“You need to get into her house. That’s where she’d have her,” Kelly said. “Even if she doesn’t have any employees, keeping the kid at her business is a big risk. You’ve got deliveries, customers. Easier to be discovered.”
“You’re right, of course,” I said. “Justin doesn’t know her schedule, but we’re planning on heading to her house tonight. If she steps out the door, we’re going in.”
Kelly was silent.
“What?”
“Well, I believe him. But I don’t like the idea of you going off with him and doing this. I mean, you’ve gone from thinking he’s the devil to being alone with him.”
“I don’t have much choice if I want to find Kailey.”
“Can’t you go to Todd? Tell him you believe Justin? And what about Chris? Aren’t you supposed to be getting into his head? Have you just abandoned the idea he could be the guy?”
I stared into my tea. “Todd will tell me to back off, and Justin doesn’t want him to know he’d spoken to me. As for Chris…” I hesitated, knowing Kelly wasn’t going to like this part. “I really need his help getting into Martha Beckett’s house. Justin’s young and skittish. Going into his mother’s home is going to be really tough on him. I need a backup.”
“You’re taking both of them?” Kelly’s voice went shrill. “Are you nuts? What if Chris is the guy? Or what if they both flake out and get you caught?”
She had a point, and I was too worn out to shuffle through my mental file of Chris’s possible motives. “You know what? I’ve got his address. I’m going to pay him a surprise visit and flat out ask him.”
Kelly coughed, nearly spitting out her tea. “What?”
“Kailey is running out of time. Martha Beckett looks like a better suspect than Chris. The only way to rule him out is to lay everything I know on him and hope I can make a judgment call.”
“And what if he lies, and you run into big trouble? Like, I don’t know, his attacking you?” She wiped her mouth with a napkin, hands shaking.
“If Chris gets out of line, I’ll wing it.”
“You’ve lost your mind.”
To be honest, I’m not sure my mind’s been fully put together for a long time. I’ve never been one to believe in any kind of fate, but it’s hard not to look back at my life and wonder. Why did Chris come into it when he did? Is he part of some larger plan–a notion I really don’t believe in–that I’m not understanding? Maybe Chris showed up so I could see myself for who and what I really am.
I see it now.
But the more likely explanation is that I’m just making excuses for my bad choices. “You’re probably right. But I’m done dancing with him.”
M
y ballsy plan
might be for nothing if Chris wasn’t home. I was out of my element. My routine was to follow, to observe, to research, and then judge. Impulsivity was not a part of the Lucy Kendall justice system. But sometimes improvisation is a necessary evil.
As usual, Center City teemed with nightlife. College kids and singles huddled outside the popular bars, laughing and flirting. One of my favorite cheese shops boasted a wine tasting sign, and I longed to go inside, find a corner, and drink until I passed out.
I ignored the normal people and drove straight to Chris’s condominium, located in one of the newer buildings in the area. I wondered if he even had a trust fund or his uncle just bankrolled him.
“Lucy?” His voiced cracked over the speaker, and I secretly smiled with glee at taking him off guard for once. “What are you doing here? Did something happen with the little girl?”
“Her name is Kailey. And I need to talk to you right away.”
I half-expected him to refuse, but he hit the buzzer, and I found myself on the elevator to the third floor. My stomach twisted into hard knots, and my jaw ached from grinding my teeth. I wrapped my coat more tightly around me, as if it would protect me from whatever shitstorm I was about to insert myself into. I pocketed the nerves and knocked on Chris’s door, a pristine white slab of wood with a gold number three in the middle, just above the peephole.
“Hey.” He looked as casual as I’d ever seen him, wearing black track pants and a white, fitted long sleeved shirt. The black glasses had returned. His sandy hair was tousled, adding to his rugged look. “Come in, but my place is kind of messy. I don’t get a lot of visitors.”
“Thanks.” I quickly took stock of my surroundings. Messy was the wrong adjective, unless you counted too much stuff on the counters and the sweatshirt hanging off the back of a kitchen chair. Chris’s condo was an open floor plan, with lots of neutral furniture and a nice granite bar. Artwork hung on a couple of walls, and I think there were some family pictures on a side table, but I barely registered them.
