily A. Cruz.

“This one’s going to blow your mind, Manny. Do you know?”

“I do, Sophie, I do.”

Turning back to Aphrodite, he ran his hand through his hair.

“I think your dad would be proud. What you did would break his heart
,
but he’d be
pleased with
you for turning yourself in.”

“So you know who I am?” she asked.

“He was a good man. I met your dad, Detective Carlos Ruiz, in Puerto Rico three months ago. He
tried
to save his missing daughter and, in the end, wanted to do the right thing
too
,
Anna Ruiz.”

CHAPTER-42

Rubbing his eyes with a thumb and forefinger, Manny realized just how tired he was. Not just f
rom
the sleep deprivation this job courted consistently, but
from
the emotional release of actually putting the person respo
nsible for killing innocent men
behind bars.
Even though they hadn’t
actually
caught her in the true sense, the all-important input
from someone like
J.R. Saylor had helped
turn the trick
.
T
hat’s how these cases were sometimes resolved.
Good people doing good things.

Never having to worry about Anna Ruiz
—
a
.
k
.
a
, Lily Cruz,
a
.
k
.
a
, Aphrodite
—
killing another human lifted a burden
from Manny
not bore by many. Never mind the sense of justice for families and friends of the murdered victims. He thought of Ginny
Krantz
and wondered if there could truly be a sense of justice. Nothing could be done to bring the dead back to life, at least not in this world.

He shifted in his chair
,
rubbing his eyes again
. The others would join him in the conference room shortly for one last debriefing before they flew home
—
and home was where he wanted to be. Chloe was constantly in his thoughts and the anticipation of spending an enormous amount of time with her was practically indescribable. Their relationship, their marriage
,
had suffered far too many distractions and interruptions and he vowed that was over. Even though they’d said I do, they’d really only known each other for less than two years; there was much to discover about his red-headed beauty. He wanted to know more of her joys, her pleasure, and revel in the intoxicating smile that had captured him almost immediately. He needed to understand
more of
her fears, her infirmities, and help to take them all away to the best of his ability. He was in this
for the long haul, and in deep. Was there any other way to build a relationship than to commit mind, body, and soul to it? Any other way to love another? Not for him.

Love. Such a simple
but powerful concept that could change a life in a microsecond as Anna claimed it had with her. Had her mind truly been unlocked
like she said
to feel so deeply so quickly?