Abandoned: A Thriller (6 page)

“It’s important that we’re thorough, Mary,” Alan had said. “The more specific you can be, the better. It’ll be easier for him to attack generalities, you understand?”

“Yes.”

“So if there are any tics to the guy, like, phrases he used a lot, if he ever hummed a song, or if he has any distinguishing physical characteristics, such as moles or tattoos, anything at all, it’ll help. I realize remembering those kinds of things won’t be easy for you, but I also know you want to put him away, so I’m going to push you on the details.”

“I don’t want to put him away,” she’d said.

Alan paused. “You don’t?”

“No,” she’d replied. Her voice wasn’t faint anymore. It was clear and level. “I want him to die.”

To his credit, Alan had taken this in stride. I could almost see him, no expression of surprise or widening of the eyes. Just a nod to show he understood. Which he would have. “Fair enough. So then—you ready?”

“How’s this for a distinguishing physical characteristic?” she’d asked, continuing as though Alan hadn’t spoken. “He has a giant cock.”

This time, I’d heard the surprise in the length of Alan’s pause. “Sorry?” he finally managed.

“Bill,” she’d said, her voice still strong but with a faraway sound to it that made me certain she was looking off, remembering. “He has the biggest cock I’ve ever seen. It has to be ten inches long and God knows how thick. I remember clearly how it would stick out past that fat white stomach.”

“I see,” Alan said, finding his stride again. “He has a large penis. Anything else?”

“He has a scar on the inside of his right thigh.”

“Okay. This is good, Mary. What else?”

It had been her turn to pause. Something in the nature of that pause, the feel of it, made me certain what she was going to say next was something horrible.

“He has a tattoo on the bottom of his stomach. He’d lift up the fold of fat when he was making me … pleasure him with my mouth. ‘Look!’ he’d say, and I did. There were two letters.”

“What were the letters?”

“An
S
and an O.”

“Did he tell you what they stood for?”

“Yes. He said they stood for
Slave Owner.”

There was more, too much more. Hours of it. Alan took her through every brutal moment, demanding every sordid detail with that same gentle insistence. There were times she wept, but most of the time her voice was strong.

The prosecutors made the jurors listen to every minute, and her testimony did its job, along with the damning physical examination and other evidence.

So number three, when I saw that photo, was the belly that poked
at the chambray shirt. I couldn’t stop seeing it hovering above her, pendulous and sweaty, with the code tattoo that only his victims would ever understand. That and the smile, the endless false smile.

His hands had been folded and perched on the belly when I came into the interview room. The smile had been there too. Only his eyes betrayed him. They’d roved over the scars on my face like a starving man looking at a thick and juicy steak. He wasn’t cuffed, and we were alone. I wasn’t afraid of him here. Bill would love to record my screams, but setting was everything to him, as was privacy, and this wasn’t the place.

I sat the digital recorder on the table.

“Mr. Keats, as agreed, I’ll be recording this.”

“Of course,” he said.

We went through the usual set of questions, and he was pretty cooperative. His mother had been the abuser. She abused his sister physically and him sexually. She forced him to abuse his sister sexually. He grew to like it, or so he thought. His mother had dark hair and large breasts, of course, just like his victims. It was both predictable and pathetic, and I remember that it made me feel a little tired, though I was careful not to show it.

We arrived at the area that interested us both the most, though for different reasons: the screams.

“Has that always been a source of sexual excitement for you?” I asked.

Everything in these interviews is very formal, including the phrasing. It’s always a
source of sexual excitement
, never a
turn-on.
This is deliberate. Keeping things clinical and professional makes you a mirror, neither a judge nor a participant. They love to look at themselves in the mirror.

“Not really,” he said, in an even, pleasant voice.

“I see. Was there a point where that became a necessity of fixation?”

He rolled the question around, watching me as he did. I saw the change in his eyes, the calculation. He was looking for feedback. Locked away from the world, from his drug of choice—rape and murder—he was searching for a way to feed his hunger.

He leaned forward, letting those hungry eyes stare at my scars without restraint.

“Did you scream when he cut you, Smoky?” he asked me.

