Aberration Read online

  “You won’t,” he whispered back, and the tenderness in his voice caused a sob to escape my mouth.

  “Yes, I will,” I said with a shuddering breath. “It’s not going to work, Jory.”

  “It will work, if you let it. I’ll show you how easy this can be. Kiss me,” Jory said.

  “Not now,” I said.

  I glanced around the periphery of the car. Agents and other personnel walked or trotted past my Trailblazer. They came and went from the building and crossed the street in front of us. No one appeared to be watching. I turned back to the windshield.

  He sighed. “Okay, look, I know you have doubts and we can talk about them later, after you’ve had time to think about things. Right now, just kiss me.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Kiss him in public, in the open like that. I couldn’t bring myself to kiss him at all knowing what that would mean. He was wearing me down.

  “I cannot deal with this right now,” I said.

  “All I’m asking for is a kiss.”

  “Jory.”

  “Kass, please.”

  I looked back at him. His eyes were pleading. I planted a chaste kiss on his lips and turned away. Still, a tingle started in my feet and rose with dizzying speed to my temples.

  He smiled at me and cupped my cheeks gently with both hands, kissing me again. In spite of my mind’s protests, my mouth kissed back. One of my hands rose and felt the hard line of his jaw, tracing it to the place where our mouths met. Abruptly, he released me, and I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. He smiled that boyish smile that had stripped me of every ounce of professionalism I had in a Portland hotel three years earlier.

  “See you tonight,” he said.

  Then he was gone.

  TK met me outside my office. He pulled a chair from the lobby to rest his long legs on as he sat in the chair I kept in front of my desk, opening his copy of the Georgette Paul file on his lap. I brushed past him and dropped my purse and briefcase on my desk.

  I sat down and quickly glanced at my clothes, straightening my blouse and skirt where Jory had pressed against me. I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. When I looked up, TK was staring at me, his eyes probing over the rim of his reading glasses.

  “What?” I said irritably.

  “Nice try,” he said.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “You’re trying to act normal albeit rushed. Something’s off today. What’s going on?”

  I shook my head and booted up my computer. “Nothing.”

  “You got laid,” TK said, grinning. He pulled his legs from the seat of the chair and dropped his feet onto the floor, turning his whole body toward me.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Oh please, Bishop. I’ve worked with you for five years. I have a PhD in psychology, and you’re uncharacteristically flushed today,” he explained.

  “I was in a hurry,” I said lamely.

  “Detective Portland again? Is he here?”

  I pursed my lips and gave TK a long stare. “I really don’t want to discuss it,” I said.

  TK shrugged. “Okay,” he said in a tone that implied he didn’t believe me for a second.

  From my briefcase, I pulled the Georgette Paul file. “Let’s just talk about work.”

  “Fine,” he said. “What did Crossen say?”

  I recapped the meeting with Talia, but my mind kept drifting back to Jory. His skin, his smile, the warmth of his body, the slick, smooth feel of him inside me and his professions of love—his sudden capitulation, the prospect of that body available to me whenever I asked. My stomach clenched and released. I tried to put him out of my mind, but his scent lingered on my clothes, intoxicating.

  Focus, a voice in my head commanded.

  “I put out the advisory before I left yesterday. I think we should finish up the profile and get someone from Denver on the phone,” I said.

  “So we’re off the hook with the case presentation?” TK asked.

  I smiled grimly. “Given the friction between Agent Innes and I, Talia thought it was best that you and I work on this by ourselves.”

  TK raised his large palms. “You won’t get an argument from me.”

  My office phone rang. I snatched up the receiver and listened, a sinking feeling in my stomach. I hung up and looked at TK.

  “What?” he said.

  “There’s another one. Same signature. Body was just found. We’re going to Philadelphia.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  WYATT

  July 8th

  She had a man with her. Wyatt had seen the man go into her house the night before after returning to try and get a glimpse of her. He had watched the two of them leave her house together in the morning and now followed the woman he loved to work, using his civilian pass to get on base. He had secured the pass years ago, when he began subcontracting for one of the software development companies there. He stayed as far back from her vehicle as he could and pulled over when she did. He watched the man kiss her—at least that’s what it looked like from where he sat, several parking spots back. They were just shadows, vague human shapes through the back windshield of her SUV. But Wyatt saw the man lean in and stay that way for a long time. Then he emerged, smiling, all swagger and lean confidence. It was difficult for Wyatt not to run him over with his car. She lingered there, and Wyatt wondered if she was watching the man walk away, admiring his tall, muscular form. Wyatt’s stomach twisted. A painful burn rose up in the back of his throat.

  “No,” he whispered.

  This wasn’t right. Wyatt knew from spying on her and hacking into her email that she had seen the man before, but it had been months since they’d had any contact. Wyatt thought it was over. He thought she was his now. She was meant for him.

  He waited for her to pull out and resumed following her. She went into the parking garage beneath the building she worked in, as she always did. Wyatt drove on, headed toward home. His palms had grown sweaty, and the steering wheel slid in his hands. He quickly wiped his palms on his pants one at a time.

