One September Morning (39 page)

Tacoma
Suz

“S
he’s asleep.” Suz closes the door to her daughter’s bedroom, closes her eyes and mouths: “Thank you, Lord.” Since Abby and Sofia picked her up at Sea-Tac, Suz has spent most of the time gobbling her daughter with hugs and kisses. You never can kiss your child enough, though you forget that when they piss you off by stealing a toy from another kid on the playground or plumbing their nose for boogers while sitting in a cart at the grocery store.

Thank God, Sofia is fine. Suz may not know a hell of a lot of things, but she knows her daughter, and her downy little fluff has not been ruffled by anything that happened this weekend. Thank you, God, a million times squared.

Though when it comes to ruffled feathers, she can’t say the same for poor Abby. She studies her friend, who is stretched out on the couch, her hair rolled into a twist on one side. If that girl hasn’t been to hell and back…“How’re you feeling?”

“Better today.” Abby rubs her eyes. “I don’t know what Jump dosed me with. I’m hoping it wasn’t something black-market like Ecstasy.”

“Trying to make you his sex slave?”

Abby sighs. “It didn’t make me horny, but I did feel like I was burning up at one point. I don’t know what it was. He might have dissolved a morphine capsule, which would be consistent with the nausea and throwing up, or he could have mixed a few drugs. He’s got access to all kinds of medications.”

“You’ve been through the wringer, kid.” Suz sits at the far end of the sofa and gives the toe of Abby’s sock a squeeze. “You want to stay here tonight?”

“I think I’d sleep better here, and I can go to work directly from here in the morning.”

“Mi coucha es su coucha. But do you really want to go to that loony bin and see him?”

“Of course I don’t
want
to; but I need to. I’m starting to get the big picture with Jump, I think. I need to stand my ground, not let him bully me, and definitely not let him stab me in the back. This calls for vigilance and fortitude.”

“And Luke friggin’ Skywalker’s light saber. Abby, you’ve got to defend yourself.”

“You’re right.” Abby sits up and tucks her feet under her as Suz pulls down a throw blanket and spreads it over the two of them. “I’ve been piecing things together in my head, looking in my textbooks, trying to profile Jump, and my take is, he’s a very dangerous man. I think he’s a sociopath. The clinical term is antisocial personality disorder. A sociopath acts without remorse or guilt. He has no regard for the feelings or rights of others. He can be charming at times. He’ll give the appearance of engaging others in relationships, but there’s no depth or meaning. He has an innate ability to find the weakness in people, and he’ll prey on that weakness and gain pleasure from doing it. He’ll target a person and use that person for all they can give, whether it’s sex, money, or power. He’s manipulative, deceitful, intimidating. It’s a chilling profile, really.”

“You’re describing every psycho killer from every movie that’s kept me up late at night.” Suz hugs a pillow. “How do you cure these monsters?”

“There is no known treatment for sociopaths, unless the disorder is caught before adolescence.”

“Really? So these people are just fucking crazy?”

Abby lets out a breath. “Fucking crazy would be an accurate term. People use Charles Manson or Jeffrey Dahmer as examples, but there are an estimated two million sociopaths in North America, living with families, working in offices. Making people’s lives a living hell. A sociopath isn’t necessarily a murderer, but he might kill someone if he has something to gain by it and, most importantly, if he can get away with it. A sociopath doesn’t want to be caught or punished, and it’s the risk of punishment for a crime—not the guilt or realization that it’s morally wrong—that prevents him from committing it.”

“I’d say Jump fits that description.”

“I wish I’d seen this earlier. I have a theory,” Abby says.

“Lay it on me.”

“Let’s say my diagnosis is correct, that Charles Jump is a sociopath. He goes into the army and lands in the same platoon as this popular former football star, John Stanton. He’s never met Stanton before, but when he sees that reporters follow him around and the bosses treat him with a certain measure of respect, Jump buddies up with the notion that some of John’s celebrity glow will land on him.”

“I can see it. But Charles Jump met John in college, right?”

“I think that was a lie.” With a tired groan, Abby stretches down to the floor for her bag. She pulls out a folder and hands it to Suz. “Last night, after Sofia went to sleep, I pulled some of John’s things out of the attic. Do you see the photo that Jump gave me showing John and him together? Well, when I was going through a scrapbook I came across this picture of John with his football buddy, Spike Montessa. Take a look at the photos side by side.”

“Okay.” Suz places the photograph next to the newspaper clipping. “Good Lord, it’s the same photo!” In both photos John is on the left, with his arm slung around the shoulder of the other man whose uniform number is twenty-one. “One of these was doctored,” Suz says, checking the lines, the face tones, the lighting. “Now see, there’s a shadow on the left side of John and Spike’s faces, but Jump is fully lit like a studio shot.”

“Right. The photograph with Jump was Photoshop’d. I don’t know why I didn’t see that before.”

“You had a few things on your mind,” Suz says, sneering at the picture of Jump before flopping the folder onto the coffee table. “That weasel. So he faked a friendship with John to try and get into the limelight.”

“It looks that way. Which would explain why John didn’t mention him as a friend, didn’t include him in the electronic journal entries I found. But you know John. He didn’t suffer fools gladly, and he wasn’t about to pretend to have a relationship he didn’t feel.”

