Her Darkest Nightmare (20 page)

Still, how did she account for that arm being in
her
bed?

A taunting smile curved Hugo's lips when the COs brought him in. “Now you wish you would've listened to me,” he said with a self-satisfied chuckle.

The door closed and locked behind him as she took her place at the table on the other side of the plexiglass. “You're going to start off being combative?”

“Why wouldn't I? We're not friends.”

This took her by surprise. He'd always been so solicitous of her before. “
I
thought we were. Have you changed your mind?”

He didn't respond. She'd reacted negatively when he'd tried to be her champion, and now he was punishing her.

“How are you feeling today?” she asked, trying to get back on common ground. “Better?”

“I'm great. Why wouldn't I be?” he replied as if he hadn't been the least upset in their last encounter.

“Because of Lorraine,” she reminded him.

“Oh, that.” He shrugged. “Why would I care if she's dead? That stupid bitch didn't mean anything to me.”

Evelyn clenched her jaw. He finally had her at a disadvantage, and he was exploiting it. She couldn't believe she'd ever liked him.

She pretended what he said didn't bother her, but only by looking at the situation objectively. This was just another example of what she'd first observed while reading transcripts of interviews with Ted Bundy. Like Ted and so many other psychopaths, Hugo didn't seem to keep track of the things he said even a few minutes before and often contradicted himself. Most people overlooked these seemingly inconsequential slips, probably because they didn't deal with enough psychopaths to draw the correlation. But this kind of sloppy speech further proved that a psychopath's brain wasn't wired like a normal person's. Although the right hemisphere usually controlled speech, psychopaths were bilateral, meaning both sides of the brain were involved. They weren't the only ones—people who stuttered or had dyslexia were bilateral, too—but bilateralism explained at least one of the reasons Hugo's speech wasn't as well integrated as it should've been.

“I'd like to ask you something,” she said.

“About…”

“Danielle Connelly.”

A Cheshire-type grin spread across his face. “Now
there's
a nice girl. She's been much nicer to me than you have.”

“Nicer in what way?”

“She's … approachable.”

“Did you have sex with her, Hugo?”

His eyebrows shot up. “How could I have sex with her? You know what security's like in here,” he said, but his smile never faded and there was no conviction behind his words.

“Perhaps you've worked out a deal with the guards.”

“I don't know what you're talking about. And they prefer to be called correctional officers. You'd think you, of all people, so buttoned up and proper, could remember that.”

She'd purposely used his lexicon to better connect with him. “You're not going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“How you came to be listed in a certain record Danielle kept?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” he said with a scowl. “I tried to help you before, but you wouldn't have it.”

“And now you won't help.”

He jerked his head toward the camera without comment.

Was he saying he
couldn't
tell her, not while others were listening in?

“There's been another murder,” she told him.

“There has?” He sat up taller. “No one's been talking about it. Why hasn't anyone said anything?”

She got the impression he was truly unaware, but psychopaths were the ultimate con men, so she wasn't sure she could trust his reaction. “It's not public knowledge yet.”

His eyes, bright with interest, latched on to her face. “Who got it?”

“The victim hasn't been identified.”

“She has to have some connection to you.”

“
She?
You can give me the victim's gender?” Did he know it was Danielle?

“Merely an easy guess.”

“Okay. But why does this second murder have to have some connection to me?”

A hint of condescension entered his tone. “Because it wouldn't make sense otherwise. You're the one he hates.”

She uncrossed her legs. “Who's
he,
Hugo?”

“Jasper, of course.”

“And you know this … how?”

Shoving his chair out of the way, he stood. “I'd like to tell you. But…”

“But…,” she prompted.

“You're too scared to let me. And if that doesn't change, more people will die, and their deaths will be your fault, too.”

The memory of the decomposing bodies of her girlfriends rose in Evelyn's mind. She'd never let herself grow so fond of anyone since. She'd been too afraid to invest that much of her heart, for fear of the loss. Jasper had only killed them because they mattered to her, and he was still out there, possibly as close as ever.

She'd cared for Lorraine, and Lorraine had been killed, too. It was hard to ignore the connection. The specific placement of that arm seemed to solidify that he was back, despite the discovery of Danielle's little black book.

“Stop trying to make me feel responsible for what's happened,” she said.

“
I'm
not making you feel anything. If you feel responsible, that's on you.”

She started to shake her head. He was still trying to coax her to his side of the room.

She wasn't going to fall for that. She'd just told Fitzpatrick that she understood the risks.

But Fitzpatrick didn't know that they were likely facing some serious corruption. And what Hugo said next made her heart jump into her throat.

“Maybe his third victim won't be a woman,” he said. “Maybe it'll be that handsome trooper you've been hanging out with.”

Amarok!
How did he know about Amarok?

Scarcely able to breathe, Evelyn gaped at him. Amarok would not be easy to harm. Not only was he big and strong, he had training and weapons. But she couldn't say that for fear her words would be construed as a challenge. Why draw the attention of Jasper or any other dangerous individual to the sergeant?

Anyone
could be hurt or killed if caught at a vulnerable moment.

“Look at your face.” Hugo laughed as if she'd just told him the funniest joke ever. “You've gone white as a sheet. So that would upset you. The trooper means something to you. Losing him would be like finding your best friends slaughtered all those years ago. Or is he even closer to you than they were?” He lowered his voice and leaned closer. “Are you fucking him?”

In that moment, she hated Hugo almost as much as Jasper. “What can you tell me about the murders, Hugo?”

He didn't skip a beat. “It'll shock you—but it could also save your life. Are you sure you don't want to hear it?”

Her clothes were beginning to stick to her even though it wasn't remotely warm in the room. “You realize you're being monitored.”