“So what’s going on?”
My heart jumped around against my ribs. My mouth went dry.
“Did you know Jenna Richardson is your father’s last victim?” The words came out before I considered them.
Chris sank onto a bar stool. His coloring actually went from normal to pallid in about two seconds. A single tremor wracked his lean frame. “The girl in the barn?”
Empathy for what he must have gone through swelled through me. “Yes, Jenna is the girl you found in the barn. Kailey looks a lot like her. Didn’t you see the resemblance?”
“I don’t remember the girl in the barn’s face. I just remember her being chained. Dirty. And crying.” He looked at the floor. His shoulders were rigid as he took a long breath.
“And you were following Justin. And me.” I kept pushing. “Were you actually following Justin? Or were you coveting Kailey?”
“What?” His head shot up, surprise replacing his pale shock.
“You see what this looks like, right? You had a childhood trauma–the kind that can significantly alter a personality. Kailey looks like your father’s last victim. You were young enough then you may have seen more than just what happened in the barn. Do you follow?”
His thick eyebrows knitted together, forming deep lines across his forehead. “You think I took Kailey? Because of what I was exposed to, I’m somehow following in my father’s footsteps?”
“It’s possible,” I said. “I think you decided to follow Justin because he was released. And then you saw Jenna. Maybe you snapped.”
“I didn’t follow Justin because he got released.” He slid off the barstool, hands in his hair. His shirt slid up to reveal the toned muscles of his stomach. I purposely looked away.
“So you lied about that too.” I bottled my anger and fought to keep my tone even. “If you want me to trust you, tell me everything right now. And that includes why you even stepped into my life. Because I gotta tell you, it really looks like you’re using us all as pawns while you hide an innocent child.”
Chris held up his hands. “Fine, fine. I guess it’s time I laid it all out anyway.” He sighed and paced. “My uncle was close to the prosecuting attorney in Justin’s case,” Chris said. “It was a big deal in our house. I was finishing up school and getting ready for paramedic training. And I kept hearing my uncle say the same things you did about Justin. That he was likely to repeat the behavior if he got out. My aunt always felt he deserved a second chance. And your name came up several times during the trial.”
“It did?”
He shot me a keen glance. “You were there at the trial every day. And you visited Justin a few times. The district attorney always talked about how personal you took it. He used to be afraid you would never be able to fully separate yourself from your cases.”
I swallowed hard but made no other comment. “Go on.”
“So when talk of his release came up, you can imagine my uncle,” Chris said. “He was beside himself, and so was the D.A. We all followed the case. And I saw you again, on television.” His eyes softened a bit as he looked at me.” You looked so different than you did ten years ago. Not aged, but seasoned. Hardened. I read what you said in court, that you disagreed with the psychologist’s assessment and you felt Justin would repeat. And I felt bad when the judge blew you off.”
I didn’t like to remember that day. The judge was irritated with me, calling me a crusader and an emotional liability. I’d almost gotten a contempt of court charge. “He said that while he appreciated my extensive experience with child protective services, I wasn’t qualified to make judgments on an adult’s mental health. He only granted me a chance to speak at the request of the victim’s family.”
“Did you really think they’d let him out?”
I shook my head. “No. Sometimes. Late at night, you know? When I would try to sleep. I’d get that gut feeling, and then I’d talk myself out of it.”
“My uncle cried.”
“That’s the day I snapped,” I said. “I couldn’t believe it. I walked out of the courthouse and away from everyone. I walked for hours until I realized I had blisters on my feet. By the time I finally got home, I’d made my decision.”
“To be a vigilante.”
I nodded. “But this is about you. Why did you start following me?”
He sat back down again, this time on a chocolate-colored seteé that looked like a great place to curl up and read. “You know how many times I’ve heard my uncle say that people like Justin are destined to be monsters? How many cases of abused kids he’s dealt with who turn out to be abusers themselves?” He passed a shaking hand over his hair. “I was just a little kid when I saw that girl in the barn. But there was so much more. Memories I blocked out that only came back years later, in flashes. Things that I witnessed…” Chris looked up at me with pleading eyes. “Lucy, I’m no different than Justin. And if he’s destined to be a killer, then shouldn’t I be too?”
