Aberration Page 4

  I cleared my throat and wiped my palms on my skirt. “I—uh, I appreciate that,” I said. “So if you’re not taking disciplinary action, why am I here?”

  She lifted her chin, her smile disappearing and lines of concern bracketing her mouth. “I wanted to see how you were holding up.”

  “Holding up?” I said, but I knew where this was going. If Talia remembered the story about the bullies, she would definitely remember the stories I’d told her about my sister.

  “Today is the day, right? The anniversary of your twin sister’s death? Her name was Lexie, right?” Talia asked softly.

  I nodded, unable to speak. The details of the night Lexie died rushed back at me, as if I’d just come from the scene of her death, not from a conference room down the hall. Saliva pooled in my mouth, and I swallowed.

  “How many years now?” Talia asked.

  My voice was raspy. “Sixteen,” I said.

  “Did the flowers come this time? Like before?”

  Another fact I had shared during our girls’ night out that I almost wished I could take back. I’d never told anyone else but my mother about the flowers. But Talia had a way about her. You wanted to tell her every dirty secret and crazy notion that ever crossed your mind.

  “No,” I said. “But the day is not over yet.”

  For fifteen years, without fail, the same arrangement of purple hyacinths appeared on my doorstep on the anniversary of Lexie’s death. When I was still in college and later in law school, I’d had a number of shoddy dorm rooms and apartments. I’d moved frequently, yet the hyacinths followed me each year, reminding me of the worst day of my life—even worse than the day Nico Sala tried to kill me. A couple of times I’d found the same kind of arrangement at Lexie’s grave.

  “You know,” Talia began, her voice low and soft, “if you could find out who is sending them, maybe you could find Lexie’s killer.”

  “I tried. I’ve tried for fifteen years. They’re always delivered by a different florist or delivery service. They always come from a different state and there is never a card. Believe me, I’ve tried. But even if I did, I have no proof. No one believed me back then. No one would believe me now—even if I had a suspect. There wouldn’t be enough evidence to support my theory. I just knew my sister. She didn’t jump out of that window. Someone pushed her.”

  “What about the diary? Didn’t you say her diary was missing?”

  I felt a little stabbing pain in my chest. “Yeah,” I said, closing my eyes as tears gathered behind them. “Lexie was seeing someone before she died.”

  “The professor?”

  I shook my head. “No. That was over by then. This was someone new. She never told me who, but I think whoever it was took her diary from the scene. When I tried to convince Philly PD and the DA’s office of this, they said there were about a hundred different scenarios in which the diary could have been misplaced, and none of them featured the commission of a homicide.”

  I opened my eyes again to see my pain reflected in Talia’s drawn face. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Do you need anything?”

  I smiled wanly. “Thank you, but no. Nothing makes this better.”

  “I know that, but I could help you pass the time. Drinks?”

  I shook my head. “Thank you but no. I’ve got the Paul file to work on—”

  Talia’s eyebrows shot up. She clapped her hands together. “Yes, the Paul file. That’s the other reason I called you in. Have you checked with VICAP for similar signatures? Any other crimes with the words ‘for you’ at the scene?”

  VICAP, or the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, was one of our sister units at NCAVC. They kept track of patterns and other aspects of violent crimes all over the country, solved and unsolved, through a huge database utilized by law enforcement agencies nationwide. If there was a killing, a modus operandi, a signature or any aspect of a previous murder that was similar to the one in the Paul file, VICAP would find it.

  “No,” I said. “Nothing.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Talia said. “I guess that’s a good thing. It means our UNSUB hasn’t been doing this for years and flying under the radar. Personally, I think this guy is just starting. The signature, the planning involved, the staging. We’re going to hear from this guy again.”

  I nodded. “I’ll put out an advisory to all major metro areas to be on the lookout for homicides with this signature. We’ll see if it gets any hits.”

  “How about if you and TK work on this alone?” Talia said. “One of Innes’ protégés can do the case presentation tomorrow while you guys get your profile out to Denver PD.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said, relieved not to have to worry about a repeat of the morning’s ugliness. I stood to leave. Talia walked me to the door. She laid a hand on my shoulder before sending me off. “If you need anything,” she said.

  Although things with Talia had gone well, I left work exhausted, my limbs feeling weighted and slow. I stopped at the grocery store to get dog food for my three canine companions, and by the time I pulled into my driveway, I had almost forgotten about the flowers. As I got out of my SUV, their scent wafted over to me. Potted purple hyacinths blocked my front door. The memory spiraled up from that low place where I managed to keep it at bay the other three hundred sixty-four days of the year. That day my sister, my identical twin, plunged ten stories to her death.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  KASSIDY

  Sixteen Years Ago

  KASS!

  The shout startled me the way a sudden noise startles you when you’re just drifting off to sleep. I sat up and looked around my American History survey class but no one else’s attention was diverted by my sister calling my name. I scanned the back of the lecture hall for her face, but she wasn’t there.

  Had I fallen asleep?

  Disoriented, I looked at the girl next to me. She stared straight ahead, listening with what appeared to be keen interest as the professor droned on about the Civil War. Occasionally, her gaze snapped to the notebook on her lap in which she scribbled madly. On the other side of me, a male student slouched, head tipped back, snoring lightly.