“Of course. I'm like a monkey at the zoo with everyone always watching.” He grinned. “When I return to my cell, they can watch me jack off while I fantasize about you. But as long as no one hears what I say, it can't get around.”

“What's it about?” Would he tell her whether or not he'd slept with Danielle? How it was that so many inmates and COs had their names in that damn book?

“Come on over and find out.”

He couldn't say anything while he was being taped.…

So how badly did she want that information? How far was she willing to go to make sure no one else got hurt, including the handsome sergeant she so desperately wanted to make love—successfully—with?

Enough to risk her life? Was she putting others in danger because she was too afraid to allow Hugo to whisper a few details in her ear?

“You're thinking about it,” he said in a singsong voice.

If she thought too long, she wouldn't do it. She was scared. She was
more
than scared. But if she could save a life, especially Amarok's …

Gathering her nerve as well as her clipboard, she stood. “If you try anything, the COs will be on you in seconds.”

He spread his hands. “I'd never hurt you regardless.”

She didn't believe that. But in most prisons, psychiatrists and psychologists went about their work with nothing except a desk separating them from the inmates they treated. Of course, there were reasons for the plexiglass in this particular prison. But if anything went wrong, help would arrive as quickly as possible.

She just hoped “as quickly as possible” would be soon enough, that giving him a private audience would at least confirm whether or not Danielle was truly sleeping with all the men in that book.

Evelyn's heels clicked on the concrete hallway as she made her way around to his side of the cell. Fitzpatrick's warning ran through her mind like ticker tape, but that didn't stop her. Her colleague had never found any of his friends brutally murdered. Her colleague didn't have many friends to worry about. She wasn't sure he'd risk himself to save anyone, even if he did. She was leaving herself vulnerable, but what if Hugo could provide some detail that would help them capture Jasper—or even another killer?

Fortunately, the CO in the observation room wasn't Glenn Whitcomb. Officer Emilio Kush poked his head out as she came down the corridor. “Shouldn't I go in with you?”

“No.” Hugo wouldn't talk if she brought someone with her. He'd made that clear. If she had a CO accompany her, what would be the point of going in at all?

“You shouldn't trust him,” Kush warned.

Was he sincerely concerned? Or was he worried that she was about to learn something that would cost him his job? He wasn't on Danielle's list, but that didn't necessarily mean he wasn't involved in whatever was going on. Maybe he'd asked her to keep him out of it because of his wife and kids or was just smarter than the others.…

“That's
my
decision,” she said.

“I'm afraid Dr. Fitzpatrick wouldn't approve.”

He wouldn't. Word would get back to him that she'd broken protocol again, and they'd have another argument. But if she didn't take this chance and later learned that she should have, she'd blame herself. And if she failed at everything she hoped to accomplish, if she let Jasper or any other killer beat her in the end, what would her life matter, anyway?

“Fitzpatrick doesn't control me,” she told Kush. “But … wait right outside the door.”

He dipped his head. “You bet I will.”

“I'll be okay.” She had no idea whether or not that was true, but Hugo had her firmly on his hook. What could he tell her? Could it really help?

She used her radio to ask the CO in the observation deck at the center of the pod to unlock Interview 4. He gave her a, “Roger that,” and a thumbs-up through the bulletproof glass that surrounded him. Then she heard the typical hum of an electric charge, followed by a resounding clang, and the door rolled back.

The exultation on Hugo's face when she stepped into the room nearly stopped Evelyn dead in her tracks. Suddenly she was sure this was all an elaborate game. That she'd fallen into his trap.

But her determination to let nothing stop her or get in her way, that hope against hope that this would provide the results she needed, held her for just a second too long.…

 

13

Take your worst nightmares and put my face to them.

—TOMMY LYNN SELLS, SERIAL KILLER

He was on her immediately. Evelyn managed to get her hands up in an attempt to protect her neck, but he didn't try to strangle her. He grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed her up against the wall. Then he used his body to pin her in place while his mouth came down on hers, hot and wet and invasive.

Twisting her head from side to side, she struggled to avoid his tongue. But that open, seeking mouth seemed to be everywhere.

The door slid wide and footsteps echoed in the room. Kush. Would he peel Hugo off her before Hugo could get her skirt up?

Already Hugo's hands were circling around to cup her ass, but it wasn't until he thrust his erection against her pelvic bone that the real terror set in. She couldn't get away, couldn't move or stop him. And Kush was a thick-around-the-middle family man trying to handle an inmate who spent almost all of his waking hours working out.

Help,
she thought.
Now!
But just before Kush gained control, Hugo quit trying to kiss her and put his lips to her ear.

“It's Fitzpatrick,” he whispered. “He's a twisted son of a bitch, a true sadist. And he hates you, wants to see you destroyed.”

That was all he could get out before Kush started wielding his baton. Evelyn could hear the thud of each blow, the grunts coming from both men as Kush drove Hugo into the far corner. Then the scene turned into a blur of noise and commotion as other COs arrived.

Someone helped Evelyn to stand. She hadn't even realized that she'd crumbled to the floor. She was too busy cursing herself for allowing this to happen, cursing the fact that she could still be so gullible, so hopeful, so damn desperate.

The same guard who set her on her feet—Paul Bramble, a CO not on Danielle's list, thank God—tried to guide Evelyn out of the room, but she resisted his efforts.

“Stop,” she managed to say amid gulps for breath. “Make them … stop!”

He glanced over his shoulder at Kush and the others.

“Now!” she cried.

Reluctantly, he called them off. She knew the COs were protective of her, that they would view this as a breach for which Hugo should be severely punished, but she didn't want them to go too far.