Don't Slay the Dragon (The Chronicles of Elizabeth Marshall Book 1) (31 page)

Chapter Fifty-Nine

“Please forgive me for what I’ve done. I had no other choice.”

The handwriting was Barbara’s clear, flowing style.
It had been many years since I had seen her writing. It felt as though her voice was coming back from the dead, a ghost speaking to me from beyond the grave.

“I tried to tell them but they wouldn’t believe me. I contacted the Police Departments in St. George and Evanston. I tried to tell them it was her. That my Elizabeth was responsible for those murders. I tried to tell the police in Boise too, but they wouldn’t listen.”

My hands started shaking, the blood draining from my face. I looked up at Logan with what must have been a shocked expression. He was already searching beneath the letter I was reading.

Under the letter were several newspaper articles. The articles had different fonts and styles, so I knew they were from different newspapers. Many of the articles were highlighted in various places. The ink once a bright yellow was now faded to a dull yellow-orange.

The first described the murder of a convenience store clerk in St. George, Utah. She was only twenty-one, a single mother of a toddler, working the nightshift alone when an unknown
, hooded suspect walked in and shot her pointblank for no apparent reason. The incident was even caught on a surveillance video, though the suspect was so well hidden by the dark hooded jacket that the police couldn’t even tell if they were male or female. There hadn’t been a robbery, nothing seemed to be missing, and they had no suspects.

The next article was about a body found in a field alongside the highway outside of Evanston, Wyoming. A man in his late-fifties, a truck driver, was found dead, his throat slashed.
A heavy rainstorm had washed away what little evidence might have been left behind. He hadn’t been robbed and his truck had been found, safely locked shut, in a truck stop several miles away. No suspect, no apparent motive.

Another article was about a man in his thirties in Boise, Idaho. He was
a fast-food restaurant manager. He had been found dead behind the restaurant after closing, stabbed several times. There were no witnesses. No robbery, no suspect, no motive. The police weren’t having any luck with solving the crime.

I looked back at the letter, dreading what else it might tell us.

“I think there are more, in Sandy and Colorado Springs. I can’t account for where she was when the other murders took place. I only know she was missing around the time of each of these incidents.

“I tried going back to her doctor. He said because she was an adult I couldn’t force her into treatment. He didn’t think she was capable of murder. He didn’t understand how good she was at fooling him.

“I know in my heart she killed these people. Even though the police said she didn’t fit the profile and that each of the victims were murdered differently, I know she did it. She was gone each time there was a murder. I know about the more violent members of what she calls the ‘family’. She’s having a harder time controlling them. And as long as she continues to refuse to take her medication, they’ll have more and more control over her. I’ve seen their violence. I’ve seen what they’re capable of.

“So I’m going to do the only thing left to me. She needs to be locked up safe, if not in a prison at least in a mental hospital. If the police believe she killed me, at least they’ll put her away, someplace where she can’t hurt anyone ever again.

“I’m willing to sacrifice my own life to keep her safe and locked up. I only pray it works. And if by some chance it doesn’t, I can only hope that someone will find this and see her for what she is.”

“Logan?”
My hands were shaking badly as I looked up at him in shock. A thousand different emotions were coursing through me. I knew what direction all this was pointing towards, but I didn’t want to admit it. Denial ran deep within me, warring with distress and betrayal.

Logan
was still looking through the newspaper articles. He was in full-blown detective mode. Never had I been so glad that was his real profession as I was now. 

“There
are more articles from different small town newspapers, from several places throughout the Wasatch Front and surrounding states.” He pointed to a few of the details of the stories.  “They were all so similar yet so different. There were so many diverse methods of killing, they all seemed so random. I can see why the different police agencies had a hard time believing her. They don’t seem to fit any particular profile. ”

“Yet they’re alike in a lot of ways too,” I pointed out. “No robbery, no motive, so suspect. Almost like a ghost did it.”

“But murders happen every day, all over the place.” He shook his head, trying to make sense of it all. “I can see a possible timeline, though.” Logan started rearranging the articles in chronological order. “There’s enough time in between each crime that they could have been committed by one person.”

“But why would that one person be Lisbeth?” I had to ask. I had spent so much time trying to defend her it was
difficult to stop doing it now. “What would make Barbara think it was Lisbeth rather than anyone else that committed these murders?  What made her tie them all together?”

“Does the letter say anything else?” He asked.

“If you don’t believe me, read what I’ve highlighted about the murders in St. George, Evanston and Boise.”

Logan gave the St. George article
for me to scan while he looked over the other two. The article I was reading was about the young woman working the night shift at the convenience store.

“It s
ays that the only clue they had was from the surveillance camera.  It looks as though the hooded figure reached over and took her hand after they shot her.” I explained. “During her autopsy they found a strange symbol written on her hand. At first they thought it was a tattoo, but her family later confirmed she had no tattoos. The article doesn’t say what the symbol was.”

“On the fast food manager in Idaho, the one that was stabbed, they said there was an unusual mark carved into his chest.” Logan read over the article. “It says that the police wouldn’t release any
further information about what kind of mark it was, they didn’t want it to interfere with the investigation.”

We looked at each other for a moment, trying t
o piece together the connection between these events. I was almost afraid to ask the next question.

“What does the article about the Wyoming truck driver say?” My voice sounded weak and exhausted to my own ears.

He glanced through the article, following the highlighted areas with a finger.

“Another symbol,” his voice was taking on a tone of fascination, “on his back. In this article, they actually describe it. The police thought it might help the case. Look, there’s a small sketch of it.”

He pointed to a small artist’s rendering at the side of the article. 

