Killer Within (16 page)

Chapter
Thirty-Nine

THE NEXT MORNING I KNOCK
on Daisy’s door. “Can we talk?”

“Sure.” She waves me in.

I close her door and sit down at her desk. I’ve never known how to do the pleasantry part of a conversation. I always get right to the point. But as I stare at her sitting on her bed, I spin a few niceties through my brain, trying to come up with exactly what I want to say.

She laughs. “Lane?”

I chuckle too. I really don’t know how to ask her if she has any dark thoughts or urges without it coming across odd.

So I decide on, “Ever since Mom died I’ve been remembering a lot of things.”
Like the Barbies and the meat mallet.
“Kind
of like you remembered your eighth birthday.”
And Marji’s name.

Daisy nods.

“I guess I just want you to know that you can come to me if you remember things and have questions. Or if you have any thoughts you want to talk about. You will never get judgment from me. Only support and honesty.” I study her eyes, trying to show her in mine how serious I am.

To my surprise she doesn’t do a typical giggle-it-off Daisy move. She nods thoughtfully.

“No matter how odd the memory seems,” I clarify. “Okay?”

Daisy’s brows come together. “Like what kind of odd memories?”

Why is she asking me that? Has she had one? “Anything,” I assure her. “No matter how off it seems, and I’ll help piece it together.” Or I’ll help bury it. “Like the name you overheard—Marji. I found out she was just some friend of Mom’s from when they were kids.”

“Why were Mom and Dad arguing about her?”

“Because”—I decide to tell her the truth—“Dad didn’t really like Marji.” I shrug. “Just like you and I don’t like people.”

This seems to appease her, and she smiles. “Did you learn all this big-sister communication in your grief group?”

I hold my hands up—“Busted”—and we both laugh. “I guess that’s enough bonding for now,” I joke, and get up.

“Thanks, Lane,” she says as I head out.

“Sure.”

The conversation was a good start. Not too deep. Not too light. Just enough to lay the foundation for follow-up. Enough to let her know I’m here if she wants to talk. I don’t want her to be confused or lost like I’ve been with my thoughts, my impulses, my needs.

All I can do is keep an eye on her. Be here for her, and hope she wasn’t exposed to the same things I was as a child. Hope we’re not doomed to be the evil mirrors of our mother and Marji.

I research the incidents Catalina’s father mentioned—another prostitute and another homeless person attacked. Suspected drugs are involved with both. All done with Tasers and zip ties to copycat me, and beaten afterward. No deaths. Just beaten. Horribly beaten with a baseball bat.

Catalina said the task force thinks there’s a real Savior and a copycat. I wonder which one they think did these. I wonder if Catalina knows.

After my Wednesday Patch and Paw shift I climb into my Jeep to go home, and catch sight of Dr. Issa sitting over to the side on a bench beneath a parking lot lamp. He’s talking on the phone and hasn’t even seen me come out of the building. It’s not often I get to sit and just watch him.

I crack my window and his voice floats in, but I can’t make out what he’s saying.

Memories of the first time I met him come back. I was fifteen and had just started working at Patch and Paw. He came in as an intern, straight from Hopkins. He introduced himself, we shook hands, he gave me that shy, intelligent smile, and my heart experienced its very first female flutter.

I smile a little to myself.

Done eavesdropping, I go to roll my window up and see him stand.

He paces away from the bench and back, his voice lowering in anger. He stops talking, listens, then fires back a retort. He brings the phone away, looks at it, and puts it back to his ear. “Hello?” I hear him say, then he chucks his phone into the bushes.

He kicks the bench, and it reminds me of the time I saw him kick his tire after an argument with a girl.

Dr. Issa’s temper always catches me off guard. I’ve seen it flare a few times, but it just seems so . . . not him.

He retrieves his phone and heads inside, and I continue sitting for a few minutes. What gets him so angry? A girl? His father? I wouldn’t think Zach.

I check my watch. It’s a little after nine. Catalina’s house is on my way home, and so I do a drive-by. If she’s home, I’ll stop and see where she and I are in things. See if she’s still pissed at me for snapping at her.

