A Dark Mind (12 page)

“She’s great,” Tommy said.

“Yeah.”

“She’s driving a Porsche Carrera GT. They don’t make those cars any longer. Her dad must have some real money, since there were only six hundred sold in the US.”

“Fascinating,” Hayley said.
Not.
When she glanced his way, she didn’t like the way he was smiling at her, as if he found her humorous or friendly or anything at all.

He followed her back to the house, which was equally annoying. Stopping at the door, she turned to face him. “So, I guess you’re going to go work on cloning my ankle bracelet, right?”

He laughed. “Yeah, sure, I can take a hint.”

“Oh, good, because I didn’t want to have to spell it out for you.”

“What? You don’t want to be my friend?”

She peered into his eyes. “I thought you were some big important businessman with a company to run.”

“Is that the impression I gave you last time we met?”

He looked away from her, toward the street.

Damn.
Now she felt bad. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

He lifted his hands in surrender as he headed for his bike. “No problem. You don’t want to be my friend. I can handle it.”

Hayley bent her head forward and then backward to get the kinks out. “What about the ankle bracelet?”

He hopped on his motorcycle, even looked sort of cool for a geek. “What about it?”

“You’re still going to help me out?”

“I don’t know,” he said with a stupid twinkle in his eye. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“You’re really pissing me off.”

“OK, OK. But you have to promise me that if I do it, once you’re free again, you’ll take a ride on the back of my Suzuki.”

She didn’t like to play games or make promises, but she wanted the ankle monitor off, so she said, “Sure, fine, whatever.”

“Just so you know,” he said, his tone in serious mode, “I don’t break the law for just anyone.”

Oh, God.
He definitely had a major crush on her. And judging by the stupid-ass grin on his face as he slipped his helmet over his head, he knew she’d just figured it out.

She exhaled as she headed back inside, locking the door behind her.

Sacramento

Monday, May 14, 2012

It was well after midnight. Water drizzled off his hood and into his face. His coat had a double-front storm seal with inside and outside snap closures. Overall, he was reasonably dry, even in this downpour.

He stood across the street on the curb and watched the same house he’d been watching for the past five years: a single-family residence. The house was small, with few regular windows, and painted brown. Nothing to write home about. Not really. Not unless you knew the monster who lived inside.

He wasn’t the same imaginary monster who hid in closets and frightened kids in the middle of the night. Nor was he the
grunting, green-skinned giant whom millions liked to call Frankenstein. This guy was the real deal—a man with ten fingers and ten toes, muscles, and arteries.

Most people who looked at him or bothered to talk to him might think he was just a regular guy, but they would be wrong. The man inside the house on Bunker Street was missing an essential ingredient: a soul. And unlike the imaginary bogeyman, this monster had a name: John Robinson.

As raindrops dripped off his nose, he took a closer look at his surroundings. The neighborhood hadn’t changed much over the past five years. Two houses down, somebody had planted a row of rosebushes with long thorny stems. A fence made of thorns. Not a bad idea. The house behind him was boarded up. A piece of paper taped to the door read: Do Not Enter. Plywood covered the broken windows. The entire house was infested with rats.

The house he was watching, though, the house across the street, had a light on in the kitchen, which meant the man who lived there was probably washing dishes after eating his evening meal.

Eli looked at his watch. The backlight glowed. It was fifteen minutes past nine. The monster ate at about the same time every night, at least when he was home. Some nights, he never came home, which made sense since he was a fucking monster. No wife and no kids. Made sense since murderers weren’t usually the marrying type.

He was tidy for a madman, though.

Eli Simpson knew this because he’d been inside the house twice already.

Five years ago, the cops had gone inside the house, too, and found nothing. No evidence of any kind. No blood. No fingerprints. Nothing at all to prove that John Robinson, the man who lived inside that house, had ever known his sister, Rochelle.