I caught my breath. So this was his issue. And it was valid. What could I say? “Plenty of abused people go on to lead healthy lives.”
He took a tremulous breath. “You don’t know what I’ve seen. It’s not just the girl in the barn–Jenna. I have this memory of another girl. She’s got dark brown hair. She’s in the barn, too. And she’s begging me for help. There’s blood on her face and between her legs. I know she’s not very old. She had braces. And a locket with the initial ‘S.’ on it. My father is in the background, laughing.” His voice cracked. “I think I saw more girls.”
I felt a hot ball of sickness in the pit of my stomach. “It might not be a real memory,” I said, feeling desperate. “You could have read about the case, and your mind filled in the blanks.”
“I remembered this when I was seven. That’s the same year I heard my uncle say he’d be surprised if I didn’t grow up a sociopath.” He laughed, bitter and short. “I always hoped he was wrong, but I don’t think he was. There are days I don’t feel anything. And I don’t want anyone in my life unless I can benefit from them. As for why I followed you, I really just wanted to talk to you at first.”
He took his glasses off, rubbing them vigorously. He cleared his throat, and I gave him the time to get control over his emotions. I didn’t want to see him cry any more than he wanted to cry in front of me. “I wanted to tell you who I was. And what I’m so afraid of.”
“Of being like your father?” I finally stepped away from the door and into the room, closing the distance between us. I leaned against the bar stool he’d abandoned.
“Of being nothing. Nothing but a product of my past. I wanted to know if you really believed we don’t have a choice in who we are. I wanted you to tell me the difference between me and Justin. And then I realized what you were doing after I saw you at that scene. And I wanted to be like you. I thought, if I could take out the trash like you do, then maybe I’d fulfill my destiny in a way that didn’t hurt innocent people. That maybe I wouldn’t end up being…nothing.”
I blinked against the tears welling up at his words. They hit too close to home. “You’ve never killed anyone.”
He shook his head.
“You’re not a sociopath, not that I ever really believed you were. Sociopaths are coldly rational; they don’t feel empathy. They either fake it or feel sorry for themselves, but not for anyone else. They’re pathological liars, and manipulating people comes natural to them.” A sharp needle of cold pierced through my calm. I could have been describing myself.
I couldn’t think about that right now.
“Then what am I?”
“Someone with a lot of baggage, like most of humanity.” I didn’t know what comfort to offer, or even if I should. “Do you remember anything else?”
He looked back down at the floor. “I don’t want to talk about that now. I should have told someone a long time ago, and now it doesn’t matter.”
I decided not to push him. He was a victim, just like the kids I worked with. He needed to trust me to tell me more. “And why did you follow Justin?”
“I wanted to see if he repeated, for my own sake. If there was hope for him, there was hope for me.”
The silence deepened between us as I thought over everything Chris had told me.
“You didn’t take Kailey.” He hadn’t really said anything to clear himself, but I knew it in my gut just as I knew my own killing would have to be answered for.
He came to stand in front of me, close enough I smelled his cologne. “I swear to you, I didn’t. But I don’t blame you if you don’t believe me. God knows I’ve lied enough.”
We all have make or break moments. The ones we know we might regret. I’ve always thought that’s part of human nature. We simply go with our gut instincts until we get burned.
“I believe you. And I need your help.”
T
wo hours later,
Chris parked down the road from Martha Beckett’s house. She lived in a small, older but nicely kept A-frame house on the edge of Fishtown. I didn’t see a garage, and her property wasn’t large enough for any kind of storage. Justin fidgeted in the back seat, and I wondered why I’d let Chris talk me into driving.
“You know, we were arrested less than twenty-four hours ago for this very thing,” Chris said.
“Detained, never charged.” I corrected him. I craned my neck to face the backseat. “You’re sure of this?”
Justin nodded. “The last two days, she’s gone out at this time.” It was nearing midnight, and my eyelids felt heavy. Martha had better leave soon.
“Doesn’t mean she will tonight,” Chris said. “You know where she went?”