Aberration Read online

  Table of Contents

  PRAISE

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  EPILOGUE

  PRAISE

  “Aberration is a sophisticated and compelling suspense novel. Just when you think you know what’s next, the story whips you around a corner into shocking new territory and you discover nothing is quite what it seems. Aberration will keep you reading, and guessing, until the very end, when not one but two shocking twists await the reader. Lisa Regan has also created that rarity, a wonderfully original and complex heroine in Kassidy Bishop, who is a tough and bright FBI agent but also refreshingly human. Someone to root for, fear for, and hope we meet again in another Lisa Regan novel.”

  —Mark Pryor, author of The Bookseller and The Crypt Thief

  With Kassidy Bishop, Lisa Regan has created a character that’s not only smart, but vulnerable. It’s that kind of complexity that lifts her novels from others in the suspense genre.” —New York Times bestselling author, Gregg Olsen

  “It’s absolute perfection, Regan at her very best! This is not your run-of-the-mill serial killer whodunit. It is sublimely unique. And of course, Regan’s writing is captivating and engrossing, finely honed, and easy to set your teeth into. It’s effortless, and you just can’t seem to find that chapter to call it a night and put it down.” —Nancy S. Thompson, author of The Mistaken

  “This second outing from crime writer Lisa Regan cements her status as one of the most promising talents in the field. If you’ve read her first novel, Finding Claire Fletcher, that delicious sense of creeping menace is still present, along with a greater depth and complexity.”

  —Nick Wilford, Scattergun Scribblings

  ABERRATION

  LISA REGAN

  Copyright © 2013 Lisa Regan

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the publisher.

  Sapphire Star Publishing

  www.sapphirestarpublishing.com

  First Sapphire Star Publishing ebook edition, June 2013

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Names, characters, places, and plots are a product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-938404-56-6

  Cover Image by kohy

  www.sapphirestarpublishing.com/lisaregan

  DEDICATION

  For my parents—you did it right.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  As always, I have to thank my parents, Donna House, William Regan, Rusty House and Joyce Regan for their unwavering support. I would also like to thank my husband, Fred, and daughter, Morgan, who went without my attention for countless hours while I worked on this novel.

  The following people helped me work out the many kinks in initial drafts of this novel: Melissia McKittrick, Stephanie Kuehn, Lawrence Bender, Andy Brock, Laura Aiello and Amy Schoenfeld. I’d also like to thank the following people who went above and beyond in terms of encouragement and support: Carrie A. Butler, Kevin & Christine Brock, Sean & Cassie House, Marilyn House, Kerry Graham, Jean & Dennis Regan, Al & Kitty Funk, Ava & Tom McKittrick, the Tralies family, Dot Dorton & family and the wonderful Conlen family.

  Special thanks to Rebecca Kiel, LCPC for all her guidance and letting me brainstorm. Thank you to my fellow author and friend, Michael Infinito, Jr. for keeping me going even when I wanted to quit. Special thanks to my fellow author, close friend and writing soul mate, Nancy S. Thompson, who held my hand from first word to last. This novel would not exist without you!

  Thanks to my agent, Jeanie Pantelakis, for all her suggestions and her faith in me. Thanks to Amy Lichtenhan and Katie Henson for believing so steadfastly in this book and in my abilities, even when I doubted myself!

  Finally, thank you to my readers—I hope you like this one!

  CHAPTER ONE

  Kassidy

  It was a blitz attack. Cowardly. He hit me over the head with the baseball bat I kept next to my bedroom door. I was asleep. I never even heard him. The next thing I knew, I was tied to a chair in my dimly lit dining room. I woke suddenly to a high-pitched keening. He was shooting me up with something. My left forearm pricked and burned. My head felt heavy, achy. My eyelids weighed a ton each, but I lifted them and looked at him.

  He smiled. A cranked-out, toothy smile, his wide lips peeling back from his teeth. He held up an empty syringe.

  “Crank, bitch,” he sneered.

  I thought, where was that needle before tonight? That was my first thought. Whether or not he just infected me with HIV or hepatitis. I didn’t wonder how he got in, if I had a concussion, how long I’d been unconscious, or if he had raped me while I was out.

