Black Widow (22 page)

54

Heather Rousseau stood on the patio. A beer was in her hand and she sipped at it slowly. She took a pill out of her purse and popped it into her mouth, before washing it down with another swig.

The ocean was churning in the noon wind and the heat was pleasant against her face. The sun felt good on her skin. It wasn’t something she was used to. She worked nights and slept during the days.

Boredom had set in, along with the anxiety of Stanton not answering his phone. She debated whether to go watch television to pass the time but decided against it. It would probably just aggravate rather than distract her.

Going back inside the house, she shut the sliding glass door behind her. A bookshelf was up behind the entertainment center and she scanned the books. They were mostly books on surfing and the ocean, a few tomes on conspiracy theories thrown in for good measure. One was black with red lettering and titled
The Death of Freedom
. She picked it up and began thumbing through it.

“It’s the conspiracy of the twelve,” a voice said behind her.

Heather gasped and dropped the book. It slammed shut and she spun around. Heidi stood in front of her. She walked over and sat down on the couch, watching Heather with passive eyes. Eyes that had been burned in Heather’s mind. That haunted her when she slept.

“That book,” Heidi said, “is about the conspiracy of the twelve. That there’s a special council of twelve of the most powerful men in the world, who really determine the direction of politics and economics. That human history is planned in advance by the elite. And the rest of us are just here for the ride.”

Heather looked at the sliding glass doors.

“You won’t make it,” Heidi said. “I’ll shoot you in the back before you get it open.”

“What do you want from me?”

“You’re my sister. Can’t I just come see my sister without her thinking I want something?”

“How did you even find me?”

“Oh, I have a GPS tracker on your phone. I put it in there when you were asleep one night. You really should have an alarm in your condo. You never know what crazies could break in.”

Heather took a step back against the bookshelf, afraid her knees might buckle without its support. “Please, Heidi, I can’t do it anymore. I can’t. I’m so tired. I just… I want to die.”

“There’s no fun in death, Heath. It’s much more fun to be alive. You haven’t learned that?”

Emotion choked Heather and she felt the warmth of tears on her cheeks. “Please, just kill me. I just want this to end. I can’t handle anymore. I don’t have it in me. Heidi, please, if you ever cared about me, just let me die.”

Heather collapsed onto the floor, sobbing. Decades of emotion poured out of her in that moment. Everything she had hidden away. Bawling like a child, she felt strands of drool leak out of her mouth and onto the floor.

“Seriously?” Heidi said, leaning forward. “I haven’t seen you in two years and this is how you’re going to greet me? Stop crying.” She rose and walked over, lifting Heather’s face by her chin. “I said, stop crying.”

“What do you want!”

“I want you to suffer.”

“Why? What did I ever do? What could I have done to you to deserve this life, Heidi?”

“You were chosen. You were chosen by them to be the good one. The one that they would take their time with and love and make sure that you turned out well. And now you’re a whore addicted to pain pills. How do you think they would feel about that? Their prize daughter a whore?”

“Prize daughter?” she said, holding back the tears long enough to speak. “What are you talking about? You were sick. You needed help.”

“I was a confused kid. I knew I was better than other people and I didn’t know how to express it. So instead of nurturing that, massaging and cultivating it, you threw me in an institute with psychotics. Do you know what they did to young pretty girls there?” She shoved her finger into Heather’s neck and pressed. The pain was excruciating and Heather yelped. “They raped me. They raped me for years,
sister
. And not just the patients, the guards, too. Have you ever been raped, Heather? Have you ever been sodomized when you were twelve by a fifty-year-old guard?”

“I… I didn’t know. No one ever told us.”

“They knew how to keep us in line. I told Mom when she came to visit me. She went to the administration and the police, and of course no one believed me. They said I was making it up to get back at the administration and that it was quite common. Do you know what they did to me for that little confession? They put me in sensory deprivation for two weeks. I would see a sliver of light everyday when they brought fetid food in so that I wouldn’t die, and other than that I was immersed completely in darkness. The first few days I was terrified, but after that, I didn’t care. The darkness didn’t scare me anymore. It comforted me.”

“I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t know.”

“Oh, there’s a lot of things you didn’t know. Things they didn’t tell you. They didn’t want to expose their princess to the real world. So they didn’t tell you about me. They were hoping you would forget. And then I would come home. I’d remind all of you of the little secret you wanted to forget about and then I’d be sent back to hell. That’s what it was, sis, hell.”

“I’m sorry.”

Heidi reached back and slapped Heather so hard her cheek burned instantly. Heather’s hand covered the cheek and her mouth dropped open.

“No,” Heidi said, “you’re not really sorry. Not yet.” She pulled out a syringe with golden fluid from her purse. “But you will be.”

55

Stanton took his boys to the only place he could think of that was safe: the precinct. He walked in, and several detectives stopped their conversation and watched him. Kai was in his office. Stanton closed the office door behind him, one boy on either side of him.

“She kidnapped my boys, Kai. You’re the only one I know that I can trust.”

