Her Darkest Nightmare (24 page)

Linda went to her desk. Penny reclaimed her to-go cup but didn't actually leave. “You're planning to work as usual despite … despite everything?”

Anthony Garza's file drew Evelyn's eye. She wished she hadn't had him transferred here. Not because Fitzpatrick didn't agree with her decision to do so. She just wasn't in the frame of mind to be able to deal with him, not in addition to everything else. She'd had no idea all hell was about to break loose when she'd made the arrangements.

“For the most part I'm carrying on as usual, largely because I believe that what I'm doing is more important than ever.” She pulled Garza's file over and flipped it open to find the letter she'd written his last wife on top. “Have we heard anything from Courtney Lofland?”

“Who?”

She showed Penny the letter to jog her memory. “Garza's last wife.”

Penny shook her head. “Nothing's come in. Not yet.”

Evelyn supposed it was just as well. She didn't dare leave, even for a few days, in the middle of their current crises, no matter how important the interview might be. She had a terrible feeling that if she didn't stay and defend what she'd created she'd lose it for sure, and she refused to let Jasper or anyone else take more from her than she'd already lost.

“Keep an eye out for it,” she told Penny, and closed the file. “Meanwhile, can you check my schedule and find some time I can allocate to our new transfer?”

She pulled a face. “Ugh, everyone hates Garza.”

“I'm afraid he's earned that, but there might be important things he can teach us.”

Penny held her drink in the crook of her arm while removing her gloves. “How often do you want to meet with him?”

“Every other day.”

“Beginning when?”

Dare she put it off? He wasn't going anywhere.… “I'm too busy this month. So we'll let him settle in for a couple of weeks and put him on the calendar for February.”

“If you want to get with him sooner, you could have him take Hugo Evanski's slot.”

“Hugo's slot?”

“You're not going to continue seeing him after last night, are you?”

No. She'd told him as much. But that meant she'd have to find him another therapist, and she wasn't sure whom to ask. She couldn't ask Fitzpatrick. Even if Fitzpatrick weren't already meeting with Hugo on a regular basis for his own purposes—which exempted him from taking over the general therapy—he wouldn't want to pick up the slack, seeing as he blamed her for causing the problem in the first place.

A light went on in the office across the reception area. The others were beginning to arrive.

“Dr. Talbot?”

Evelyn dragged her attention back to her assistant. Maybe it would be better
not
to wait. Maybe she could get Garza to calm down and solve at least one problem. “That'll work. Give him Hugo's slot.”

“So who'll take Hugo?” Penny asked.

“I'll let you know.”

Penny shoved her gloves in her back pocket. “This all seems so pointless.”

“What seems pointless?” Evelyn asked.

She motioned around them, as if to indicate the whole facility. “Everything. All the work and effort and sacrifice.”

“You agree with those who believe we will never find a way to treat psychopaths?”

“I'm leaning that way. I haven't seen improvement in anyone since I've been here.”

“What I'm trying to do will take a lot longer than three months, Penny.”

“You might not have longer. We could all be brutally murdered in the next few days—”

“No one else is going to be killed.” Praying she was right about that, Evelyn stepped around the desk to give her assistant's arm a squeeze. “Just don't go anywhere alone.”

Hoping to slip out of the administration area before she could bump into any of the other doctors, Evelyn turned back to gather her files. Then she circumvented her tiny assistant and made a beeline for the double doors that led out into the prison. But Russell Jones nearly bowled her over as he came charging through going the opposite direction.

“Whoa, sorry about that,” he said when she barely managed to jump out of the way.

“No problem.” She reached for the handle again, but he stopped her.

“You okay?”

“Fine. Just running a bit behind.” She wished he'd step aside instead of blocking the exit.

“Fitzpatrick told me what happened with Hugo Evanski yesterday afternoon. I'm sorry. That sucks.”

As casual and sloppy as Fitzpatrick was formal and fastidious, Russ wore a tie with a chambray shirt and wrinkled chinos. A receding hairline made it difficult to guess his real age, but Evelyn had seen his file. He was only twenty-eight—the youngest member of the team. She'd always wanted to like him. With a round, soft body and droopy jowls, he reminded her of a Saint Bernard—a pleasant association but an ironic one given his dark outlook on life.

“Whatever possessed you to trust him?” he asked, his tone full of reproach.

In an effort to minimize the event, so that it would be more quickly forgotten, she manufactured a careless tone. “You know how it goes, how easy it is to like some of these guys.”

“Not really,” he said. “The men on my roster are pretty scary.”

She doubted they were any scarier than the ones
she
treated. But as she'd come to know Russ, she'd decided he didn't have the right temperament for what they were doing. Psychopaths were masters at ascertaining weakness and capitalizing on it, and Russ wasn't nearly assertive enough to oppose that. As a result, he took a lot of verbal abuse and had to adjust his roster more often than the rest of them. It didn't help that he approached life with Eeyore-style gloom:

Bet it's going to storm today. We probably won't be able to get out of the parking lot.…

I'd get a dog, but when would I spend any time with him? Hanover House has taken over my whole life.…

My girlfriend's not joining me until next month. I bet she bails out again. Why would she want to come to this dreary place?

His negative comments went on and on, which was one of the reasons Evelyn didn't hang out with him after hours. It was hard enough to tolerate the lack of
real
sunshine in this remote corner of the earth. Had he not been a favorite grad student of Fitzpatrick's she would never have hired him.

“Maybe you're immune to their charm,” she said. “Or you can see through them more easily than I can.” She didn't believe that for a second, but he took her words at face value.

“They don't fool me!”

“Glad we've got you on the team.” She hoped that would be sufficient flattery to get him to move his bulk to one side, but he wasn't finished with her yet.

