Killer Within (11 page)

Chapter
Twenty-Five

“WHICH ONE?” I ASK. “THE
real or the copycat?”

She scrunches her nose up. “I don’t know. But—”

Gramps comes back out the door. “Dinner,” he annoyingly reminds me.

I fight the urge to roll my eyes.

“Listen, I’ll call you later,” Catalina promises.

Reluctantly I go inside and sit through dinner, but all I can think about is what Catalina said. Someone’s come forward and can identify the Masked Savior. Or rather my copycat. Because
I
certainly didn’t abduct anybody.

By eleven p.m. she still irritatingly has not called, and I’m not about to dial her. That would come across as too needy.

I get my laptop instead and do a general search on
Masked Savior
and come up with a zillion links for people who want to hire me.

Bizarre.

I lie awake most of the night going through the time line. Who I used to be, where I started, what I came from, where I am now. I cycle through this over and over and decide, at this point, I just need to know who this person is who claims he escaped and can identify “me.” He’s the only viable link to my copycat.

My natural inclination is to text Reggie, as Catalina has proven to be unreliable, but of course I don’t.

The entire next day goes by, and I finally hear from Catalina via text right before dinner.
GUY THAT CAME FWD IS MICHAEL MASON. DON’T KNOW WHO HE IDENTIFIED AS SAVIOR.

Michael Mason? Doesn’t sound familiar.
THANKS.
I text her back, and immediately plug his name into a search engine. Ex-military, been in jail a couple of times for petty theft, but nothing huge. He was questioned and released and doesn’t appear to be a hardened criminal.

Definitely not my type.

I copy his address down anyway and make a plan for a visit. I’m going to see what he does and doesn’t know.

Our doorbell rings and Daisy runs to get it. “Hammond!” She pulls him inside. “We’re just sitting down to dinner.” She glances over her shoulder. “Dad, can Hammond stay?”

“Sure,” he agrees. “It’s just spaghetti, but there’s plenty.”

We all sit down, the perfect family we are, and I can’t help but get a little soft at Daisy and Hammond. They really are sweet.

“So”—Gramps gazes right at me—“where were you yesterday? You didn’t go to your Patch and Paw shift.”

My entire family glances up. I’ve never missed a shift.

“You’re right. I took the day off. I wanted to be by myself.” I look my grandfather dead in the eyes. “How is it, exactly, that you know I didn’t do my shift?”

“I just happened to be driving by and stopped in to say hi.”

Yeah, right.

Gramps narrows his eyes, ever so slightly. “So where were you?”

I turn from him to Victor, because, well, I answer to him, not my grandfather. “I drove around, Dad. Got a little lost. Took some time to think. Saw a friend. That’s it.”

Victor’s expression softens. “That’s okay. Better now?”

“Yes.” I want to look back at my grandfather but don’t. He
won’t
come between me and my family.

A few quiet seconds tick by, then Daisy whispers something to Hammond, he laughs, and things seem back to normal. I still don’t look at Gramps. But I
know
he’s staring at me.

“I heard,” Gramps starts in again, “that the FBI will take over this Masked Savior business if the local task force can’t figure things out. Something about vigilante terrorism?”

Victor glances around the table, clearly uncomfortable talking business in front of us kids. “At this point there’re way too many things up in the air. So, Justin . . .” And with that Victor expertly diverts the conversation.

Vigilante terrorism. FBI stepping in. Yes, I need to get this figured out. Because the last thing I need is the FBI on my ass. This local task force is pain enough.

As I’m doing dishes, I get a call from Zach. “Hey,” I answer.

“Hey, you.”

I smile.

“Sorry about the call. Everything’s okay, in case you were worried or something.”

“I was,” I say, realizing I honestly am and wishing I would’ve thought to check in with him before now.

“My brother called me and, well, all is fine.”

So Dr. Issa got my message. Good.

“Anyway, that’s all.”

I want to keep him on the phone but really don’t know what to say, so I decide on “Bye, Zach,” and truly hope he’s okay.