See if she’s learned anything from her dad’s bugged office.

Her VW Bug is not outside. I pull along the curb and parallel park among all the vehicles in her neighborhood. I’ll wait a few minutes and see if she shows up. There are a few lights on downstairs and one on upstairs. But her room is dark.

I turn my Jeep off, and while I wait, I start to think through things. There are three people I know for sure are or were members of “my” site: Kyle, Catalina, and Tommy. There’s j_d_l, who, from the posts, I’m positive has been following me. Then there’s M, the creator of “my” site. Finally, there’s my copycat, who I’ve been convinced is j_d_l. But what if he’s not? What if M is my copycat?

Either way, the two people I know for sure with a direct link to M are Catalina and Tommy. I’ve already searched Tommy’s place and came up with nothing. I look up to Catalina’s dark window. It’s time I searched her.

The ancient VW Bug putters in from a side street and hangs a left into her driveway. She doesn’t even notice my Jeep parked along the curb in between all the other vehicles. Still, I duck down in my seat and watch as she gets out. She grabs a duffel bag from her backseat, pops the lock on her front trunk, and stows it inside.

She heads into her house, and I stare at her car. I bet anything if she has something I want to see, it will probably be in her car, not her bedroom. Just like me—I keep stuff I don’t
want people to see in my Jeep. Like my Masked Savior kit.

I don’t have time to look now. But later tonight . . . well, that’s a different story.

I glance at my bedside clock, watching as it transitions to two a.m. It’s time. Dressed in all black with my long hair shoved up inside a dark beanie, I stealthily climb down my fire escape ladder and hit the ground running. It’s sprinkling, but not full-on rain yet.

I jump in my Jeep and drive straight to Catalina’s house. I park a couple blocks down and look around. I am the only one out.

I speed-walk my way to her Bug, which she’s moved from her driveway to the curb to make room for another car. Probably belonging to one of her parents.

Her Bug is old with no security. It should be easy to break in to.

I peer into the front, the back. It’s clean. No garbage. No anything.

Way back when I was little kid, Victor drove a VW Bug. That’s how I know the engine’s in the back, storage is in the front, and the hood release is located in the glove compartment. I also recall watching Victor wedge his fingers in the wing window and pulling up on the door lock.

I mimic my memory, wiggling my hand through the side window and down to the lock.

I open the door, pop the glove compartment, release the hood, and round the car to the front.

Inside the storage area there’s a duffel bag. I quickly rifle through it and find a change of clothes and toiletries. I set the duffel aside, and in the darkness I feel around. Wires. Tubing. A tank of some sort. All on top of a piece of plywood.

With my gloved fingers I find the corner of the plywood and lift up to discover a small lockbox hidden beneath. It reminds me of the one my parents keep passports and birth certificates in. Why would Catalina have something like this?

I lift it out, put everything back like I found it, and speed-walk back to my Jeep.

It takes a deviant to know a deviant.

That thought enters my mind and makes me pause. Me and Catalina. Deviants. Deviating from the norm. Yes, that would describe us.

In my Jeep I get my pick and work the lock. I can’t get it to open. I press the pick a little harder and it snaps off.
Damn.

In the early-morning darkness I squint but can’t really see the broken piece in the lock. I don’t want to turn on a light. So I put my Jeep in gear and drive home. I’ll get some of Victor’s tools and jimmy it open.

Back at my house I climb up my ladder and slip into my room. I open my door at the exact second Victor’s light flicks on.

Shit.

I yank my beanie off and dive for my bed and under the covers and hope to all holy hell I look like I’m sleeping.

He opens my sister’s door first . . . then Justin’s . . . then mine.

The lockbox. I put it beside my bed. I don’t think he’ll see it. It’s dark in here. Or did I? Oh my God. Where
did
I put it? I didn’t leave it by the window, did I? This isn’t like me. Hasty. Scatterbrained.