But Robinson
had
known Rochelle, and Robinson had killed her. Eli was sure of it, but he had no proof. Not even a body to bury and lay to rest. According to the police reports, John Robinson and Rochelle had been accosted by four men and then held captive for days. There were pictures in the file, and John Robinson had the black eyes and bumps and bruises to show for his ordeal, but Rochelle was never found. Not one hair, not one bit of forensic evidence, to prove or disprove Robinson’s story.

The police had made it clear from the start that they didn’t like Eli’s attitude, which was why they hadn’t listened to Eli when he told them that John was the culprit, the man who was responsible for Rochelle’s demise. Eli hadn’t trusted the cops to do their job, so he’d found a way to get inside John Robinson’s house. But Robinson was one step ahead of him; he’d called the cops and Eli had been arrested.

Jaw clenched, Eli rolled his fingers into fists at his sides. Eli had no choice but to watch and wait. This wasn’t the only place he visited regularly. Every month he also visited the Sacramento police station and talked to the guys working Rochelle’s case. He would walk into the station and all eyes would be averted. He would pick an officer’s desk and proceed to sit there for most of the day, making sure they were doing everything possible to find Rochelle. Now, everybody in the police department knew him, and when Eli showed up, they all had the motions down to a science. Whoever happened to draw the short stick would retrieve Rochelle’s case file from the cabinet and then tell Eli what they had done since his last visit, which was never much: a few phone calls usually, nothing more. Now when Eli walked into the police station, he liked to do the whole eeny, meeny, miny, moe thing and take a seat wherever that little rhyme led him.

They all knew his name and he knew theirs.

He was pretty sure that every uniformed officer and every detective in the place thought he was crazier than the guy who had killed his sister. When John Robinson managed to get a restraining order against him, the guys in blue actually stuck up for the crazy man! His sister was dead, but
he
was the one named in a restraining order?

Life was sort of strange that way.

His parents didn’t talk to him for years. Not until his mom died and his dad needed somewhere to go. He shook his head.

He was the only one who seemed to care about finding Rochelle. And in the process, he’d somehow become the bad guy. His parents, his ex-girlfriend, everyone he met begged him to drop it. Let it go. Move on. But he couldn’t. There was no doubt in his mind. John Robinson had killed his sister. He’d known there was something wrong with the guy within five minutes of meeting him.

He knew John Robinson was responsible for his sister’s disappearance. He knew it as surely as he knew the sun would rise tomorrow. He would gladly snap the asshole’s neck tonight if that would help him find Rochelle’s body. Until he found her, the monster was safe.

And he knew it.

Big deal. Death always went with the territory. I’ll see you in Disneyland.

—Richard Ramirez

Davis

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

After watching Jared and Lizzy leave for work, he waited fifteen minutes before checking windows and doors to see if any were unlocked. No such luck, but he was surprised to find a flimsy lock on the garage door on the side of the house. He was glad about that because one way or another, he was going to find a way to get inside Lizzy Gardner’s house. His plan was to search through her things, get a feel for the woman, and find out what she was up to. Not only did he want to see if he could give her a nudge into the darkness she was trying to distance herself from, he suddenly found himself beyond curious about Lizzy Gardner. Who was this woman who had somehow taken out Spiderman, his champion, his idol?

With a gloved hand and a thin steel tool, he opened the door, smiling at the ease with which the lock popped loose.

Once inside the house, he stood in the kitchen and inhaled. He could smell air freshener and a hint of breakfast. Somebody had eaten eggs and bacon. Stopping, listening, he heard a noise upstairs. Usually he took his time, working his way methodically from one end of the house to the other, but instead he followed the noise up the stairs and into what appeared to be the master bedroom. A cat rolled around, playing with some wire that made a tinny noise whenever it hit the door to the bedroom. Using the toe of his boot, he nudged the cat out of his way so he had a clear path to the king-sized bed. He picked up the framed picture on the bedside table, smiling when he recognized the two people as Lizzy Gardner and Jared Shayne.