Chapter
Twenty-Six

THE NEXT NIGHT GRAMPS IS
out with some friend, so it’s easy for me to say to Victor, “Off to the coffee shop to study.”

“Be back by midnight.” He gives his obligatory comment, to which I nod.

I keep a careful eye on my rearview and am certain I’m not being trailed. By seven thirty I’m sitting outside Michael Mason’s apartment complex several blocks from the Reston Town Center.

People come and go, and no one notices me in the packed parking lot. Just the way I like it. Michael lives on the first floor, and a little before nine his front door opens and he steps out dressed in all black. I know from what I looked up that he’s
thirty-one, divorced, and has no children. I give him a good, long study, and, no, I definitely don’t know this guy.

He zips up his dark jacket, climbs onto a bicycle, and pedals out of the complex.

I follow.

He goes down the road about a mile and pulls into a nearby park. I give my surroundings another long look, still certain no one is trailing me, and park my Jeep near a few other cars. Michael doesn’t even glance up as he locks his bike to a rack and enters a trail.

It’s near black out, and I give myself a second to take in the area. Over in the far field there’s a group of guys playing moonlight football. Maybe Michael is here for the game.

I climb from my Jeep, and as I enter the path Michael took, I pull my ski mask down.

He strolls along, oblivious, and I come right up on him.

He turns at the exact same second, clearly sensing me, and then fully faces me.

I pause.
O-kay.
Not expecting that.

His eyes go wide. “It’s you!”

I don’t respond.

“You’re the
real
Masked Savior, aren’t you?”

I concentrate on keeping my voice low and manly. “You claim to have been held and released by the Masked Savior. Claim to have seen him. Describe him.” Describe my copycat.

He studies me for a second. “Are you here to thank me?”

What?
Thank him. Thank him for what? “Describe him,” I repeat instead, puzzling at why he doesn’t seemed scared of me.

“I believe in you. I
am
you. Everything I’ve done, it’s for the mission.”

The mission?

“Don’t worry. I gave the police the description I was told.”

Told?

“Average height, average weight, dark hair, dark eyes.”

That goes against every other Savior description. Why would he have been told to do that? And by whom?

He chuckles. “We really threw the task force off with that one.”

“Who is ‘we’?” I ask.

“That whore,” he continues, not answering my question. “I gladly did what I had to.”

What is he talking about? What whore? The teenage prostitute?

“She deserved to die.”

Die?
Wait a minute. People have been beaten to near death, but no one has actually died.

“Were you sent to thank me?” He repeats his prior question.

I don’t respond.

His face brightens. “You were, weren’t you?”

Realization gradually settles in. This guy doesn’t know any
thing. Whatever “whore” he’s talking about is someone other than the teen prostitute. No wonder this guy was questioned and released by the cops. “You didn’t really see the Masked Savior did you?” He didn’t really see my copycat.

This man, Michael Mason, is a fraud. He wasn’t captured and able to identify anybody. He’s just some twisted fan of the Masked Savior.

He snorts. “No, I didn’t really see the Masked Savior.” Then he grins. “But I do now. You’re right here!”

This guy’s got nothing I need. He’s meant to throw not only the task force off, but probably me, too.

Except he’s actually murdered someone in my name. Why don’t I know about this woman he killed? Did it not make the news? Though I doubt he had anything to do with the teen prostitute, the homeless boy, and Jacks, I still ask him about them.

“What? No,” he answers. “I’m a stabber. I’m not a beater. I stabbed that whore. I dumped her body right in these woods. They haven’t even found her yet.” Michael laughs like that’s the funniest thing ever.

This man is insane.

“I’m still waiting for my thank-you,” he says.

“You were told to pretend you were taken by the Masked Savior?”

He nods.

“Who told you?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

I take a patient breath. “Does JDL mean anything to you?”

He scrunches his face up and thinks. “Who’s that?”

All I want to do is beat information out of him, but I know he won’t respond to that. “Did the same person who told you to pretend tell you to kill this ‘whore’?”

He giggles. “No, that was all me. I’ll take you to the body. Do you want to see?”

“Yes.”
Then I’ll taser and zip-tie you and turn your sick ass in.

