Her Darkest Nightmare (3 page)

Lorraine made a clicking sound with her tongue. “Amazing that these cases aren't connected sooner. What about the last wife? Why didn't he kill her?”

“Courtney Lofland? I have no idea.” Evelyn set the file aside. “She's remarried and living in Kansas.”

“Lucky girl. I bet you'd love to talk to her, see what she has to say about Garza's behavior.”

“I've already sent a letter,” Evelyn said with a smile.

Lorraine shook her head. “I should've known. With you, no stone goes unturned.”

Evelyn ignored the reference to her diligence because she knew the compulsion she felt had turned to obsession long ago. “If she agrees to be interviewed, I'll fly out there and meet her.”

“And get away from all this?” Lorraine spread her arms to indicate the sprawling two-story complex, of which Evelyn's office comprised only a small part of the third wing.

Outside, snow was falling so heavily Evelyn could no longer make out the Chugach Mountains. They'd had sixty inches since she arrived in September, and it was only January 13. “It'd be nice to feel the sun, warm up,” she admitted.

“I wish I could go with you. I haven't been much farther from home than the prison.”

Evelyn pulled her gaze from the window. “You'd have to fight off the mental health team first. They'd all love to return to the Lower Forty-eight.” Homesickness was what had driven Martin Brand back to Portland, where he was from. It wasn't easy adjusting to such a hostile environment. The echoing halls, clanging doors, occasional moans and crazy-sounding laughter were hard enough to cope with. Add to those realities the long, dark winter and lonely evenings spent with more files and psychology journals than people, and the memories of countless conversations filled with bloodcurdling details, and saying life here was harsh went well beyond the weather.

“Will you take one of them along?” Lorraine asked.

Evelyn shook her head. “We don't have the funds. I'll be lucky if the Bureau of Prisons approves
my
ticket.”

“So who'll be working with Mr. Garza?”

“Who do you think?”

“Not you—you're already juggling a lot more than the others. As it is you don't get time to think about anything besides your patients.”

Evelyn offered her a rueful smile. “Maybe you haven't noticed, but there's not a lot to do in Hilltop besides work, especially this time of year.”

“You could get a social life.”

“Which would include … what? Drinking at the Moosehead?”

“Why not?”

Evelyn had gone there once last summer, before Hanover House even opened. Amarok had taken her. She'd had a good time, but she tried not to think about that.

“You never know what kind of guy you might meet,” Lorraine added by way of enticement.

She rolled her eyes. “Truer words were never spoken.”

“I meant that you might run into someone fun and interesting, not dangerous.”

Like Amarok. Surely Lorraine had heard the rumors about them. Or maybe not. As with so many other members of the staff, she lived in Anchorage and commuted to work. Didn't socialize with the locals. “There are no guarantees.”

“Glenn would go with you.”

Glenn Whitcomb, one of the COs, had taken it upon himself to look after the both of them, as well as some of the other women who worked at Hanover House. When he could, he walked them out of the prison, carried anything that was heavy or helped scrape the snow off their cars. “Glenn faces the same drive you do,” she said. “He doesn't need to be staying here in Hilltop any later than his work requires.”

“Why not? What's he got to go home to? His married sister? He needs to find a mate, too.”

“He'll meet someone eventually.” Regardless, she couldn't become any friendlier with him. She could sense how much he admired her, had to be careful. Getting too chummy with a guard wasn't professional and could undermine her authority at HH.

“Come on,” Lorraine said. “You have to overcome the past at some point.”

She was spitting Evelyn's own words back at her. “I've made peace with my past. I'm happy as I am,” she responded, but she knew she bore more scars than the one on her neck. After the attack, she'd spent nearly a decade in therapy.

“You'd rather be single for the rest of your life?” Lorraine asked.

Suddenly realizing that she was hungry, Evelyn pulled the carrots out of the sack. Maybe if she ate something she'd get her second wind. “I don't need a man. I've filled my life with other things.”

“Psychopaths?”