I stifled the sigh. I’d expected this. I wasn’t offended or disgusted or angry. I felt nothing. This was a game, and he was playing his part, thinking he was original when in fact he was as expected as they come.

“Yes,” I said. “Of course I did.”

His eyes widened, almost fluttered. “And did he like it when you screamed?”

“Yes.”

“How did you know? That he liked it?”

I wanted to deny him this, but I knew that shame would only be a bigger turn-on for him. I also knew this was the price for his explanation. I could refuse it, of course, but I wanted to know why he loved their screams so much. I met his gaze without flinching.

“His penis grew inside me when I screamed. It got harder. I could feel it.”

I said this with the same clinical detachment that a physician might use.
Tumescence
, I heard in my mind.

It didn’t matter to Bill Keats. He couldn’t hide his reaction. He sucked in a breath and crossed his legs involuntarily. One eye twitched.

“It’s your turn, Mr. Keats.”

He blinked a few times, reining himself back in from whatever great dark ocean he’d been drifting on. I could almost see him filing away the image of me in his mind for later use. He nodded. He leaned back in his chair again and perched his hands atop his belly. The smile returned.

“The first woman I ever raped,” he said. “I went to penetrate her.”

I remember thinking his use of
penetrate
was prissy and that this was telling.

“And?” I coaxed.

“I hadn’t even entered her yet. But she knew what I was about to do and she screamed. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever heard. She knew what was about to happen and knew she couldn’t change it. The misery I heard in that scream was … well. It was perfect. I ejaculated then and there, before I even got inside her.” His look grew pensive. “She never screamed again like that. Not even when I was strangling her. That was the sound of her breaking.” His eyes found mine again, and the smile returned. It seemed more thoughtful to me, somehow. “I’ve been searching for that same sound ever since. I didn’t get that scream on record. I wasn’t prepared. It’s my greatest regret.”

“And did you?” I asked. “Did you ever find that same sound again?”

He shook his head, wistful. “Close,” he said. “Very close, sometimes. But never the same.”

It took another ten minutes to complete the interview, and I was glad when it was done. I’d gotten what I wanted. Now I’d get to walk out of that place, while Bill—he of the belly and the horn-rims and the big false smile—would not. He’d die in a cage. Not enough by far, but it would have to do.

“Come on,” he said to me, as I was turning to leave. “Tell me something about myself.”

I frowned. “Sorry?”

He shrugged. “You’ve read everything about me, heard everything. I’ve answered all your questions, filled out all your forms. So? You’re the expert. What can you tell me about me?”

I saw the real desire in his eyes. I’d seen it before in the eyes of these men. It was one of those injections of humanity, a shade of gray where you’d prefer just black and white. Their own misery was their biggest secret.
Why?
they wanted to know.
Why am I the way I am?

I wanted to hurt him with my words. To say something so insightful that it would shatter him. The problem was, there was nothing revelatory about Bill Keats.

“You were excited by having sex with your mother but were deeply ashamed of that. Your wife reminds you of your sister, which is why you married her and why you probably never slept with her. Your victims reminded you of your mother, which is why you killed them.” I paused, the last thing I was to say sliding in place like a puzzle piece. “You overeat because you disgust yourself and are only comfortable seeing something disgusting in the mirror.”

It was the last thing that cut him the deepest. I saw it in his whole body. The way he cowered for a moment, but only a moment. His hands clenched into two fists. They returned to their relaxed state on their stomach perch, and the benign smile found its way back to his mouth, but the effect was ruined.

“Good-bye, Mr. Keats,” I said. He didn’t speak again.

I stand here now, in the hospital, watching this unknown woman on the gurney. I don’t know her, not really, but I do know the man who
had her. I’ve seen his kind again and again. I know his eyes without ever having seen his face. And it bothers me.

It bothers me that I have a better idea of who he is than of who she is.

“Well, this is a fine kettle,” Callie exclaims.

Sam is on his cell phone a few yards away.

“Changing your plane tickets?” I ask her, nodding toward him.

She makes a face. “Work call, honey-love. Lord knows how that’s going to end up.”