Michael turns and strolls off. “Okay, follow me.”

I stay a careful distance behind, my senses on full alert. He starts talking, but it’s not to me. He’s carrying on a conversation with his own self.

This man is unbalanced. For sure. Mentally, something is off. He will definitely pay for what he’s done to this woman. Either in prison or a mental institution.

He leaves the trail. “It’s just over here.”

I watch as he makes his way through the dark woods, and I get my Taser out and ready. In the moonlight I still see him and I take another second to stop, survey the area, and tune in to my senses. Myself.

Everything in me tells me this guy is really leading me to a body. This isn’t some sort of trap.

He stops at a huge mound of dirty snow that looks recently piled. He doesn’t point, just looks.

I look too and don’t see anything.

Michael leans down, grabs something, and tugs, and out from beneath the pile a dirty and bloody woman’s body emerges.

Without a hesitant second I lift my Taser and shoot. He drops to the ground with a high-pitched scream that sends a tiny bit of blood surging in my veins.

While he spasms into a twitchy mess, I wrangle his wrists together and zip-tie them. Then I do his thighs and ankles.

His twitching becomes more violent, spit foams in the corners of his mouth, and I realize something’s not right. He’s having a seizure.

I take a step back as his body lashes to the right and back to the left, and then his eyes snap open to stare up at the dark sky. He lets out a long, throaty moan before going completely still.

I suck in a sharp breath. What the hell. . . . He’s not dead, is he? I study his open eyes, his neck where there
isn’t
a pulse, and his chest that is
not
rising with breath.

Oh. My. God.

I stand in disbelief staring down at his body, and then I quickly move, kneeling to get a closer look.

There. It’s faint, but it’s there. A raspy breath. I press my fingers to his neck, not expecting to feel a pulse through my gloves, but trying anyway.

There. Another raspy breath. He’s alive!

I blow out a relieved breath and stare at his chest, watching as he inhales another hesitant breath. Why? Why do I care if this deranged man is alive?

Because he killed someone for me. The Masked Savior. Or for his twisted view of the Savior. Obviously, he’s mentally unbalanced, but he killed an innocent person in my name.

I’m disgusted. And angry. How did this all get so out of control? How did my own dark urges spiral into this bizarre fan club?

This all started with me. This is my fault. It has to end.

He said someone told him. Who—my copycat? j_d_l? Because what if they aren’t the same? What if j_d_l and my copycat are actually two different people? Either way, I have to stop this. This right here proves it is much bigger than I realized.

I dig his cell from his front pocket and dial 911. The stabbed woman moans and I jump back. She’s alive too? Holy shit!

“What is your emergency?” I hear over the cell.

My pulse kicks in as I drop the phone and sprint back through the frozen woods. I dive into my Jeep and get the hell out of the park.

A mile down the road I hear sirens and exhale a long breath.

She’s alive. Thank God, she’s alive, and so is Michael Mason.

Then how come neither thought alleviates my guilt?

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

THE NEXT DAY I GOOGLE
Michael Mason and the unidentified woman. She’s currently in a hospital, and he’s in a psych ward. She was able to describe the horror of her ordeal, but she did not see who tasered and zip-tied Mason.

I cruise my news feeds next, and the whole event, of course, is being connected to the Masked Savior. Because of the tasering and zip ties.

So much for laying low. The night did not go as I expected. But what was I supposed to do? Let the woman die in the woods and Michael go free? Absolutely not.

It’s all I can think about as I drive to my grief group meeting. When I arrive, my phone rings. It’s Catalina. “Yeah?” I answer.

“Michael Mason’s in a psych ward,” she whispers.

Michael Mason is exactly where he belongs. He’s going to get some much-needed help. I don’t say this though and instead respond, “Why are you whispering?”

“I don’t want my dad to hear. Did you tell anyone about Michael being the only eyewitness to the Masked Savior?”

“No, you?”

She pauses. “Just Kyle. Everyone on the task force obviously knows. Dad says there’re always leaks. It’s almost impossible to contain information. He was so pissed when Michael Mason popped up zip-tied. But he’s also pissed Mason’s description doesn’t fit their already compiled profile of the Savior.”

