Killer Within (15 page)

Chapter
Thirty-Six

THE NEXT MORNING VICTOR TAKES
Daisy to Saturday cheer practice, and Justin plunks down in front of the TV. I use the time to double-check my family for my missing box. I search through Daisy’s room, Justin’s, Victor’s, and come up with nothing.

I go to my Saturday Patch and Paw shift, burn the pictures I found at Marji’s trailer and go through the motions of working, but I’m completely preoccupied.

I would naturally think Marji had taken my box, but there’s no way she could’ve broken into my room and been with me at the same time. However, Tommy . . . of course. I break into his place, so he retaliates by breaking into mine.

I sigh. This isn’t good.

I finish off my shift and drive straight to his basement apartment. I knock, he opens, and I step right inside.

He doesn’t back up. “Let me guess. You’re missing a box.”

“Who do you think you are, breaking into my room?”

He smirks. “Ah, the irony.”

I narrow my eyes. “I want my things.”

“I would like mine. But here we are.”

“I bought you a new laptop.”

Tommy’s smirk gets even bigger. “Look there. You finally admit it.”

I close my eyes and draw in a deep breath because my blood is seriously starting to roil.

He snickers and my eyes snap open. “Give. Me. The. Box.”

He takes an intimidating step toward me, all smirks and snickers gone. “Can’t. I disposed of it. What are you going to do about it?”

I shove him hard in the chest; he stumbles away and comes right back at me. I hike my chin, showing him I’m
anything
but intimidated, and he puts his face right in mine.

“Get out,” he commands.

He’s seen my journals. My dark side. My obsession.
He has to die.

My whole body goes numb.

He has to die?
What am I doing?

I broke into his place. He retaliated by breaking in to mine.
Tommy’s a victim. His sister’s a victim. We’re all a victim of my mother.

He doesn’t deserve to die. He doesn’t deserve any of this.

“You come here in control. Then when I challenge you, you get angry. I give the anger back and you freak. Now you’re panicked.” His voice calms. “That’s a lot of emotion in the span of a few minutes.”

How is he so intuitive? How is it he sees so much when everyone else sees nothing in me?

I turn away, ashamed, humiliated. This isn’t me. I don’t taunt and go after innocent people. Everything Tommy’s done is out of retribution for his sister.

My journals: Sure there were clippings, notes, details, but nothing personal. Nothing incriminating. All done from an analytical point of view. In reality Tommy hasn’t discovered anything other than that I research, follow, and collect serial killers through time.

This. Me. Us. It’s wrong. I shouldn’t be here. I freaked on him for nothing.

“You need to leave,” he quietly says.

I don’t turn and look at him. I simply nod and walk from his apartment. I don’t want people knowing I’m mesmerized by killers. I just don’t. I’m not ready to share that part of me with anybody.

Reggie’s the only person who knows that side of me, and she only knows a small amount.

As I drive home, all I can think about is what just went down with Tommy.
He has to die.
What the hell am I thinking? That’s something my mom would have thought. Or Marji. Or Seth, my real dad. I don’t think that way. Not about someone like Tommy.

When I get home, I go to our backyard and look up at my window that I always leave cracked for fresh air. It’s easy enough to release the ladder. Even a long tree branch can unsnap it. But how did Tommy know that window was mine? My eyes narrow in on the present Justin gave me last year—a stained-glass “LANE” suctioned to the window. Of course.

All my years of research, details, methodical notes. It’s gone. It’s all gone.

I close my eyes.
Tommy
. . . There’d been a connection there, initially, through the grief group. He’d taken me for a ride on his bike and helped me feel free. Then the link between his sister and the Decapitator came to light. Followed by finding out he was part of the Masked Savior following. Then my sharing one of my deepest secrets with him.

How did I go from feeling free around him to breaking into his home? It’s all frustrating and puzzling, and somewhere deep down I want things to go back to the way they were, but I’m not sure how to reverse them. This is exactly what happens when emotions get involved and confuse things.

I trudge inside, and I crank my laptop up. The last time
I looked, there had been no report on Marji or that young woman. Surely, there’s something now.

I scroll through my news feed and sure enough, there it is:

RICHMOND LOCAL MARJOREAM VEGA FOUND STABBED

Quickly I peruse the article. The young woman in the cage was eighteen. Marji picked her up outside a bar. The young woman thought they were going somewhere to party.

Yeah, Marji’s kind of sick party.

The article talks about little Gary Streeter, who has been missing a year, and the person in the other pictures, now identified as a sixteen-year-old girl who has been missing for five years. At least the families can have some sort of closure.

My mother is not mentioned once. The fact that they are sisters is hidden deep. Just like everything else in the Decapitator’s life.