  I wiggled in my seat, but there was not much give. My hands were bound to the armrests of the chair. My feet were tied in the same fashion to the front legs of the chair. I glanced at my dining room table and saw a knife, a ball of twine and my standard issue Glock 22.

  He paced back and forth in front of me. He was waiting for the crank to kick in. Waiting for me to become fully awake. He wanted me to be fully cognizant during the torture he was about to inflict. My head lolled. I don’t know how long it was before he got impatient and slapped me hard across the face. Whi
te hot pain streaked through my jaw.

  “Wake the fuck up,” he growled.

  I swallowed. “I’m awake.”

  He picked up the knife, flipped it open and used the tip of it beneath my chin to hold my head up. I looked into his eyes. Wild eyes. Green and brown. I’d seen them before.

  “You thought you had me, didn’t you?” he said.

  He needled the knife until I felt a small puncture. A drop of blood slid down, pooling in the hollow of my throat. As I became more alert, the blurred edges of the room turned sharp one by one. My heart thumped furiously in my chest, rattling my rib cage. Soon I’d be fully awake, conscious of every last detail of my death.

  It wasn’t how I thought I’d go. I thought—okay, I’d hoped—I’d be shot in the line of duty or killed in a car wreck. Maybe even cancer or simple old age. Too much to hope for.

  It had to be this. Torture, rape, death and probably dismemberment at the hands of a violent criminal. I knew I was going to die. It was just a matter of how fast or how slow.

  I thought of my parents. Well, mostly I thought of my dad. This would kill him. He’d always been so worried about this sort of thing. I always assured him that these things never happened. Never. They only happened in books, movies or on TV. Real life wasn’t like this. Real FBI agents didn’t have to worry about collars coming after them.

  He pulled the knife away with a sound of disgust. He continued to pace. My head felt full. The crank made my spine ramrod straight. I held my head up and looked at him. He wore khakis, loafers and a muted green shirt. The sleeves were rolled up, revealing muscular forearms. His greasy black hair was in disarray. Even so, he didn’t look like a killer.

  They never do, Kass.

  That’s what my SAC at the Baltimore field office said when I closed my first string of homicides. The FBI didn’t normally handle homicides, but several state and city police departments had asked for our help tracking a particularly malicious serial killer whose work spanned three states. Again, I thought of Ted Bundy. He had been handsome and a charmer from all I heard.

  The man before me was a charmer, but he had the blackened heart of a demon. As if sensing my thoughts, he looked right at me. A sneer slithered across his face. I wondered if this was how he’d looked to his previous eighteen victims.

  “Remember me, bitch?”

  “Nico Sala,” I said. “I wish I didn’t remember you.”

  For that, I caught a wild punch to the face. His fist landed close to my left eye. Again I felt sharp pain. This time it seared across my forehead. I could practically hear my eye swelling.

  “I told you, you stupid bitch. I told you I’d find you. I’m gonna gut you alive.”

  I believed him. I’d talked to lots of victims of violent crime during my career, and many of them said the same thing: there comes a point where you know your attacker is going to kill you.

  Well, here I was. Nico Sala had broken into my home. He’d shot me up, bound me to a chair, hit me. Fear crept along my body with thin, icy fingertips. I moved my arms and legs, trying to figure out how much room I had to work with to free a hand or foot. There wasn’t any.

  “Don’t bother,” Nico said. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  I rested and watched him with my good eye. I tried to tamp down the fear bubbling up inside, making my already thundering heart race faster. My ears filled with the sound of it, like a train roaring down the tracks. My whole body vibrated. I wondered fleetingly if it was possible for my heart to actually burst right out of my chest. It felt like it might. I drew a deep breath.

  He gave me a few more slaps for good measure, grunting as he did so.

  Stay calm. The fear will only escalate his violent tendencies.

  It was the FBI agent in me, a ridiculously calm voice in my head. I tried to hold onto that part of me. In that moment I wanted to be the clinical behavioral analyst, not the terrified woman I was in reality.

  “Aren’t you gonna scream?” he asked.

  It wouldn’t do any good, I realized, tears gathering behind my eyes. People in this neighborhood screamed all the time. Everyone heard, but nobody listened.