Good. That’s good. Keep the local task force guessing. I wait for Catalina to bring up the stabbed woman, but she doesn’t.

“Catalina, I wanted to run a thought by you.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“You and I both think there’s a real Masked Savior and a copycat. Do you think the copycat is acting on his or her own, or do you think there’s another person involved?”
Like j_d_l.

“Um . . . nah. I think the copycat is acting on his own.”

“Do you think the copycat is a member of the Masked Savior site?”

“Totally,” she immediately answers. “I cruise the posts all the time trying to figure out which one it is.”

Which validates my previous thought that j_d_l and the copycat
are
one and the same. “Any ideas?”
Please say j_d_l.

“There’re a lot of weirdos on the site. Honestly, could be any of them.”

“You’re the site administrator. Do you ever look at the records and see who is who?” I hold my breath and hope she says yes so I can probe her more about j_d_l.

“M’s the only one with access to everything—you know, IPs and all. Plus I’m sure a lot of people give fake registrations like you did.”

“M?”

“The creator of the site.”

“Huh.” I guess I thought since Catalina was the administrator, she was also the creator. “How did you end up the administrator?”

She laughs. “I filled out an application. M picked me.”

“You ever met this M?”

“No. To my knowledge Tommy’s the only one who has. He’s the only one who knows M’s true identity.”

Tommy . . . of course.

I hang up with her and head inside. I sit through grief group, but I don’t hear a word. I’m too focused on Tommy and how I’m going to broach the subject.

When group is over, I head straight toward him. “Can we talk?”

“Okay.”

I follow him outside. Some of the other group members wave good-bye, and as soon as we’re alone, I turn to him. “You used to be an active member of the Masked Savior site.”

His expression doesn’t change. “Catalina told you that?”

“Yes.”

“Are
you
on it?” he counters.

“Sort of. I registered and then took it down. I still look at it every so often though. Catalina said you took your registration down too?”

“That’s correct.”

I wait for him to elaborate, but of course he doesn’t. “Will you tell me why?”

Tommy’s blue eyes bore deeply into mine. “Yes. I’ll answer whatever other questions you have too. But first, I want you to share something with me that I don’t know.”

I don’t like this. “Like what?”

“You decide. Make it good.”

If I “make it good,” he’ll tell me what I’m fishing to know. I get it. The obvious things pop into my mind: My mom was the Decapitator; I’m the Masked Savior. But I choose instead: “I recently found out my mom has a sister I never knew about.” Good, but not too gritty. It’s the same thing I told Dr. Issa.

Tommy slips his keys from his jacket pocket, walks over, and climbs on his bike, making it obvious that wasn’t good enough.

I take a step toward him, my heart suddenly pounding, knowing exactly what I’m about to say. “I was there fourteen years ago when my uncle killed his first victim. I saw the whole thing.”

Tommy doesn’t climb off his bike. He stays straddling it, staring at me.

I hold his stare, unexpectedly feeling lighter,
freer
, for sharing more truth with him than I have ever with anyone else. Even if it is a truth hidden in lies.

“I knew you were hiding something. I could tell.”

I don’t like that at all. The very last thing I need is someone to be able to read me and the things I’m hiding. “Why aren’t you on the Masked Savior site anymore?”

“Because the creator of the site contacted me personally and wanted me to do things I wasn’t comfortable doing.”

My pulse thumps. “Like what?”

“Things.”

I try not to get frustrated. “Why did you join?”

“I was looking for . . . something.”

An out, I’m sure, to his grief. “You didn’t find it?”

“No.”

“I know the creator of the site,” I lie, hoping to move this conversation in the direction I need it to go. “M.”

He doesn’t seem surprised at all. “Do you now?”

I don’t respond, and I get the distinct impression he knows I’m lying. Now I regret I did.

Tommy cranks his engine. “That lie just cost you this conversation. See you later.” With that he rides off, and I turn and kick the lamppost.
Shit!

He was going to tell me something. He
was
. And I ruined it. I ruined it!