  I must have fallen asleep. It would not have been the first time.

  Pain exploded across the back of my head. My vision went black. It was interrupted by the slow-moving sight of a dusky purple sky, and then it snapped back.

  The lecture hall. The professor who looked like a toy figure from where I sat. Slides blurred across a white screen. Cool air. A constant undercurrent of sound—bodies rustling, pages turning, pens scribbling and the occasional snore.

  Had I fallen asleep again or had I just woken up?

  I slipped my pager out of my backpack, but Lexie had not beeped me. I stood up. My feet were firm and steady. I made my way to the end of the aisle amidst the annoyed shuffle of feet, bags and papers.

  Outside the air was thick and humid. Summers in Philadelphia were brutally hot, but Lexie and I had decided to stay at school after our sophomore year and take summer classes. It was better than spending a whole summer in our central Pennsylvania hometown, where the hub of activity was the Dunkin’ Donuts. A light breeze lifted the hair from my neck. I slung the backpack over my shoulder and pressed my fingers against the back of my skull. It was still there. I walked back to the dorm, not stopping when I saw the red, white and blue flash of police and ambulance lights. I slipped through the mass of people that had gathered, their bodies obscuring the yellow tape which stretched across the south entrance to Temple University’s Hardwick Hall.

  The people at the very front gasped and stared as I approached. I slid under the tape and looked at the body on the pavement. It was Lexie.

  Male voices drifted toward me. EMTs and a police officer. “You think she fell?”

  “Out of a window? Nah, she must have jumped.”


  “What is that? Eleven stories?”

  Then one of them saw me. “Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to step behind the—oh shit.”

  I stood over her. She didn’t look right. Her head looked like a flowering onion marinated in blood—yawning open to the cement. Her eyes were glassy, the whites now bright red. The left pant leg of her jeans was also bloody.

  My knees hit the pavement hard. It’s not real, said a voice in my head. This cannot be real.

  “Who is it?”

  “Who do you think it is? Look at her for Godssake.”

  “Twins.”

  “Get ‘er back, Joe. This is a crime scene until we know otherwise.”

  I touched her cheek. It was warm. One of my tears landed on her chin. She’s still alive. Maybe she’s still alive, the voice said, but I knew it was wrong. It was just the part of me that could not accept what I was seeing. I felt a crushing weight on my chest. A sob erupted from somewhere deep inside me

  ”Miss, you have to come with me.”

  “Lex?” My voice cracked. She would answer me. She had to.

  “Miss, please.”

  Hands lifted me gently from the ground as if I weighed nothing. I flailed, screaming this time. Screaming for everything I was worth.

  “Lexie?” She was going to wake up. She had to. “Lexie!”

  Rough hands pinned my arms against my body. Lexie’s form receded.

  “Get her back,” one of the men yelled.

  “Miss, you have to come with us.”

  I struggled with all my might, trying to return to her. I fought, punching and kicking at anyone and anything that came close. Tears streamed down my cheeks. Screams exploded from my frenzied body, causing a ripple in the crowds that had gathered. As three large police officers wrestled me to the ground, I looked up at the sky. It was a dusky purple.

  CHAPTER SIX

  WYATT

  July 7th

  “Why, in God’s name, is this considered the Garden State?” Wyatt asked a terrified Boyd Henderson as the man walked back and forth across his Trenton living room, replete in women’s clothing. Wyatt stood by one of the windows at the front of the room where an ancient air conditioning unit droned, struggling to cool the room against the sweltering heat outside. The semi-cool air snaked up and caressed the back of Wyatt’s neck. He kept his Smith & Wesson trained on Henderson as he paced awkwardly in four-inch heels. Henderson’s bony, hairy knees knocked together.

  “What?” Henderson asked. His voice was tremulous, softened by the first blow he’d taken to the head and his first ten minutes in drag. His eyes were moist and pleading. Wyatt was very pleased with Henderson’s feminization. Henderson was far more compliant than Sorenson had been. Leaving Sorenson behind had lightened Wyatt’s mood somewhat. He’d spent the short hour’s drive mentally shaking off the sleepless night spent guarding Sorenson’s laundry room door; the stink of weeks-old garbage and the unwanted memories of his grandfather. He had hoped dealing with Henderson would be easier. So far, so good.

  Wyatt swung the barrel of the gun sharply, causing Henderson to stumble and gasp. He suppressed a laugh. Silly, so silly. “What I’ve seen of this state is nothing short of disgusting. I won’t even go into the nonsensical roadway system. So tell me, why is this the Garden State?”

  Henderson’s face turned a grayish hue. “Wh-what?” He stopped walking momentarily and met Wyatt’s eyes. “I don’t know.”

  Wyatt clucked his tongue and jerked the barrel of the gun once more just to see Henderson flinch and nearly lose his footing in the flashy red heels Wyatt had chosen especially for this occasion. Wyatt laughed this time. He almost told Henderson to relax, the gun wasn’t even loaded. The man was entirely too tense. But the threat of a loaded gun was really his only advantage. Henderson—though graceless in heels and a miniskirt, older and all atremble with fright—was bigger than Wyatt. Wyatt didn’t want Henderson getting any ideas of trying to overpower him.