  Calm, the voice urged again. Your life depends on it. I managed to force some bravado. “What?” I said. “And forego hours of torture? Nah.”

  Nico grinned and pulled a chair out from the dining room table. He faced it toward him, straddling it so he could fold his arms over its back. “I’m not going to kill you fast,” he said.

  Oh great.

  “I hate bitches like you. You think you’re so superior. So much better than me.”

  There it was—inadequacy. The hallmark of violent criminals.

  “Well, I’m not a raping murderer, if that’s what you mean,” I said.

  The chair flew. His fists rained down on me. He struck me everywhere with thirty-five years of pent-up rage. I tucked my chin against my chest to avoid more blows to my face. Reflexively, my hands tried to fly upward to block his attack.

  Finally he pulled away, breathing heavily. Sweating. “You’re trying to make me do it fast,” he said. “But I won’t.”

  Nico picked up the chair and resumed his seat. I recovered from his flying fists as best I could. My head and chest stung. I pushed my feet against the floor to see if there was any slack.

  “What’s the point of this again?” I asked, trying to make my tone casual. If I was going down, acting as scared as I felt wouldn’t change that. Blood trickled out of the side of my mouth. I felt like I just got back from the dentist. The left side of my mouth was huge and numb. Soon the slobbering would start.

  “The point is you’re a stupid cunt,” he said, the petulance in his voice incongruous with his maniacal appearance.

  “I just don’t see the point in killing me,” I said. “You got off.”

  He grinned then, his pearly whites as big as the moon. He rubbed his crotch, raised an eyebrow. “Yeah,” he drawled. “I sure did.”

  I ignored him. If he had in fact raped me, I was glad I didn’t remember it. Though I doubted he had. Nico Sala had made his criminal career as a serial rapist in two states. He had started out in Wilmington, Delaware preying on single women between eighteen and fifty. Neither their age nor their features were particularly important to Sala. Fat, short, tall, thin, brunette, blonde, black, white, Asian—it didn’t matter. He just looked for women who lived alone in first-floor apartments. In Wilmington, he had raped seven women. Then he moved on to Baltimore. He raped eleven women there.

  Since local police in both Baltimore and Wilmington believed they were dealing with the same rapist, they had asked for FBI assistance, which my field office gladly lent. I came onto the case after the fifth Baltimore victim. Eventually, I was put undercover, living in a shitty first-floor apartment for almost a month before Sala broke in with the intention of raping me, only to be swarmed and arrested by most of the task force assigned to catch him.

  I’d worked the case, seen the files, talked to the victims. Nico Sala was what investigators referred to as a sadistic rapist. He couldn’t get it up unless his victims were visibly overcome by fear. Fear that made their eyes wide, their cries strangled. Fear forming a beaded tiara across their foreheads. He liked them fully conscious and very afraid.

  My reckoning would come when I was wide awake. “They let you go,” I said.

  After months of investigative work and a hard-won arrest, Nico was set free on a legal technicality. The night of the arrest, two of my Bureau coworkers had been on scene, as well as two Baltimore sex crimes detectives and four uniformed Baltimore PD officers. Somehow, in spite of all that law enforcement, no one had read Sala his rights. No one had Mirandized him, which meant that the arrest was illegal. There was nothing the district attorney could do. We had to watch him go free and try to pick up the pieces while our superiors passe
d blame around like an office memo no one wanted to read. That was two months ago.

  Nico spit on the floor. “Yeah, that’s right. They let me go so I could come find you.”

  I shook off a fresh wave of pain. My whole body felt like an angry, throbbing vein. “Why?” I asked, my voice the sound of a creaking chair. I had to keep him talking. The more talking he did, the less hitting or possibly stabbing would occur. He obviously had quite a few complaints to lodge against me.

  “Because you fucked me,” he said, his face screwing up in twisted lines of indignation.

  “Hardly,” I said.

  He threw the knife at me. I turned my head and tucked my chin. My amber hair fell across my neck, my only meager defense. The blade punctured the skin just above my right breast but not with enough force to stick. It clattered to the floor. The noise seemed to reverberate through the entire house. It must have been the crank. Again, tears stung my eyes. I blinked them back and swallowed hard, willing my composure to remain intact.