Killer Instinct (16 page)

Chapter
Thirty-Five

“MOM?”

She comes toward me, takes the Taser from my hand, and backs away. “You’re the daughter I was meant to have.”

I glance quickly to Zach, then right back to my mom. “I don’t . . . I don’t understand.”

She props her shoulder in the doorway and folds her arms across her chest. “What don’t you understand, daughter?”

Is she for real?
“How about
everything
?” I point to Zach. “Why haven’t you helped him?”

Mom spares him a quick glance. “I was saving him for you. For us. I want to do him together.”

Do him together?

“Oh, don’t act like you didn’t know.”

I didn’t!

“Do you realize how great we’ll be together?” Mom keeps going as if we’re having a normal conversation.

“Decapitating people?”

She smiles. “With my position in the FBI and your innate talents . . . We’ll be great. We’ll go down in history as the most infamous serial killers never caught. Besides, now that Seth is dead, I need another partner.”

This takes a second to sink in. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Well, you didn’t think I could pull all this off by myself. Honestly”—she chuckles—“I’m good, but I’m not that good.”

My brain spirals with questions, with memories, with facts, but I don’t have the time to give them space to unravel. I need to focus. “You two killed my preschool teacher?”

“She was fucking your dad. It pissed me off. I walked right in on them.
We
walked right in on them.”

I’ve never heard my mom drop the f-bomb. It comes across so foreign . . . and ridiculous. “But you were already married. . . . And what do you mean,
we
?”

“Seth was and always will be my one true love.”

I shake my head. She’s making no sense. “Then why get married?”

“Because Seth can be a real asshole, and I had to teach him a lesson. I like to hold my
happy
marriage over his head. But then I got pregnant with Daisy and my job at the FBI, and well, here I am, all these years later.”

“What do you mean,
we
?” I repeat. “Who took me? Who kidnapped me when I was three?”

“Nobody. It’s the story we made up. I took you to Four Buchold. Seth had no clue we were coming. We walked right in on him and that bitch. That’s when it all went down. I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and stabbed her, then stabbed again, and then Seth joined in.” She huffs an unamused laugh. “You watched the whole thing.”

I get really still.

“You just stood there mesmerized by what we were doing.”

My whole body chills. “I was not,” I whisper.

She nods. “You were. You wouldn’t look away.”

Anger surges through my blood, turning my chilled body into a furnace. “I was in shock!”

“It was your idea that we cut off her head, arms, and legs.”

Bile swells into my throat, and I swallow the overwhelming desire to heave. “That’s a lie.”

Mom shakes her head. “No, it’s not.”

Yes it is! It has to be a lie!

“That first kill was our crime of passion, and—it did something to us. When you stood there and watched, we knew you were feeling it too.”

All the air in my lungs leaves me. “And all those other women?” I whisper.

Mom shrugs. “Yearly celebration of our first kill.” Her face brightens. “You don’t understand how thrilling it is for Seth and me. There’s nothing like it.”

I can’t hear any more.

She shakes her head. “Do you know how many hours, days, weeks, months,
years
the FBI has put into this? Trying to figure the Decapitator—
us
—out?” She laughs. “Ridiculous.”

I eye this woman, my mother, a person I don’t even know. “How’d you pick your victims?”

“Preschool teachers, blondes . . .”

I trusted you. I admired you. I respected you. I wanted to
be
like you.
All these things pop into my mind, but I say none of them. “What about your husband? What about Justin? And Daisy?”

“Don’t you see? They’ll have each other. You and I will have each other. We’ll be the perfect family. Besides”—she nods to Zach—“now that Seth’s gone we need something new. New victims, new techniques. We need to make this
us
now.”

“He’s my friend,” I whisper.

“No. He’s not. If he were your friend, he wouldn’t have turned his back on you.”

“He didn’t.”

“I have an itch that needs scratching, and he’s going to do it.”

I don’t like that she’s used “itch.” That’s my word.

“He’s a present. For you.”

Who is this woman who has terrorized others for fourteen years? I barely recognize her. It’s like I’m meeting her for the first time tonight.

She moves finally, pushing away from the door, and my whole body tenses. “Be back in a sec,” she tells me.

Mom disappears, and I quickly look around, my brain in overdrive. How am I going to get me and Zach out of here?

Wait. My tranquilizer gun!

Mom reappears in that exact second holding something behind her back.

I’ve never once felt the urge to retreat from anything or anybody, but the need to back up, even one step, overcomes me.