“A
purpose,
” she said, tearing open the plastic. “And to fulfill that purpose, I can fit one more inmate into my schedule.”

Lorraine tsked. “You're pushing too hard. Driving yourself right over the edge.”

“I appreciate the warning—and the lunch,” she said. “What would I do without you in all of this? But I'm okay. Really. So … did Glenn's uncle get your security alarm installed?”

Lorraine gave her a look that let her know she recognized the deliberate change in subject. She allowed it, however. “Last week. That high-pitched tone that goes off when I open the door about makes me jump out of my skin.”

Evelyn chuckled. “You get used to it.” She could speak with confidence, because Glenn's uncle had also installed one in her house. She found the sound quite comforting.

“I guess it's a wise thing to have.”

“It is.” Especially because Lorraine's husband had moved out six months ago and she was now living alone. Evelyn thought it might provide her with some peace of mind—once she became accustomed to how it worked.

“I'd better get back downstairs before all hell breaks loose,” Lorraine said. “But I wanted to ask you … have you heard anything from Danielle?”

“Connelly? The gal you hired to help in the kitchen? Not yet. Why?”

“She didn't come in this morning.”

“Have you tried calling her house?”

“Of course. Over and over. There's no answer.”

“Are you sure she didn't talk to the warden or another member of the team? Maybe she's sick. Maybe she turned off the ringer on her phone so she could get some sleep.”

A knock interrupted, right before her assistant, four-foot-nine Penny Singh, poked her head into the room. “Receiving just called. Anthony Garza has arrived.”

“Thank you.”

“Did you plan to talk to the marshals?” Penny asked.

“Of course.” Evelyn felt it was important to thank the escorts. Sometimes they had warnings or other information to convey. She also made it a habit to meet with every single inmate as soon as he received his jumpsuit and other essentials so she could create his chart, make some initial notes on his attitude and psychological state and whether he was likely to be a problem.

“You'll have to hurry,” Penny prodded. “They can't wait. They're worried about missing their flight, are afraid they'll get snowed in.”

Evelyn couldn't blame them for being antsy. With the monstrous cold fronts that rolled through Anchorage, getting snowed in was a real possibility—and it could mean they'd be trapped for a week or longer. “I'm coming.” She turned to Lorraine. “About Danielle—can you get away long enough to drive by her house?”

“Not during work hours. Not when I'm short staffed. But I'll stop on my way home.”

“Perfect. Call me if for some reason she's not there.”

Lorraine nodded as Evelyn brushed past. But it wasn't fifteen minutes later that Evelyn forgot Danielle. While the staff in Receiving checked Garza in, she met with the marshals in the warden's conference room. What they had to say about Anthony made her nervous. So she was already on edge when, right after they left, the intermittent honk of the emergency alarm sounded, punching her heart into her throat.

 

2

I always had a fetish for murder and death.

—DAVID BERKOWITZ, THE SON OF SAM

They'd had to sedate him. That was what the marshals told Evelyn before they left. They said he was so difficult and dangerous, to himself and others, that the only way to get Garza safely from one place to another was to medicate him. A registered nurse at ADX Florence in Colorado, where he'd been incarcerated before, had administered three hundred milligrams of Ryzolt four hours ago. There was a note on his chart.

But the tranquilizer had worn off by the time he arrived at HH. According to the COs in Receiving he'd come in slightly agitated and, despite his chains and cuffs, quickly grown violent, going so far as to head-butt an officer. At that point, someone had sounded the alarm while others wrestled Garza to the ground and replaced his cuffs with a straightjacket, further restricting his range of motion. Now he had four officers flanking him instead of two. They'd just dragged him into the holding cell across from her and had to support him so he wouldn't trip on his ankle chains because he wouldn't settle down. He was raving like a lunatic, threatening to dismember anyone he came into contact with.

“I won't stay in this godforsaken place!” he cried. “You'll all be fucked if you make me. Do you hear?”