Something tugged at my memory. There was something so familiar about that symbol. Where had I seen it before? I could have sworn I had seen it somewhere. It was one of those things at the back of my mind,
something so memorable about it, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

 
   “There’s one last part to the letter.” I whispered, feeling as though the answer was so close I could almost touch it.

“
My child, my daughter, is a killer. Her symbol is A.D. If you found the pictures in my home, if you saw the mural on the wall you understand what it means. To whoever reads this, please keep her locked up for the rest of her life.

“She is
Altus Dracona.”

        Chapter Sixty

It took a moment for me to realize that the loud gas
p I heard had come from my own lips. I felt as though someone had just planted a hard fist into my stomach.

“I know where I’ve seen that symbol before,” I gripped Logan’s arm to keep my knees from buckling underneath me.

“Where?” He looked me straight in the eyes.

“Lisbeth wrote me a letter a while back. There was a message on it in a handwriting I didn’t recognize. I knew most of the different handwritings of the family members. This one wasn’t familiar. At the bottom of the page was this same symbol. Like a mark.”

“Like a signature, or initials.” He pointed down at Barbara’s letter. “The symbo
l

looks a lot like the letters A and D. A.D., Altus Dracona. Her signature. Her calling card.”

I leaned against Logan’s car to keep from crumbling to the ground, the papers in my hands falling back into the box from numb fingers. It was all coming together now.  All the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. Everything Barbara had done, the planning, the premeditation,
the sacrifice. It had all been done because she believed that Lisbeth was a murderer, a serial killer if these articles were any indication. As much as she might have been trying to protect Lisbeth, Barbara thought she was also trying to prevent future deaths. Her suicide was the last resort of a desperate mother, caught between her maternal love for her daughter and the dangerous threat her daughter was to others.

“Do you think it’s true, Logan?” I asked helplessly. “Do you think Lisbeth really killed all these people?”

“I don’t know for sure,” he was organizing the papers back into the box, “but I do know one thing. I need to take this box into evidence and take the letter and all these articles back to the precinct.”  He opened the back door to his car and carefully placed the now closed box on the seat. “I have a lot of phone calls to make. I need to call each one of these local police departments and state agencies. This needs to all be coordinated. We’ll probably be calling in the FBI too, since this is multi-jurisdictional and has crossed over state lines.”

He was back on the job and ready to move with it. His face was a mask of determination. This could prove to be a large operation to coordinate.

“I hate to leave you right now. I can see this has really been a shock to you,” he voice was sympathetic, torn, “but I’ve got to get this back to the department and start those calls.”  He put an arm around me to give me strength. His warmth felt like a lifeline. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to your car.”

As he turned to walk me back in the other direction, it hit me
full force. My feet felt suddenly frozen to the pavement and I could feel all the blood drain from my face.

“Logan, I have to call Dr. Ross,” I went from complete immobility to suddenly ripping open my purse and madly digging through it for my cell phone. “He has to be told what she’s done. That transitional facility couldn’t possibly be secure enough to…”

I couldn’t finish my sentence. I found my phone, searched the call log, found his number and dialed it. Logan started pacing before me on the small sidewalk. I could tell he was anxious to get back to his office and start making those phone calls, but he also wanted to stay with me while I tried to reach Lisbeth’s doctor.

“May
I speak to Dr. Ross, please?” His assistant had answered on the third ring. “This is very important.”

“Is this Ms. Stewart?” She questioned.

“Yes,” I felt like blurting out the whole story, the box, the letters, the articles. I took a deep breath and fought for patience.

“He’ll be right with you. One moment please.” I let out the breath, grateful he wasn’t putting me off as he had so often before.  Usually I was told he was in a meeting, or doing a session with a patient. Most often I had to wait for him to call me back. I felt like pacing too. It could only have been a few minutes but it felt like hours before I heard him pick up the line.

“Ms. Stewart,” he acknowledged. His voice was pleasant, casual. “What a coincidence. I was going to call you today.”  

“You were?” That threw me off.

“Yes, I was as a matter of fact. You know what they say, two great minds think alike.” He chuckled to himself.

“Why were you going to call me?” I questioned.

“Well, as it so happens, I had a call from the transitional facility today. You know, the one I transferred Elizabeth to. It’s called ‘Foundations’ by the way.” He seemed very generous with his information all of a sudden. “It’s a very high-end treatment center. Many celebrities have been known to secretly check in there. They have the utmost discretion. It really was perfect for the situation we were in, considering all the publicity at that time.”

Was it just me, or did it seem as though he was defending his decision to send Lisbeth there?

“They really have some top-notch doctors, a few I’ve known personally throughout my career,” he continued. “Actually, it was Dr. Albert Westmore that contacted me. We go way back. He just wanted to let me know, as a courtesy you know, that there may have been a bit of a glitch.”

I looked up pleadingly at Logan. He stopped pacing at the look on my face and gave me his full attention.

“What do you mean, a glitch?” I forced out.

“Well, it seems as though yesterday Elizabeth was on a
supervised patient outing,” I grabbed onto Logan with my left hand, my right hand gripping my cell phone until my knuckles hurt. “Supervised patient outings are quite routine at this facility. They were simply going to a local theater to watch a movie, sort of a fieldtrip for good behavior, you understand. Well, it seems as though Elizabeth became separated from the group.”

I braced myself for what was coming next. I didn’t want to hear it. I couldn’t take one more thing right now. He continued anyway.

“They searched the entire theater but were unable to locate her. That’s why Dr. Westmore called me. He was wondering if I had any idea about where she could be. That’s why I was going to call you. Have you heard from her recently?”

My knees gave way and I crumbled to the hard ground, the cell phone falling from by limp fingers onto the payment.