Leaving my door slightly open, Victor turns and shuffles back to his room. I listen for his door to close, but it doesn’t. A few minutes later I turn in my bed and look all the way down the hall to his cracked door and the light spilling out.

He’s up. Either he can’t sleep or he’s going into work early or both. Either way, him being up means I’m going nowhere. I can’t go down to the basement where he keeps his tools.

The lockbox. I glance over the side of my bed, locate it, and slide it under. I lie back, stare up at the ceiling, and think about the box. Down on my floor. Calling me. Taunting me. Luring me to open it.

Chapter
Forty

IT RAINS HARD THE REST
of the early morning hours. I don’t sleep and finally get up at five, my usual time. I’m exhausted.

The lockbox is still under my bed. Victor’s downstairs now. There’s no way I can go to the basement and get his tools without him knowing. Asking.

I do the only thing I can do: grab a shower and head downstairs.

“You look tired.” He points out the obvious.

“You too.” He’s been up the same amount of time as me.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

I nod and refill his mug.

Victor takes it. “I’ll be in the office.”

As soon as he closes his door, I race down to the basement, dig around in his toolbox, and get what I think I need. I head straight up to my room, lock myself in, and grab Catalina’s box. I take a quick glance at my clock. We don’t leave for school until seven. I have plenty of time.

It takes me a flat-head screwdriver and needle-nose pliers to get the broken piece out of the lock. With a new pick I gingerly work it, and in a few minutes I hear a
click
.

I breathe a sigh of relief.
Finally.

I wedge open the lid.

A cell phone sits right on top, and I take it out first. Underneath are photos, newspaper articles, handwritten notes. Everything neatly clipped in organized piles.

I lay it all out on my bed, and it’s like looking at my own collection and research of serial killers throughout time.

I scan through her notes, and even though they are her personal thoughts, they’re done in a scientific, third-person point of view. Much like how I do mine. Chronicling the killer’s childhood, nature versus nurture, leading up to his or her killing spree.

I continue unclipping and scanning the bundles, each with a family tree of sorts attached. Catalina tracked the family members of the serial killers and what came of them. I’ve never thought to do that before.

I read through her notes, fascinated at the slight trends she’s identified. Parents of killers, siblings, extended relatives,
children of killers . . . I track my eyes down those paragraphs: isolation, lying, stealing, violence . . .

Yes, I am my parents’ daughter. I’ve come to terms with that. It’s how I channel it that is the key to me not turning into the evil that was them.

DECAPITATOR
peeks out from under a separate bundle, and apprehension buzzes through my blood. The newness of the bundle and fresh-dated notes indicate this is her latest research project. She’s compiled a file much like I had, following the Decapitator’s every move. There’s a printout of my mom’s funeral; another of Zach, the one surviving victim; and one of me, the only known relative—the Decapitator’s niece.

My picture’s attached to a small spiral notebook. I open it and start reading. Dates. Times. Places. Details of the cheerleader’s head I shaved. Graffiti boy. Jacks, the druggie I almost took down but didn’t. Aisha. The locker at the Metro stop. Marji . . .

Son of a bitch! Catalina’s the one who has been trailing me.
She’s
j_d_l!

There’s a knock on my door. “Just a minute!” I shove everything back into the lockbox and slide it under my bed. I give my room one last look and open my door.

Catalina’s standing there with Victor behind her. I stare straight into her face. j_d_l. She knows everything about me. She saw me
kill
Marji! Her dad is the head of the task force. Why hasn’t she turned me in? More important, how did she manipulate
me, how did she
lie
to me all this time and I had no clue?

She’s j_d_l, but is she also my copycat?

“She has a question for you,” Victor tells me. “I told her to make it quick. You’re getting ready for school.”

I wait for him to leave, but he doesn’t.

She grins. “Hey, there’s some stuff missing out of my car, and I was just wondering if maybe you accidentally took it the last time we were hanging out?”

I don’t break composure. “No.” How in the hell does she know that?

She cocks her head. “Oh, okay. Well, if you find my stuff, just return it whenever you’re ready.”