They stared at each other in silence. Kai finally said, “Leave them here.”

“You’re not going to ask—”

“No, I’m trusting you. For now. Let’s just find her.”

“I need to pick up her sister. I left her at a friend’s house.”

“We can talk about the whys later. Go get my suspect and when she’s locked up again, we can talk.”

“Kai… my boys…”

“I know. I’ll watch them myself. I don’t want you taking them with you. Leave them here, and I’ll order pizza.”

Stanton bent down and kissed Johnny and gave Mathew a hug. As he went to pull away, both boys threw their arms around their father.

“Don’t go, Dad,” Johnny said.

“I won’t be gone long, champ. I just need to pick someone up and bring them right back. I promise you I will not be gone long.”

Stanton looked to Kai and nodded. The captain nodded back and said, “Boys, we got us a big screen in the lounge with a pool table. Come on, I’ll show you how to play.”

Stanton watched them go. He waited until he couldn’t see them and turned and marched out of the precinct.

As he stepped outside, the pain was so deep he thought he might have to sit down on the curb and close his eyes. He had let his boys get caught up in the insanity of his life. They had been
chained in a dark closet. And he couldn’t even take them to the emergency room to make sure they didn’t have any injuries. She was still out there, and that would be the first place she would look for them. He had caught her by surprise and she wouldn’t be happy.

Stanton drove to Rick’s house. He picked up the phone several times to call Melissa and tell her what had happened to the boys. It wasn’t until he was a few minutes away from the house that he managed to build up the courage to call.

“Jon?” she answered.

“Mel, where are you?”

“I’m at the gym, why?”

Stanton lightly bit the inside of his cheek and then felt the indentation left behind. “I need to tell you something. The first thing you need to know is that the boys are all right. They’re not hurt and—”

“What happened?” she shouted. “What the fuck did you do?”

“Mel, I didn’t do anything. They were kidnapped by—”

“Kidnapped! What are you saying? Where are my boys?”

“They’re fine, Mel,” he said as calmly as he could. “The boys are just fine. They are at the precinct right now with Kai. They were kidnapped by a suspect we have on a case…” Stanton didn’t think she needed to know the details. “They’re fine. They’re just fine now.”

“You son of bitch,” she said. Her voice was crackling with emotion. Stanton could tell she was crying but was so angry that she couldn’t sob.

“Mel, there was no way—”

“Fuck you! I’m coming out there right now to get my boys. You fucking hear me, Jon. It was one thing to put me in danger. That fucking asshole in our bedroom. In our bedroom, Jon! And even after that you didn’t quit. He tied me up and was going to kill me.”

The emotion had broken through and she was fully weeping now. Stanton had hit a nerve. Her children. She blamed herself for allowing the boys out with him, knowing something could happen to them. And the anger was directed at him.

“Mel… I don’t know what to say. Everything you said is true.”

“You’re done. They’re coming home with me.”

Stanton was about to object but didn’t. She was right in all this. Everyone around him was in danger. He attracted it like some black hole, sucking in everything around it. The boys, his wife, his fiancée, his career… it all turned bad as soon as he got a hold of it.

“Take them,” he said. “You’re right. They’ll be in danger with me.”

A long silence before Melissa hung up. Stanton put the phone on the passenger seat. First he felt pity for himself and fear at what could have happened to his children. Then the fear turned to rage. Rage at the woman who took his children. Who made him believe he had found someone special. Someone who wouldn’t judge him. Someone who understood him and the energy of his life. He felt betrayed.

Stanton stopped in front of Rick’s house and went inside. He didn’t hear anything, so he walked through the living room. In the kitchen, Heather was standing over the stove cooking.

“Hi,” she said.

“We need to leave. Is Rick not back yet?”

“Nope. Where we going?”

He stepped closer to her, looking into the pot. The concoction was some sort of frying meat with onions. “Back to the precinct. I got my kids back.”

She looked up, surprise splashing across her face. “How’d you find them?”

“The rent checks from her property were sent to Baby Dolls. My boys were there. She wasn’t, though. It’s possible she’s already left, or is in the process of leaving the island. I
gotta get back and help them set up a net.”

“A net?”

“Monitor every way off the island. We can stop any boat or plane from leaving. One of the benefits of being on an island.”

“Hm. Try this.” She lifted a wooden spoon with some of the meat. He took a bite. It was tender and tasted like lean Kobe beef. “It’s good.”

She nodded. “Let’s eat before we go.”

“I think we should leave now.”

Sprinkling an herb over the food, she didn’t respond. She took the meat and spooned it onto two plates that were already sitting out. “I know you won’t have wine, so how about some orange juice?”

“Sure.”

Stanton stared out the sliding glass doors. The truth was he hadn’t eaten in almost twenty hours and was starving. The meat left a slight aftertaste but was smooth going down. He slid open the glass door. As he was about to step outside, he froze. His heart sank and a sick, gray feeling shot through his gut. Like he’d swallowed jagged metal.

Rick was a vegetarian.
There wouldn’t be any meat in the house.