Callie calls everyone “honey-love,” often to their great annoyance. Sam flips his phone shut and comes back over to us. His face is serious.

“That was Hickman,” he says to Callie. “There’s a situation.”

“I thought Hickman was running things,” Callie protests. “What was he going to do about this ‘situation’ when we were in Bora-Bora?”

“Well, we’re not in Bora-Bora, honey. I called him, he didn’t call me.” He glances around, taking in Alan, James, Tommy, and me. “Are you really telling me you think we’re hopping the next plane?”

She pouts, which elicits a roll of the eyes from James, who is watching. “That’s hardly the point, Samuel.”

He takes her hands in his and brings them to his lips. “It’s just a hostage scenario, Calpurnia. It’ll keep me busy until you sort this out.”

She searches his eyes. “And if this doesn’t sort out? If it turns into something that requires canceling the honeymoon altogether?”

He smiles. “We knew we were marrying each other’s jobs too. This is who we are.”

She purses her lips. “Fine. Go play guns with the boys. But don’t get shot, and I expect a honeymoon-level performance tonight, regardless of circumstance.”

“That’s never a problem,” he growls.

“Okay, then, Husband. Off you go.”

He kisses her on the lips, hard. “Bye, Wife.” He trots off down the hallway.

Callie flaps her hands in her face, pantomiming the need to cool herself off. “Goodness! That man knows how to get my furnace burning.”

“Cool your jets, Jezebel,” I say, smiling.

James exhales in a noisy, exasperated sigh. I turn to him with an inquiring look on my face. “You have something to add?”

“Why are we here? Just because some woman shows up at Callie’s wedding screaming doesn’t make it our concern.”

“Your compassion is touching, as always,” Alan says.

James ignores him. “Our mandate doesn’t cover us picking up random cases.”

“It’s not random,” I say.

James frowns. “How’s that?”

I pull the note from my pocket and show it to them. I tell them about the text message.

“Great,” Alan mutters, handing it back to me.
“Follow the line of inquiry.
Another one who likes to play games.”

“Think about it, James. She was dropped off at a wedding filled with FBI and other law enforcement personnel. Do you really think that was a coincidence? She’s a message.”

He shrugs. “Even so. We don’t mobilize for every threatening letter that appears in the mail either.”

“She’s not a letter, honey-love,” Callie says. “She’s a person.”

He waves a hand dismissively. “Different form, same intent. My point stands.”

“I can argue its possibility as a direct threat against us, as well as the obvious kidnapping,” I say. “That would put it under our purview.”

“Semantics.”

I smile. “Ah, but I’m the boss, which isn’t just semantics, James. If I want to make the argument, I will.”

A sucking-lemons sour expression appears on his face and stays there. “What’s going to be the deciding factor on you making that argument?” he asks.

“What she has to say.” I talk seriously now, pushing all banter aside. “Think about it, James. We’ve seen this kind of thing before. Combine that with the note and ask yourself: What do you think the chances are that she was his first? Or that, if she was, she’ll be his last?”

The sour expression is replaced by something more contemplative. I’ve gotten his wheels turning. “Fine,” he mutters, walking away.

“He’s our rock, in his own way,” Callie says, looking at James.

“How do you figure?” I ask.

“He’s uncaring and unthinking. As constant as the wind.”

“Good point.”

Tommy approaches. “Sorry to interrupt, but I was thinking about going to pick up Bonnie. This isn’t really my show.”

“You’ll take her home?”

“And feed her,” he says, smiling.

I grab his tuxedo lapels and pull him down to me. I plant a kiss on his lips. “That’d be really great.”

“Okay, then.” He extricates himself from my grasp and leans over to give Callie an unexpected kiss on the cheek.

“What was that for?” she asks, startled.

“Congratulations,” he says. “I wanted to be the first to say it. And don’t forget.”

“Forget what?”

He jerks a thumb toward the room where they’re working on our Jane Doe. “That that’s not what you should remember about today.”

He smiles and saunters off. I watch him go, wistful and a little horny. Gallantry in men can have that effect on me.

“Nice guy,” Callie says.