What kind of game is she playing here? “Okay.”

She waves. “Have a good day.”

I watch as Victor walks her down our stairs, and I hear her go out the front door.

Catalina is my dark mirror. That’s what I thought when I first saw her. We
are
disturbingly similar. Save for one very valid point: I don’t have frontal lobe issues and she does.

She does things and doesn’t think they’re wrong.

Victor’s words nudge into my brain and have me pausing and questioning not Catalina, but my own self.

I didn’t intend on killing Marji. It just happened. Did it surprise me? Yes. Did it make me sick to my stomach? Yes. Do I currently feel remorse? No. She threatened me, my family. She
participated in the Decapitator’s mutilations, and she tortured two people (that I know of) all on her own.

She does things and doesn’t think they’re wrong.

The fact is, I
could
have killed other people, but I haven’t. I would
never
hurt somebody who didn’t absolutely deserve it. Never. I know the difference between right and wrong. If it can’t be honestly justified, then I don’t justify it.

What am I doing—the last thing I need is to question myself. I need to get back to compartmentalizing. I used to do it so well. The ability to execute my initiative, flip the internal switch, and go back to being just Lane.

I’ve lost that part of me.

Before Mom, Catalina would never have been able to manipulate me the way she has. No more struggling with thoughts and actions. It’s past time I get back to being me.

In first period library TA, I turn on the phone I found in Catalina’s lockbox and scroll through the numbers. I’m in there. So is Tommy. Kyle also. A few other names I don’t recognize. There’s one number she’s called the most. There’s no name attached to it. Just a number.

I type it into a couple of different search engines and come up with nothing. It’s probably a burner phone.

“Hey, you.”

I glance up. “Zach. Hey.” Talk about forever.

He smiles, and the absolute honesty in it softens my heart,
and it hits me—Marji, Catalina, my mother—it seems I’m destined to be surrounded by unbalanced people. How am I so fortunate to have someone true like Zach?

“I miss you,” he boldly states. “
Really
miss you. I thought I could do this stay-away-from-Lane thing, but I can’t. I’m sorry to keep going back and forth with you like this.” He heaves a sigh that turns into a desperate sort of confused look. “I’m saying I want to be friends again. I
need
to be your friend.” He swallows. “Please.”

I smile as his words wash over me. “Definitely friends.”

He blows out a relieved breath (like he really thought I would say no). “Want to do coffee or something?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, I’ll call you.” He gives me a quick hug and bolts back across the library.

That was . . . strange. And pretty damn great.

I close down my station and grab my stuff. Catalina’s phone vibrates. I glance down at it, surprised, and stare at the mystery number listed on the screen. This is the perfect opportunity for me to find out more, impersonate Catalina, do a little digging of my own, unearth
her
secrets.

I grab the phone and slide it open.

DID U DO IT?
the mystery number texts.

I type back,
YES
.

I wait. And wait. And wait some more. But the mystery number on Catalina’s phone doesn’t respond.

Did I do what . . . ?

I’ll bet anything the mystery number belongs to M. It’s my turn to manipulate things. I’ve got to figure out how to meet this M and deal with Catalina.

Although I’m not quite sure what “deal with Catalina” means. She knows too much. My God, she knows I stabbed Marji. I just wish I knew how deep Catalina is with this whole Masked Savior copycat thing.

Now that I know she’s been watching me, I need to backtrack and think things through. She knows who I am—obviously. She probably started following me because I’m related to the Decapitator. Then she merely stumbled across the fact I’m also the Masked Savior.

She’s known all along who I am. She’s been luring me into her friendship. She’s been feeding me information about what the task force does and doesn’t know.

She knows I have her lockbox. Which means she knows that
I know
what she has been up to.

The question is, why do all this?

And how dangerous of a threat is she?

There’s no telling how much she’s lied to me about. For all I know she and M could be one and the same, but I’m just not seeing it. My gut tells me they are two different people, which means one of them
has
to be the copycat.

Unless there’s a third person involved. . . .