“He claims to be broken up about the fact that you won't see him anymore, but don't fall for it. It's all bullshit. If there's one thing I've learned it's that psychopaths are so full of shit
they
don't even know what's real.”

“Have you talked to him?” she asked.

“Who, Hugo? No, I just came from the mail room.”

As with any other prison, the mail coming in and out of Hanover House was carefully monitored. A CO went through most of it, but occasionally, if they had reason, the mental health team poked around down there, too. As intrusive as it felt to read someone else's mail, Evelyn had found it to be a necessary evil. Since her recommendation was often the only way these men could be eligible for easier time, a better job inside the prison, transfer to a minimum-security facility, even parole, they had plenty of reason to try to fake improvement. It was worth checking up on what they were sending home. They knew the mail was monitored, so it always amazed her that many slipped and divulged their true thoughts and intentions in spite of that, but they did.

“What did you find in the mail room?” she asked.

“A whole stack of letters Hugo has written to you. Apparently, he was up all night.”

She blinked in surprise. She'd never gone down and read the mail of any of
his
patients. “You
read
them?”

His chin puckered with a sheepish, lopsided smile. “Some. I couldn't help myself. I was down there for something else, but when I saw them—”

“What do they say?”

“He apologizes for scaring you, says he acted impulsively. He just wanted a little kiss, never meant you any harm—yada yada.” Russell's jowls swung as he shook his head in apparent disgust. “As if you could believe that.”

Crazy thing was … she
did
believe it. She'd arrived at that conclusion before she'd even known he'd been writing to tell her. “So what's your impression?” she asked. “What's he hoping to achieve with those letters?”

“He makes it obvious. He's begging you to retain him as a patient. He says he'll never ask you to be alone with him again, that he doesn't need to because he already told you what he had to say.”

That Fitzpatrick was their killer—what had to be the biggest lie he'd spun yet.

Russell leaned close. “So … what did he tell you?”

Evelyn waved him off. “Nothing reliable. Like you said, you can't believe a word that comes out of his mouth.”

“You're not going to say?”

She considered repeating what Hugo had whispered, just to see how Russ would react. She was curious to learn if there was some small part of him that might believe Fitzpatrick could be capable of such atrocities. But Danielle and Lorraine weren't just murdered; they were hacked to pieces—and not for purposes of disposal, because they were then displayed. That brought a certain type of killer to mind—one who enjoyed it.

The emergency alarm went off before she could open her mouth, anyway.

“Damn it,” he groaned. “It's always something. What the hell's wrong now?”

Anthony Garza had been the reason for the last alarm. Evelyn prayed he wasn't to blame for this one, or Fitzpatrick would do his best to make her feel responsible for whatever Garza had done.

“I'm going to find out,” she said, and hurried back to her office so she could call the warden.

Getting through to Ferris took several minutes. By then, the alarm had been shut off.

“What's going on?” she asked as soon as she had him on the line.

“You're not going to like it,” he replied.

Her ears were still ringing. “Tell me anyway.”

“Anthony Garza just shanked Hugo Evanski.”

Stunned, Evelyn felt behind her for her seat.
“How?”

“With a pen he made into a weapon.”

That wasn't what she'd meant. She knew the inmates made homemade weapons out of whatever they could. They even filed their toothbrushes into sharp points. “I mean … how was it that they were together?”

“They were exercising in the yard.”

This was so unexpected, so unbelievable! It never should've happened. “Hugo's not
dead
—”

“No. Not yet. He's on his way to Medical.”

Not
yet?
“How serious are his injuries?”

“Hard to say. I didn't see him, but from what I've heard he's lost a lot of blood.”

Her mind raced as she struggled to sort out this information. “But … Anthony shouldn't have been in the yard.” Technically, after attacking her, Hugo shouldn't have been there, either, but she remembered telling the COs to return him to his cell. Since she left the prison right after, without giving instructions for his privileges to be removed, it was conceivable they'd let him carry on as usual.

But Garza? Who the hell had put him in general population? “Why wasn't he on lockdown? He hasn't behaved since he arrived.”

“Someone had him transferred out of solitary.”

She shot to her feet again.
“Who?”

“Let me check.” There was a pause, then a worried sigh. Obviously, Warden Ferris was as flustered as she was. She could hear him opening and closing file drawers, imagined him searching through the myriad paperwork that crossed his desk and was retained in his office. Finally, he asked someone to help him find the transfer order.

Evelyn had to wait more than fifteen minutes, but she clung to the phone, wasn't about to hang up.

“I've got it right here,” he said when he came back on the line.

“Who signed it?”

He cleared his throat.

“Warden Ferris?” she prompted.

“I'm sorry, Dr. Talbot.” She couldn't help noticing how much his tone had changed.

“What is it?”

“Maybe you don't remember, but …
you
did.”

 

16

I wasn't going to rob her, or touch her, or rape her. I was just going to kill her.

—DAVID BERKOWITZ, THE SON OF SAM

Amarok had a lot of people to interview, but first he wanted to see what Shorty knew about Danielle and her behavior. She had to meet the men she had sex with somewhere, and since Amarok had seen her at the bar himself in recent weeks, he was guessing she'd met them at the Moosehead.

Was that where she had also met her killer?

Possibly. Even if it wasn't, perhaps Amarok would be able to gain information he could use to either corroborate or disprove what he found out when he spoke to those who'd been with her. For starters, he hoped to learn how many people were aware of her activities. It hadn't escaped him that she might have been murdered and cleaved to pieces by an angry wife or girlfriend. But he received a call from Phil Robbins, one of his Public Safety Officers, whom he'd commandeered to help with the investigation by hanging out at the trooper post to man the phone.

“Sergeant Amarok?”

He remained in his truck. The music was so loud inside the building he doubted he'd be able to hear if he didn't. “It's me, Phil.”