Slowly, Stanton turned around. The woman was searching the cupboards for something before she turned to the fridge. She took out some oranges and sliced them on the counter. Stanton reached down to his firearm.

“I gotta make a call really quick,” he said.

“Okay, but lunch is ready.”

He stepped outside and shut the glass door. Taking out his cell phone, his eyes never left the kitchen. He didn’t have dispatch’s number as a contact so he called Kai. There was no answer so he left a message.

“She’s here. Rick
Mortinson’s house. Twenty-Four Keko Road. I’m alone with her.” He then dialed 911. “Detective Jonathan Stanton, badge number oh one four zero seven. I need units at Twenty-Four Keko Road immediately, with a possible code four.”

“Roger that, the nearest units are on their way.

He hung up. The woman looked out at him and smiled, and he smiled back. She walked to the sliding door and opened it.

“You want to eat out here?” she said. “I saw a bench just up around the house.”

“Yeah, that should be fine.”

They both stood frozen. Neither one moving from the other’s gaze. The woman smiled. She took off the apron she was wearing and threw it into the house. When she turned around she was holding the 22-caliber
Ruger that had been tucked away in one of the pockets.

“How did he taste?” she said.

“Who?” Stanton already knew but couldn’t bring himself to think it, much less say it.

“Your friend, Rick. You ate a portion
of his quadriceps. Was it good?”

“Heidi, you need help. I can help you.”

She shook her head and laughed. “I need help? That’s what those people at the institutions said, Jon. We’re here to help. Only thing is, they weren’t.” She brushed her hair aside with a finger and tucked it behind her ear. “I kinda like myself as a brunette. What do you think?”

“Where’s Heather?”

“I let her run off after giving her something to slow her down. She’s somewhere in the jungle. Knowing her, she’ll probably get bitten by a snake or something.”

“I don’t understand this. The men, I can see. But why your own sister?”

She leaned back against the house, one foot coming up to its toes. It appeared like she could have been at a mall hanging out she was so relaxed. Damage or malfunction of the amygdala could cause a person to not feel fear or nervousness when they should. To not panic under pressure or even threat of death.

“Do you want to know the worst part about being committed? Everything you do is seen as insane. I tried isolating myself from the other patients because I was in there with rapists and murderers. They wrote in my file that I had antisocial personality disorder and refused to cooperate or socialize with others. So I began socializing. And they wrote in my file that I had a tendency to form relationships with deviants. I told a nurse once about a show I had seen that said dolphins had been used to find German submarines in World War Two. It was my attempt to try and connect with one of the staff. To share something. They wrote in my file that I thought dolphins could talk.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that. I wish I could take your pain away but I can’t. And killing me or Heather, or anyone else, it won’t take any of it back. We’re all stuck with our pasts.”

“So what is this? Some sort of reality therapy? Accept the past? I don’t accept it. None of it. Heather had the life I was supposed to have. I was the one that should have had the career and the marriage.” Emotion was breaking through now and her eyes glistened. “That was my life. Mine! Until she took it away from me. Her and those heartless fucks I called parents.”

“They didn’t know what else to do. You started hurting people, and—”

“Shut up!” The gun came up now, pointed at his face. “You’re not any different than me. You see people as less than people, too.”

A long silence in the conversation was followed by her lowering the gun.

“Did you care anything about me?” he said.

She hesitated. “You asked me about evil. Whether evil could be beautiful. Do you still think that, Jon? Do you think evil can be beautiful now?”

Stanton looked away. He watched the jungle and listened to the high-pitched chirp of the birds. “Yes, I think it can be beautiful,” he said truthfully.

“Do you think I’m beautiful?”

She said it in such a vulnerable, pleading way that he felt sympathy for her. He turned and stared into her eyes. They were wet. “Yes, I still do. But you have to stop.”

“We had a real connection, didn’t we? I’ve never actually felt that.” She chuckled as tears rolled down her cheeks. “What do you think that says about you, Jon?”

“Put the gun down, Heidi. There’s no reason for this.”

“Really? Avoiding the death penalty isn’t a reason?”

“There’s no death penalty here.”

She wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “But there is in California, and Utah and Wyoming and Arizona… You think I’ve only done this here?”

Stanton leaned back against the patio railing. The drop was about six feet to the ground. “Why the johns?”

“Oh, that was just fun. Torturing them to death as they cried for God. But God never came to help them.” After taking a deep breath she stepped away from the wall. “Enough reminiscing, though. Turn around.”

“Why? Can’t shoot me when I’m looking at you?”

She lifted the gun higher. “I said, turn around.”

Stanton turned. The sunlight was on his face and warmed him. Off in the distance, around the house, he could see the tail end of Rick’s truck.

“I’m… I’m sorry, Jon.”

“Me too.”

Stanton leapt off the patio as the shot rang in the air. He didn’t know if he’d been hit or not. He didn’t wait to find out. As soon as he landed on the ground, he was on his feet and sprinting around the house. He withdrew his firearm and rolled on the ground and took aim at the patio. She wasn’t there.