  “No,” he said again, his voice low and strangled.

  He got home before the grayness encroaching on his vision took over altogether. He felt something rising from his bowels, almost like he had swallowed a balloon, and it was now inflating inside him. He lay on his couch with a cool, wet cloth over his eyes. He could not let it take over. He hated the beast. He had no control over what it did.

  He focused on his breathing, but his mind kept returning to her. It always returned to her. Thoughts of her with the man only made his heart rattle his ribcage so he went back further. His frantic mind alighted on the day she had changed everything. The day he had fallen for her. The day he knew she was meant to be his. They were so young, only thirteen. But he had known, even then, that she was special.

  Some parts of the memory were painful, but he suffered through them. To get to her.

  The boys had started with his arms. The first cigarette they burned him with went out immediately, its glowing tip extinguished in the crook of his right arm. There were three of them. They were freshman at the high school. They had taunted him before, as he cut through old man Vickers’ junkyard on his way home from school. The older boys hung out there next to Vickers’ abandoned barn where they could smoke and, rumor had it, look at nudey magazines. Usually, they just threw rocks at Wyatt. He scurried behind the burned out pick-up truck on the other side of the lot to avoid them, and they moved on. It was the fastest and most direct way home. His sister would be there already. He had to get to her before his grandfather came over for one of his “visits.” Lots of kids passed through that way, so there was plenty of taunting to be done; Wyatt figured they wouldn’t bother with him all that much as long as he kept moving.

  On that
day, he was wrong.

  They ran after him. At first he didn’t realize what was happening, and by the time he did, it was too late. He was like one of those helpless women in slasher movies—running as fast and as far as he could while his attackers walked at a slow, measured pace and caught up with him as if they’d been sprinting all along.

  They dragged him over behind the barn and pinned him down. He could feel small rocks in the grass piercing his legs. One of the boys held his legs down while another sat on his chest. The third boy pinned his arms to the ground above his head, forming a steeple. That must have been when the panic really set in because everything became a bit blurry after that. Wyatt remembered fighting for air. His whole body seized when the first cigarette seared his skin. What little breath he had left in his body escaped. He tried to scream, but all that came out was a tiny huff.

  I’m going to die. I’m going to die. Inside his head, he screamed the words. He was aware that the boys were laughing, but the sound seemed to recede, until it was just a vague undertone to the rushing in his ears.

  “Light another one,” one of them said.

  “Yeah and don’t waste it this time. You gotta be gentle, don’t crush it like you’re putting it out.”

  Again came the burning. Wyatt tried to squirm away from the pain, but he couldn’t move. All three boys were easily twice his size. More laughter. Then, with perfect clarity, he heard a new voice. It was a boy’s voice, smaller and less certain. It came from far away. “What are you guys doing?”

  “None of your goddamn business,” one of the boys said.

  “But you’re hur—”

  “Shut the hell up, you little asshole. Unless you wanna be next.”

  Then the sound of feet shuffling away.

  No! Nononononononono. Again, the screams were in his head. He tried to call out, but the boy was a boulder on his chest.

  His vision was graying in and out.

  Finally, the boy on his chest jumped up. He whooped and pointed down at Wyatt. His face lit up with glee. “Look! He’s crying! He’s crying!”

  The others laughed. “Pussy!” one of them called.

  “Burn his other arm. Come on.”

  Wyatt tried to catch his breath, to squirm away from them, but he couldn’t get enough air. His body felt sluggish. He told his limbs to move, but nothing happened. A gasping sound came from him, part sob, part plea for oxygen. They were on him again, tearing at his shirt. He heard the fwwwt of the lighter. The smell of cigarette smoke burned his nostrils. He knew they were burning him again, but he could no longer tell the pain in his arm from the pain in his chest, where one of the boys now sat again. His vision went black at the edges.

  His grandfather’s face loomed above him, floating disembodied. For a split second, some part of Wyatt was awash with relief. His grandfather would stop them. But no, that wasn’t right. His grandfather was every bit as sadistic as these boys, if not more so. He would never intervene. Wyatt blinked, and his grandfather’s face morphed into one of the boys.

  “Fucking crybaby,” the boy said. He spit on Wyatt’s face. The glob of saliva landed on his cheek and slid down to his neck. Wyatt shook his head back and forth, trying to get it off, but he could feel the hot stickiness where it had been.

  A sudden stillness overtook the boys. It took everything he had to turn his head and see what had frozen them in place. His eyes were out of focus. He couldn’t see anything from where he lay, pinned to the ground. But out of the silence, he heard the padding of feet moving away from him.

  Why wasn’t anyone stopping? Why wasn’t anyone helping him?

  “Hey, look at this,” Cigarette boy said.

  “What are you gonna do with a pipe?”

  Laughter. Wicked laughter. Wyatt’s whole body went completely cold. He started to shiver. He closed his eyes.

  “Take down his pants and you’ll see,” Cigarette boy said.

  Boulder stood up, allowing Wyatt precious air. He stepped hard on Wyatt’s limp arm, keeping Wyatt on the ground. Not that he had any energy left to fight them off. He just needed to get air. “That’s gross, man,” Boulder said.