Zach mumbles and stirs.

Don’t wake up, Zach. Don’t wake up.

With a smile, Mom pulls a long knife from behind her back. I recognize it from the video.

The video . . .

She and Seth sliced that woman and packaged her parts, and I watched with fascination, with
sick curiosity
,
just as Mom claimed.

Maybe she’s right. Maybe this is my destiny. But . . . how can this be my destiny if they created it by allowing me to watch, by making me
participate
all those years ago?

They
made me into this indescribable, abnormal, distorted person. If it weren’t for their twisted delight, I’d be a normal seventeen-year-old girl. Happy. Functional. Emotional at times. Bright. Adjusted.

Mom moves close to Zach, trailing the sharpened blade along the table. “You should have seen us the first couple of times. A dull blade does not make for a very clean kill.”

I hate her. I really hate her. “What about my uncle?”

She laughs. “You don’t have an uncle. We made him up just in case the FBI ever got too close.”

“But . . . you can’t just make a person up.”

“Lane, baby, do you realize who I am? Do you realize the resources I have access to? I’ve spent my adult life hunting people. I can certainly make one up. I know how to generate false paperwork and make it look perfect.”

“But he stabbed you.”

“I stabbed myself.”

But I heard two people fighting . . . or did I? “Why would you stab yourself?”

She laughs. “It’s all a game, Lane. I had to make it look like your uncle was there, not only for the FBI, but for you. Just like the different-colored hair—part of the game. Every other year we’d color the victim’s hair to throw things off.”

“What about all the information I gave you that you passed on to . . .” Suddenly realization dawns. She never passed any of the information on to the investigative team.

Mom chuckles at my realization. “See what I mean? I’m the perfect person to have on your side.”

Numbly I stare at her, wishing she would’ve died by her own stab wound. “And all the text messages threatening me, threatening my—
our
—family?”

“Manipulation. Needed you to do what I wanted you to do.”

“You leaked all that information to the press, didn’t you?”

“Yes. All calculated for an end result.”

“And James Donner?”

She shakes her head. “Stupid idiot. Wasn’t expecting that one. But I like a good challenge. He livened things up. He’d done his research. He actually knew one of the victims. That’s how he knew nail-polish color.”

“Nail polish . . .” I don’t understand.

“It’s the one detail we leave out of reports. It’s our way of double-checking copycats and verifying false leads.” She rounds the table and glances up at me, tears suddenly in her eyes. “I miss Seth. Colon cancer ran in his family. You need to make sure you get checked in a few years. Okay, sweetheart?”

I stare at her.

“Okay?” she repeats.

“Okay,” I robotically agree.

“I’m so glad he came back home to die. I’m so glad we got one last kill.” She slides the knife’s tip along Zach’s throat and draws a tiny sliver of blood.

“Mom.”

She looks up.

I slip my hand into the pocket where the tranquilizer gun lies loaded and ready.

She glances down to my hand. “Yes?”

I reach out from my pocket empty-handed. “May I?”

She cocks her head. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Okay.” She lays the handle in my palm. “Okay.”

I test the weight of it as the images of those fourteen women flash through my mind.

Trust. Mom has so easily given it to me by handing me the knife.

Trust. It’s what Zach has that someone will rescue him.

Trust. The whole nation has it that the FBI will bring the Decapitator to justice.

Trust. I’ve always, naturally, given it to my mom.

“DO IT!” she screams.

Her cry ricochets across my nerve endings. I whip around and take her head off with one slice.

Her body falls limp to the floor, and I drop to my knees.

I am my mother’s daughter.

I am a killer.

Epilogue

I HAVE NO CLUE HOW
long I’ve been kneeling, but Zach’s watch dings and I lift my head. I glance at my mom first, at her headless body curled in her own pool of blood and at her head that has rolled to the corner of the room. The eyes on that head stare at the ceiling. I’m grateful they are not looking at me.

I notice her blood is creeping in my direction, and I get to my feet. Zach stirs then and I straighten.
I can’t let him see this
. I glance around the room, looking for I’m not sure what, and my gaze narrows in on the cloth shoved in Zach’s mouth. I slip it out and quickly tie it around his eyes.

He mumbles something incoherent, and I do the first thing that pops into my mind. I slip my mom’s phone from her pocket, dial 911, and run the hell out of the place.

• • •

The next morning it’s all over the news:

FBI DIRECTOR KILLED BY DECAPITATOR.