“Should we take him to his cell?” It was Officer Whitcomb who asked. He obviously doubted she'd be able to get anything meaningful out of Garza when the man was in such a state, and she had to agree. She'd been about to suggest they take him away and give him a chance to cool off. But the second Mr. Garza realized she was on the other side of the glass, he fell silent and went still.

“Who are you?” His dark eyes shined with anger-induced madness as they riveted, hawk-like, on her.

The first thing she noticed was that those eyes were too close together, his nose was slightly crooked and he had a wide face with almost no chin. A little bit of facial hair or even longer hair on top would've made those things less noticeable. But with his head shaved …

Still, she wouldn't call him
ugly
—just average.

Prepared for an unpleasant encounter, should it go that way, Evelyn fixed a placid expression on her face. She couldn't, wouldn't, show this man how unsettled he made her. If he thought he was the first to use intimidation, he was sadly mistaken. Even the sudden reversal in his behavior came as no surprise. Sometimes the men incarcerated at HH reminded her of actors in a play with how quickly and easily they could slip in and out of whatever character suited them best.

“Ah, you're coherent after all,” she said. “So what have you been doing, Mr. Garza? Putting us on notice that you're no one to be messed with?”

He didn't answer the question.
“Who are you?”

She put on the glasses she used to alleviate eyestrain and jotted a note on his chart.
Low frustration tolerance. Possibly disorganized thinker and yet … seems more calculating than that. Aggressive when fearful or uncertain or presented with unfamiliar stimuli—

“Hey! I asked you a question!” He half-dragged the COs along with him so he could shuffle up to the glass.

The guards started to yank him back, to show him that he'd better not get out of control again. No doubt they were angry about before. One of their fellow officers had been shuttled off to Medical nursing a broken nose because of Garza hitting him with his head. But, lowering her clipboard, Evelyn motioned for them to leave him be. She was here to study, not punish. That distinction was important to her own humanity. “I'm your new doctor.”

“No, you're my next victim,” he said. Then he made kissing noises and smiled, revealing the jagged, broken front teeth he'd gotten from gnawing at the cinder-block wall of his last cell.

*   *   *

Evelyn tried not to let the threats she received trouble her. On the whole, considering how frightening and explicit the inmates could get, she coped with what she heard pretty well. Some threats were to be expected when dealing with the worst criminal element in America. And she could usually understand the behavior, even if understanding didn't equal justification. Many of the men she dealt with attempted to gain control in a world where they had no control by inducing fear in others. That gave them power, to a degree. Or sometimes they threatened her simply because they wanted to be despised if they could no longer be admired, wanted to at least
matter
.

But even after she'd left Hanover House for the day, she couldn't erase the disturbing image of Anthony Garza and his evil smile from her mind. While he might've been showing his displeasure with an unwelcome transfer in the only way he felt he could, she was convinced there was more to his “next victim” comment than a desire to frighten her. Something about him and their brief exchange carried an air of authenticity that confirmed the suspicion she'd had when his file first came across her desk. Maybe he'd killed so many of the women he'd been married to in order to avoid nasty divorces, for revenge because they were planning to leave him or for the small amount of insurance money he stood to gain. But he was, at heart, a lust killer—someone who took human life simply for the pleasure of it.

Which made her wonder if he'd murdered more women than just those three.

She was willing to bet he had—

“You going to pay for that?”

A deep voice jarred her out of her thoughts. She'd been standing at the coffee machine, absently stirring the cup she'd poured several seconds earlier. She wasn't anxious to head back out into the cold. The storm had hit full force, dropping the temperature to twenty below.

But it wasn't the cashier who'd confronted her. It was the Alaska State Trooper she'd briefly dated over the summer—if a couple of meals, one kiss and several telephone calls could constitute “dating.” His name was Benjamin Murphy, but the locals called him Sergeant Amarok. He'd told her he'd received that nickname—Inuktitut for “wolf”—in grade school after some bully picked a fight with him. Apparently, he'd won that fight. He looked like he could win just about any fight.