  “Yeah,” said the boy holding Wyatt’s legs. “What are you, gay?”

  “No, but he is,” Cigarette said. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Boulder laughed, but it had a tremulous quality to it. “I heard his sister likes to do it that way.”

  Sarah.

  “His sister? She’s only, like ten.”

  “I heard she’s a slut,” Boulder said with authority.

  Sarah. Wyatt hoped she wasn’t waiting for him. He hoped she had already hidden.

  “They probably do it together. That family is all kinds of fucked up.”

  “Let’s see if he likes it.”

  Again, Wyatt willed his body to move and this time, it did. He started to flail and thrash, but they held tight to his limbs as they yanked his khaki shorts and underwear down. They flipped him over, and the air was cool on his bare bottom. He thought he might vomit. A swift strike in the ribs with the pipe that Cigarette had found took all the fight out of him. Then Boulder was on his back.

  No. Nonononononono.

  He knew what they were going to do. He had walked in on his grandfather doing it to Sarah. Not with a pipe, of course. Their grandfather had never touched Wyatt in that way—only his little sister. For Wyatt, he saved the pinching and choking, the slamming of fingers in doors, the threat of scalding hot water or a flaming stove burner. But never this.

  The boys were laughing again. Maybe that’s why they didn’t hear her coming. Or maybe she didn’t give them any warning. Wyatt felt more than saw Boulder fall sideways. He heard a thunk, then a heavy school bag landed beside him. Boulder groaned. The boy pinning Wyatt’s legs stood up, but he did not move. Instead, he watched, his face pale and slack in disbelief. Or maybe awe.

  Wyatt turned on his side. He saw a flash of long, brown hair. He heard a shriek like a war cry. As his vision cleared, he saw that Cigarette had dropped the pipe. He held his crotch with both hands. The girl, no bigger than Wyatt, picked up the pipe and swung at Cigarette’s knee like she was in the homerun derby. A sickening crack sliced the air. Cigarette went down on his side, one hand on his crotch and the other on his knee, mewling like an injured animal. The girl zeroed in on a discarded cigarette that still smoldered in the sparse brush next to the barn.

  She spoke as she stepped toward Cigarette again. She paused for a moment to look at the boy who had been holding Wyatt’s legs. Whatever he saw in her eyes sent him running. He didn’t look back.

  Wyatt still couldn’t hear what she was saying, but he could see her perfectly as she straddled Cigarette boy, and forced the smoking cigarette butt into his mouth. She held her hand over his mouth and did not release until he swallowed it. Wyatt closed his eyes, listening to the boy’s tortured cries. Relief coursed through every inch of his body. It was over.

  She had saved him.

  When he opened his eyes, there were two of her. One standing over him triumphant, with her hands on her hips, and the other looking stricken, tears streaming down her face. Disorientation slowed his mind.

  “Twins,” he said aloud. He remembered them. They were in his class at the middle school.

  A few feet away, Boulder rubbed his temple. Hatred flashed in his eyes as he looked at the two girls. He scrambled over toward his friend. Wyatt could barely hear him over Cigarette’s screams. “You’re in big trouble,” he told them. “I’m calling the police.”

  “Go ahead,” the triumphant twin shouted back. “My dad is the police.”

  Her twin knelt beside Wyatt as he hurriedly covered himself up with weak, rubbery hands. She guided him into a sitting position and rubbed his back tentatively.

  The girl who had saved him crouched in front of
him. She leaned in, her face inches from his. Gone was the fury that had sent her raging into battle against three bigger and meaner boys. She was just a girl. She smiled, her face flushed from exertion. “You okay?”

  He wasn’t okay, of course. He hadn’t been for a very long time. But looking into her blue eyes, he couldn’t tell her no. For a split second, she started to fade away. He blinked several times and she came back into focus. She squinted at him and waved a hand in front of his eyes. “Hey,” she said. “You okay?”

  Wyatt nodded.

  The other girl looked over her shoulder where Cigarette and Boulder huddled together, one of them curled up, crying and the other eyeing them warily, as if they might get up and attack again. She looked back to her twin and wiped her tear-stained cheeks. “Kassidy,” she said. “Dad is going to kill you.”

  “Shut up, Lex. I did the right thing. They were hurting him.”

  A lone siren sounded in the distance.

  “But you really hurt that guy. I’m telling you, you’re in for it now.”

  The girl named Kassidy smiled at Wyatt again. “I don’t care,” she said. “It was worth it.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  KASSIDY

  July 8th

  The smell had caused Martin Sorenson’s neighbors to vacate their homes while Ardmore’s local police department, assisted by a crime scene unit on loan from nearby Philadelphia, worked the scene.

  “Good God,” TK said as we pulled up to the large Tudor house. TK had driven us in his car, his lead foot shaving nearly an hour off what would normally be a three and a half hour drive.

  The car windows were closed, but the foul smell seeped in through the ventilation system and filled the car.

  “Mother of God,” TK said as he pulled his credentials from his pocket and clipped his ID badge to the front of his jacket.