  “You live here and you don’t know?” Wyatt said.

  “N-no.”

  “Why not?”

  “I d-don’t know. I n-never thought about it.”

  Wyatt’s stomach rumbled. Rage came up with projectile force, and he fought to control it. Wyatt reminded himself that he had a higher purpose. He wasn’t a common murderer.

  “That’s the problem with people, you know,” Wyatt said icily. “They never think about anything. Like you, Mr. Henderson, you never think about your actions or how they affect other people. You never think about how the things you say can set off a string of events that actually extends beyond yourself and your infinitesimal world. Sit down.”

  Henderson stopped walking and stared at Wyatt. With the gun, Wyatt motioned to the couch. Henderson staggered over and fell onto it. “Why are you doing this?” he asked.

  Wyatt shook his head and sighed. Why? Why, why, why? They always asked why. Georgette Paul had asked that question tirelessly before he killed her. Did they really want to know why they were going to die? Is that what people really wanted to discuss in their last moments? Did they honestly expect a detailed explanation? Did it matter?

  “If you can’t figure it out on your own, I’m not telling you,” Wyatt answered.

  Henderson said, “Are you going to kill me?”

  “What do you think?”

  Tears rolled down Henderson’s cheeks. “Y-yes.”

  Wyatt smiled and pulled a photo from his shirt pocket. “I’ll tell you what, Mr. Henderson. You have one chance to save your own life.” He walked over to the couch and waved the photo at Henderson. “If you can tell me who this woman is, I’ll let you live.”

  He thrust the photo under Henderson’s nose. Henderson stared for several moments. Wyatt sensed his growing alarm. Finally, he said, “I’ve never seen that woman in my life. I swear to you. I don’t know who she is. You must have the wrong person.”

  “No, no. You are the person I’m looking for. You have seen this woman before. Several times in fact. Look again.”

  Although Henderson’s head shook back and forth, he stared once more at the photo. No flicker of recognition lit up his eyes. “I don’t—I don’t know who she is. I’m telling you—”

  “You do.”

  “No. I swear it. I’ve never seen her—”

  “Look again.”

  “You have to give me some clue. I don’t remember her. You have to tell me something.”

  Wyatt snatched the photo back and slid it into his pocket. “That’s the problem with you, isn’t it Mr. Henderson? People have to do things for you. You see nothing wrong with treating people like dirt, but then you expect them to cater to your every whim and to do so without you even telling them what those whims are.”

  “Wh-what are you talking about?” Henderson whined.

  Wyatt stood up. He had not expected Henderson to recognize her. Like all the people on Wyatt’s list, Henderson was careless in the way he treated people. He had treated the woman Wyatt loved badly and had not even cared about the outcome. It had affected her, but not him. Even if Wyatt reminded Henderson of the confrontation with her years ago, he doubted Henderson would have any true remorse—if he remembered it at all.

  He looked down at the man whose rheumy eyes and quivering lips reminded him of a dog who has done something wrong but hopes for a reprieve. There would be none.

  “Live in ignorance, die in ignorance.”

  Three hours later, Wyatt sat in an airplane waiting to take off from Newark. He would have preferred to fly out of Philadelphia but the stormy weather made that impossible. The fastest way out of New Jersey was the flight he was on, which he’d booked using one of his many false identities.

  He clipped his seat belt and waited while the other passengers rummaged and bustled about, stowing carry-
on items, pushing past one another and dragging their oversized luggage down the narrow center aisle. A flight attendant appeared at the front of the cabin. Wyatt’s breath caught when he saw her long, chestnut hair swish gloriously over her shoulders. From his pocket, he pulled the photo of the woman he’d shown both Sorenson and Henderson and compared.

  Wyatt already knew that the flight attendant’s shiny locks were no match for those of the woman in the photo. But he enjoyed watching her nonetheless. She worked her way toward him, speaking softly and arranging the passengers’ carry-on bags in the overhead compartments.

  A nasal male voice rose over the din in the cabin. “Miss? Miss? Can’t you do something about the heat in here? It’s just terrible. I’m getting lightheaded. I can’t be in this kind of heat. My body won’t take it.”

  The flight attendant turned toward the man, whose profile Wyatt could see through the divide between the seats in front of him. Wyatt was surprised by the sweet, southern twang in her voice when she spoke, “Sir, I do apologize for the temperature in here. Rest assured, once we take off, the ventilation system will kick in, and it will cool down.”

  “What’s the matter with you?” Nasal Male said. “I don’t want your apology. What am I going to do with an apology when I get heat stroke? I told you I can’t take this heat.”

  Her smile still in place, the flight attendant said, “You’re welcome to exit the plane and choose another flight if this one is not to your liking.”

  “I don’t want another flight, I want the air turned on in here right now.”

  Wyatt sighed. He was not surprised by the man’s behavior. In his experience whenever adults boarded planes, they stepped through some dimensional vortex wherein they regressed to a mental and social age of five. Something about airplanes brought out the absolute worst in human beings.