The article goes on to speculate as to who stabbed Marji. To my surprise the Masked Savior isn’t even mentioned. Probably because a knife was used and no zip ties, and it took place outside of Richmond, not here. Though there was a Taser. Whatever the reason, it’s a blessing. For sure.

I read the rest, where they report the knife used to stab
Marji is missing. They combed the surrounding area, but couldn’t find it.

My heart picks up its pace as I reread that part.
Missing?
No. I left it there. It shouldn’t be missing!

I press my fingers into my eyes. This can’t be happening. My copycat, j_d_l, was there. He, or she, saw the whole thing.

Chapter
Thirty-Seven

I CAN’T SLEEP AND AM
up before five making coffee. Sometime between reading the news about Marji and realizing my copycat saw it all, I convinced myself to take a day and just exist. Think things through, regroup, and come up with my next steps.

Plus, I need to spend time with my family. Because who the hell knows how this is all going to play out.

I want to practice aikido with Justin, challenge Victor to a game of chess, and
definitely
have some sister time with Daisy. I want to feel things out and see if she’s hiding anything from me. I want to make sure she knows I’m here for her.

The three of them are all I have now.

I make a spread: frittata (Victor’s favorite), chocolate-chip
pancakes (Justin’s), and blueberry muffins (Daisy’s).

Victor wakes up first and comes downstairs in his pajamas. “Lane? What are you doing?”

I motion to the oven, where the food waits on warm. “I made breakfast.” I give him the rundown. “Everyone’s favorite.”

His mouth quirks into a pleased, if not perplexed, smile. “Wow. Um, thanks. What’s the occasion?”

I shrug. I’m not one for touchy-feely statements, but I hope my actions show.

He gives me a hug and kisses the top of my head. “That’s really sweet.”

“I was thinking you and I could maybe play chess later?”

His brows come down, accentuating his already perplexed smile. “Okay, but Justin and I have a nine a.m. tee time, and then we’re doing a late lunch/early dinner with some of his aikido pals.”

“Oh . . .”

Victor gives me another hug. “I’m so sorry.”

“That’s okay,” I mumble. Really, what was I expecting? To suddenly want family time and they’d be at my call?

“But let’s definitely all do breakfast.” He rallies my brother and sister out of bed, and we all sit down to the feast I’ve made.

“Lane, I think you should be a chef,” Daisy comments, and I smile.

“You know what I miss? Mom’s bacon,” Justin says, and we
all agree. She did make some great bacon. And though Victor’s tried duplicating, there was just something about Mom’s.

The rest of breakfast is lighthearted and easy—the way it should be. At least on their end it is. On my end, though I don’t want it to, my brain wanders. . . . How can I sit here eating breakfast with them as if I didn’t kill Marji? As if I didn’t slice our Mom’s head off? What if they found out? Would they still love me? Probably not. They’d be horrified. No matter how justified my two kills were.

Afterward Victor and Justin leave, and I find Daisy in her room, talking on FaceTime with Hammond.

She glances up from her iPhone to where I stand in her door. “What’s up?”

“Thought we might hang out?” I awkwardly suggest.

She gives me the same perplexed smile Victor had. “Who are you and what have you done with my sister?”

I don’t like that Hammond can hear this.

She waves the phone in the air. “Hammond and I are spending the day together. I already cleared it with Dad.”

“Oh, okay.” I back out of her room. Hopefully, she and I can talk tonight.

I wander into my room, pick up my phone, and dial the only other person I consider family. Reggie. I want to apologize again and just talk. She’s right. It’s been too long. One ring. Two. Three. Four. Voice mail. With a sigh I hang up.
Reggie’s freezing me out and that just sucks. I’ve always had Reggie.

But somewhere in the back of my mind I knew she and I would probably part ways. Maybe Catalina’s entrance into my life is some sort of sign. My next phase in the friendship thing. Masked Savior following aside, I could see that. She and I connect on a different level.

I look at my dresser and think of my journals. I do want them back. I get in my Jeep and drive straight to Whole Foods where Tommy works. I’ll talk to him. Try to reason with him. This is what I think as I cruise the parking lot and identify his motorcycle, but right as I’m about to park, I change my mind and pull back out. He’s not going to give them to me. If I want them, I’ll have to take them back.

As I drive to his apartment, I glance in my rearview more than once. I don’t see any suspicious cars following me. Whoever is trailing me is good. To have followed me to Marji’s and watched, and I had no clue. Yeah, they’re good.
Too
good.

I go to Tommy’s apartment, park on the street, get my lock-pick tools out, and stop.
Jesus.
Here I am again. At Tommy’s. About to break in and get my journals back. He has to know I would do this. Of course he wouldn’t keep them in his apartment.