Zach woke up, tied and blindfolded, and started yelling. The police traced the open 911 line and dispatched a unit. With my mom there, everyone assumed she had tried to rescue my friend and saw her own death come out of it. Zach couldn’t confirm or deny it. All he remembers is waking up, not how he got there, or what happened.

My mom’s a hero.

Five days later at the funeral filled with mostly FBI, I stand with my family and receive hugs from people I don’t even know. Why is it that people feel that hugging is the right thing to do to a perfect stranger upon death?

I’m not sure what I want, but it’s not all these hugs.

Beside me stands my sister, close enough to touch me, but not entirely there. She doesn’t know that I know she’s slept at the foot of my bed every night this week. And that’s okay.

Slightly behind me hovers Reggie, who has been completely shell-shocked over the whole thing. She loved my mom, as did everyone. Reggie’s convinced she holds fault in all this. She gave me the Maryland address that I “passed” along to my mom. The same address my mom and Zach were found at.

I’ve kept so much from Reggie. So much I’ll never tell. All I can do is reassure her she’s not to blame in any way.

Victor and Justin are to my left. Justin has been glued to his dad’s side, and I only hope this doesn’t majorly mess my brother up. Surprisingly, Victor seems to be handling things well. Efficiently. Like the task-oriented person he is. I imagine in private, though, he gives in to the emotion of having lost his wife. I’m ashamed to have ever thought he might have had something to do with all this.

I wonder how we’ll all be a month from now. Six months from now. A year. We’ll be different. I already am. Killing Mom has changed me. I’m not quite sure how yet, but it has. I’m different now.

Through the crowd I spot Zach and Dr. Issa. I look at Zach first, but he’s not looking at me. His gaze is fixed on the ground. Emotionally he has been through a lot, and I hope he doesn’t turn back to the alcohol abuse he’d used before as an escape.

I switch my glance to Dr. Issa, who smiles gently and nods. That smile, that nod,
that’s
what I need.

Someone hiccups a sob, and I glance to the right where a woman stands gazing at my mom’s oversize portrait. I take in the portrait, the woman sobbing, and all the other people in the room.

Paperwork on my fake uncle popped up, stating his body had been found in Mexico. It’s paperwork, I imagine, my mom coordinated weeks ago to “solve” the case. The FBI officially announced that the Decapitator and my uncle were one and the same and that he picked Zach as his first victim in a new planned spree. That he was going to switch from preschool teachers to teenage boys. A few serial killers in the past have switched “tastes,” so the FBI’s explanation is plausible.

Everyone
knows
I’m not to blame, but they can’t hide their looks and whispers that I’m related to the infamous Decapitator and that because of Zach’s friendship with me, he was targeted and taken. They can say what they want.

I haven’t been back to school yet, but I imagine when I do, I’m going to get the fallout from all this. Eventually it will blow over as everything does. I only hope Zach and I can get back to some sort of friendship. Even if it’s just polite nodding.

I searched my mom’s office for all the stuff she’d taken from me and never given to the FBI. The flash drive, the envelopes, the message log . . . I found them and disposed of all the evidence.

Yes, everyone thinks the Decapitator is dead. To them and to my family my mom’s a hero. And that’s the way it’s going to be. No one will ever know the truth.

Acknowledgments

Tim Carter, Sam Morton, and Megan Records: Thank you for being my first readers. Without your critique, insight, and suggestions, this book would definitely not be the sharp read that it is. Also, Tim, thank you for playing out the fight scenes with me, for your research talents, but most importantly—for your never-ending support.

Jenny Bent and Gemma Cooper: I don’t even know where to start. A HUGE thank-you for all the rounds we did on getting this manuscript into top-notch shape. Your vision and unending patience turned this angry book into one badass novel.

Patrick Price: I’m so happy to be working with you. Bless you for seeing the appeal and snatching this project up. Really, seriously, thank you for that!

Simon Pulse family: Mara Anastas, Paul Crichton, Michelle Fadlalla, Anna McKean, Jessica Handelman, Katherine Devendorf, Julie Doebler, Emma Sector, and Carolyn Swerdloff. You are all a truly amazing force. I am so honored to be working with you.

Simone Elkeles: We go back a long way, my friend. . . . I greatly appreciate your business mind, your bluntness, and your willingness to “talk me off the ledge.” I’m so glad I listen to you!

Finally, to all my online friends and followers: You really do make my day! You can find me at
www.segreen.net
, on Twitter
@Shan_E_Green
, and on my
Facebook
fan page under S. E. Green.