He lay down on the bed, flat on his back, and stared at the ceiling. He found himself wishing Spiderman could see him now, wondering where Samuel Jones had gone wrong. Spiderman had terrorized Sacramento for decades, but somehow Lizzy Gardner had gotten the best of him. He didn’t like her putting her nose where it didn’t belong; nobody had hired Lizzy Gardner to prove Michael Dalton’s innocence. She needed to learn a lesson or two, and he figured he was the perfect guy for the job.

When he’d first seen her on the news, he’d considered ignoring her actions, pretending she didn’t exist. He had options, including watching quietly from afar while Lizzy Gardner stirred up trouble. But twenty-four hours later, he was still thinking about her…wondering if the little blonde private eye was getting closer. Thinking about her was messing with his mind, causing him to lose focus.

Unacceptable.

And that was why he was here today. It hadn’t taken much research to figure out she wasn’t all there. Lizzy Gardner was a
ticking time bomb waiting to explode and lose it for good. He figured he’d just speed the process along.

Welcome to the world of insanity!

The private eye seemed to have a thing for killers, maybe even for serial killers specifically. She had befriended Spiderman and had gotten away in the end. He thought about that for a moment as he released a ponderous sigh. Just because he thought she should mind her own business didn’t mean he didn’t understand. He definitely understood her keen interest in the Dalton case. Everybody had crazy fantasies that involved one evil deed or another. Why else would people give serial killers names like Son of Sam, Spiderman, Angel of Death, or the Lovebird Killer?

The name the media and the citizens of Sacramento had given him was interesting. The Lovebird Killer had a nice ring to it.

The world’s fascination with evil was understandable. Not only were regular everyday citizens mesmerized by killers—the more pictures, the better—killers were also fascinated by killers.

He should know.

Not only were destroyers of life charming, they were intelligent beings. They easily fit into society and were impossible to recognize, difficult to distinguish from anyone else. How else would it have been possible for Jack the Ripper to walk the streets of London without getting caught? He struck and then he was gone. Many speculated that the man was well educated, possibly an aristocrat.

Jack the Ripper was a brutal character. His work inspired many, but still, the man had received way too much print time over the years. The intriguing thing about Jack, though, was that he was never identified. Everything else about Jack the Ripper was rubbish. You didn’t need surgical knowledge to figure out how to mutilate a corpse. No Reference 101 tutorial necessary.
Henry Holmes or Joseph Vacher, now those were some bloodthirsty sons of bitches. And nobody ever talked about Vacher.

Richard Ramirez liked to talk about Lucifer dwelling within all people. It was true. Serial killers were doctors and lawyers, nurses and priests. Nobody was safe.

He read that Lizzy Gardner suffered from recurring nightmares. If anyone knew about nightmares, it was him. He wasn’t a bad person.

He deserved to be loved.

Squeezing his eyes shut, stopping the onslaught of emotions that followed when he allowed his mind to travel to the past, he quickly opened his eyes, then pushed himself off the bed and slid his feet to the floor.

Time to get to work.

He walked out into the hallway and peered into the first room to the right. It was an office. There were two desks, two chairs, two computers. He opened drawers and sifted through files, scattering pens and papers across the floor. He wanted Lizzy to know someone had been inside her house. He wanted her to understand that she would never be safe.

Deep inside the file cabinet, he found dozens of notebooks bound together with rubber bands. He cut the bands and opened one notebook, then another. Notes and journals of Lizzy Gardner’s life; it was like finding treasure, and he felt giddy with excitement.

She wasn’t the only one who liked to cause trouble and stir the pot a little.

Seeing Lizzy Gardner’s face on every news station across America had not only perturbed but also made him curious. What was she up to and why? And what was the deal with her and FBI agent Jared Shayne? They had dated in high school, and
according to an in-depth interview with her father, an interview he’d found on the Internet, the man’s daughter had been out tramping it up with Shayne the night she was abducted all those years ago. Now the lovebirds were back together again and he, for one, wanted to know why. Was guilt the underlying reason Jared had come back into her life? Did they love each other or were they in love with the idea of love? Could someone as fucked up as Lizzy Gardner ever trust anyone enough to feel true love?