Plus, what am I doing?

Didn’t I convince myself just last night that this thing
between Tommy and me had gotten out of control? That it has to stop?

I can’t spend the rest of my life cleaning up the Decapitator’s mess, hiding facts about myself and my family, and running from my past. It has to come to an end sometime.

Doesn’t it?

A rumbling engine catches my attention, and I glance in my rearview mirror to see Tommy coming down the street.
Great.
He pulls right past me and into the small parking lot. He throws his kickstand down, kills the engine, and climbs off.

He walks to his door, turns, folds his arms over his chest, and just stares at me.

Waiting. Waiting for I’m not sure what.

I’m wearing shades. He’s wearing shades. We can’t see each other’s eyes. But as the seconds, then minutes tick by, I get the distinct impression our staring match shares mutual thought.

“This has got to stop,” he calls out, putting words to my exact feelings.

I nod. I know. But I’m not ready to talk about it right now. I consider asking him to take me for a ride on his bike, if anything so I can lose myself in the speed and the wind. But I don’t. I don’t want the rejection of him saying no.

Instead I crank my engine and drive away. Maybe in a few days I’ll be ready.

When I get home, Daisy and Hammond are making out
on the couch. Hammond leaps off her like I shot him with my Taser. “S-s-sorry!”

I’ve caught her having sex, so this, my friend, is nothing. Hell, you’re both still fully clothed.
This is what I want to say, but of course don’t.

Hammond grabs up his stuff and fumbles/stutters/rushes his way out the door with a “See you tomorrow” mumble to Daisy and one last guilty “Sorry” to me.

When he’s gone, I look at my sister, and we both can’t help it—we laugh.

“I think
I
just fell in love with him.” I make a rare joke, and my sister laughs even harder.

She straightens her clothes. “How about movie and popcorn?”

I smile. That sounds good. That sounds
more
than good. I don’t want to make anything awkward, so I’ll talk to Daisy tomorrow. Feel her out. See if she wants to talk about anything.

As the movie’s beginning, Victor and Justin get home. My brother plunks down beside me on the couch, Victor stretches out in one of the oversize chairs, and we all have the family time I woke up this morning wanting. Needing.

I savor every second. I’ll tell however many lies I have to in order to keep things just like this.

Chapter
Thirty-Eight

THE NEXT MORNING AS I’M
walking into school, Catalina calls me. “I finally had that phone call with the leader. With M.”

I wave Daisy on and walk a few paces away.
“And?”

“Oh, God, it was the most exciting, inspiring fifteen minutes of my life.”

“Inspiring.” She’d used that word before when talking about the Masked Savior’s vigilante acts. “Is the leader a man or woman?” I ask, praying she says woman. Please let Marji have been M.

“I don’t know. The voice was disguised.”

I inhale a not-so-patient breath. “What did
he
or
she
want?”

“I’m not allowed to say anything.” Although I can’t see her, I can tell she’s cringing. “I’m sorry.”

My teeth clench. “When did you have this phone call?” Please say a time before I killed Marji.

“Last night.”

Shit. Which means Marji’s not M. “And you can’t tell me what the phone call was about?”

“I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Well, why call me?” I snap.

Silence.

I tune in to the pulse thumping in my neck. I’m done with these games.

“
Don’t
get that way with me,” Catalina warns.

I narrow my eyes. I’ve never heard that tone in her voice before.

“You need to apologize,” she says.

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”

She clicks off.

I shove my phone in my pocket and head inside school. Reggie’s mad at me. Catalina’s mad at me. Fine. What was I thinking, trying to have friends?

As I pass by the administrative suite, I see several policemen and women gathered in the office, and I come to a complete stop.

What the hell is going on?

“What do you think that’s all about?” Kyle whispers from my side.

I shake my head. Are they here for me? Did the person who took the knife come forward with details? Heat flashes across my skin. It can’t be.

The bell rings, and I don’t move. Kyle tugs me toward homeroom, giving me an odd look. Stiffly I follow him, and five minutes in, our principal announces we’re on lockdown. My entire body tenses, nerves twitch, and every muscle in me clenches. Are they going to barge in here and handcuff me?

Dogs are brought in to sniff lockers. What are they looking for—don’t dogs sniff for drugs? What do drugs have to do with the Masked Savior and me killing Marji?

Either way, there’s nothing in my locker but books.

My Jeep.

Oh no. My Taser is there. My zip ties. The tranquilizer gun. My ski mask. My cargo pants. It’s all there in a bag hidden in the back.

What was I thinking? I need to ditch all my supplies. There can be nothing tracing me to the Masked Savior.

I flick my eyes to the clock. When will they lift lockdown?

Homeroom comes and goes, and ten minutes into first period the principal announces we can switch classes.

I fight every urge to run and instead make my way to my TA job in the library. Rumors zip through the halls: drugs, weapons, and on and on, but I block them all out. Somehow I need to get out to my Jeep and ditch my kit.

I go straight to Mr. Bealles, the librarian. “I know students are not allowed off campus, but I left my calc homework at home. I can go home and be back before the bell rings.”

He gives me a long study. I’ve never once asked for anything in this place and I’ve never been in trouble, so I highly doubt he’ll suspect an ulterior motive.

“Fine,” he gruffs, reaching into his pocket. He pulls out a pass and quickly scribbles his initials on it. “I will not excuse you if you’re late coming back.”

I take the pass and hurry out to my Jeep. I gun it out of the parking lot and race several blocks over to an apartment community. I grab my kit, wipe it down of fingerprints, and throw it in a Dumpster.

I make it back to campus with five minutes to spare and race across the parking lot. Right as I’m reaching for the door, I stop.

The tiny hairs on my arms lift and a creepy shiver tenses my neck. Someone’s watching me. I turn and stare out across the sea of student cars all the way to the road—at least a hundred yards away—and in the shade of a tree stands a person. Man or woman I’m not sure. But in the shadows they seem more tall than short. More skinny than fat. More dark than light.

It reminds me of the night outside of grief group when I saw a person standing on the street.

The person turns and seemingly disappears into the shadows, and my heart pumps a few extra times. That’s no coincidence. That’s my copycat. That’s the person who saw me stab Marji.

I go about the rest of my day. I sit through my classes. I don’t hear a word, though, from teachers, from students. All I can think about is that person. Who is it? Who the hell is following me?

When the final bell rings, I race out to my Jeep. While I wait on Daisy, I get a closer look at that tree and the shadows. Behind it stretches a path that leads through a neighborhood and into a park.

Daisy approaches. “Hey, what are you looking at?”

I climb in my Jeep. “Nothing. Let’s go.”

As we pull from student parking, I see Zach standing off to the side talking to Kyle. Seeing the two of them together strikes me as odd. They both catch sight of my Jeep and give me simultaneous polite smiles.

Daisy waves. “I didn’t know they were friends.”

Me neither. That’s one more thing I have to worry about now. I don’t like Kyle talking to Zach.

We pick Justin up and head straight home. As we walk in the door, there stands Victor, and Catalina’s father—the head of the task force—with Catalina right beside him.

“Justin, Daisy, go to your rooms,” Victor says. He motions
the rest of us into the living room. “Let’s all sit down.”

I chance a quick look at Catalina to gauge what the hell is going on, but she’s purposefully avoiding my gaze. Probably because of our little disagreement earlier. My thoughts spiral with why they are both here, but I force myself to stay calm. Focused.

“Last night,” Catalina’s father begins, “there were several incidents in the area.
Tragic
incidents. Eyewitness reports and evidence point to the Masked Savior as responsible.”

“What incidents?” Catalina interrupts.

“I’m not at liberty to go into details.” He looks between us. “I understand the lure of this thing. Righting a wrong. Taking justice into your own hands. I know both of you have been active members on the site.”

“I’ve only made a few posts,” Catalina says, conveniently leaving out the fact she’s the administrator and that she’s had a phone call with M.

I would leave that out too.

Her dad looks at me. “And you?”

“I had an account and I took it down,” I tell him.

“Most of the people seem harmless, Dad, really.” Catalina looks at me. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

I nod, because really, what am I supposed to say?

“They discuss mostly what the Masked Savior did.” Catalina laughs. “Someone even posted a brownie recipe once. Except
one time there was a string about darkest desires. . . .” She looks right at me. “Did you happen to read that string? It was creepy.”

“Yes, I did see a few of those. It was creepy,” I agree, and think about Kyle.

“Well, we’ve been monitoring the site and we know exactly what’s getting posted. The members do seem young,” he tells us. “Some things we read prompted us to do a sweep of all the high schools today.”

Now that I think about it, with the profile, I’m surprised they hadn’t done that sooner.

“Did you find anything?” Catalina asks.

“Again, not at liberty to say. But I wanted to meet with you girls personally. First, I don’t want either one of you on that site again. Second, if you hear
anything
around school or your friends, you need to tell one of us”—he nods at Victor—“immediately. Okay?”

Catalina nods.

“Yes,” I say.

Victor sees them out, and after he closes the door, he turns to me. “Is there anything you’re not telling me?”

“No, sir. I’m not hiding anything.”