“Which probably pissed Jump off.”

“I’m sure it did. My theory is that Charles Jump targeted John. He was jealous of his success as a football player in college and high school. A little research would have told Jump that John has a wife, a supportive family, a father who got a Purple Heart in Vietnam. And the eyes of the world were on him because he walked away from big money and fame to serve his country. By contrast, I doubt that anyone paid much attention when Jump enlisted.”

“So he hated John for his celebrity,” Suz says.

“And his popularity among the other guys in the platoon. Jump was brought in as a psych officer, but from what Emjay tells me, John was the unofficial leader. Most of the guys liked John, though some of them weren’t crazy about his politics.”

“So…fast-forward to that day in the warehouse.” Suz knows where this is going, but it seems that Abby needs to get it out.

“That day, Jump had it all planned. Sociopaths have no remorse, but they can be brilliant. Jump might have even rigged that warehouse mission, provided fake intelligence claiming an insurgent was spotted in the building. Also he just happened to be the person in the squad responsible for maintaining the night-vision goggles—NODs, they call them. And Emjay’s didn’t work, so he couldn’t get a good look at the man who shot John.”

“Oh, cripes. It was Jump, wasn’t it.” Suz punches the pillow in her arms. “But you’d think he’d steer clear of all you Stantons. Isn’t he afraid of being found out?”

“He’s gotten away with it so far, and coming after John’s family is part of the plan. In targeting John, Charles Jump wants to collect John’s trophies: John’s wife, his parents. He even tried to move into John’s house.”

“He’s a monster, Abby. And can you imagine what he’s doing to the people in therapy with him?”

“Oh, God! I recommended him for Madison!” Abby reaches down into her purse for her cell phone. “I have to call Sharice.”

“And you’d better protect yourself, Abby. I don’t like the idea of you ever having to see him again at that hospital.”

“Believe me, I will be very careful. I always stay as far away from him as possible. Besides, in the psych ward, you’re never alone with someone. There’s a rule of three, so there will always be someone else around when I’m dealing with him.”

“Better stick to that, girl,” Suz warns, smacking Abby’s knees to let her know she means business. While Abby talks with Sharice, she slips into her bedroom to begin unpacking and mull over a strategy to keep Abby safe from this prickly monster encased in a buff body.

Fort Lewis
Charles

Y
ou bitch.

You were supposed to be my arm candy, maybe even my little wife, if only to prove I could score every perk John had, but you fight me every step of the way. Ornery bitch…

With a growl he pushes the weight bar high, arms extended, muscles howling with resistance. He likes to push himself to the edge, until his muscles feel like they’re going to snap like a rubber band. The edge gets his juices flowing, keeps him stoked.

Excitement lives on the edge.

Grunting, he brings the weight bar back and replaces it on the rack. There.

He sits up and shoots a look at Abby Fitzgerald stretched out on the bed, her pale, full breasts buoyant beneath their rosy pink nipples, a thin veil barely covering the fluff of hair at the juncture of her thighs. She wants him. She definitely wants him.

That’s why she’s being such a bitch, fighting him like this. Abby likes the fight.

He walks past her, strutting before the mirror. His biceps are so pumped you can see the veins that wrap through his arms. His skin is shiny and pink, the muscles flush with blood. He strikes a pose before her, seething at the wanton pout on her lips.

Yes, she wants him, but she’s stuck in her own uppity bitchiness. Snubbing him.

He hates snubs. His old man used to treat him like a little shit, like a poor relation. Always expected him to wear the old, pilly clothes from his brother, the broken Razor scooter, the dirty running shoes with the Nike swish peeling off. John got them new the year before, but Charles got stuck with hand-me-downs.

John always got everything new. John was the running back football star. John was the friggin’ second coming of Christ.

That’s why he had to take John down. Too full of himself, an egotistical blimp, hogging the camera, the interviews, the limelight. John had to die, and he’d taken care of that, right?

Then why did he get a Christmas card in December with a photo of his brother and his wife and kids sitting in red sweaters in front of the stone fireplace? Sweat beads on his upper lip, but he wipes it away, shakes off the confusion.

No, no, he took care of him. That was done.

And now was the time to reap the benefits. Cash in the chips.

If Abby wasn’t going to play into his hand, he knew someone who would.

Someone nubile and naive. Another accessory of John’s.

The blond woman-child would be putty in his hands…and he would savor sculpting her from raw clay.

Lakeside Clinic
Madison

M
adison stretches and wiggles into the comfortable nooks of the leather sofa in Dr. Jump’s office. “Are you sure about this?” she asks him, craning her neck around to try and see him sitting behind her.

“How does it feel, lying down?” he asks.

“Weird.” She crosses her legs. “Cozy, but I’m used to looking at someone when I talk to them.” Besides, she thinks, I like to look at you. Dr. Jump is way older than any guy at school, but he’s buff under that lab coat. Madison is sure he pumps iron. Over her last few sessions she’s gotten a kick out of checking out his butt when he wasn’t looking.

“It’s more traditional in therapy for the client not to view the therapist,” he says from behind her. “Let’s try this today, see if it works for you.”

“Okay. But if I fall asleep, don’t blame me.”

“I’ll wake you when your session is over. So how’s everything? What’s up at school?”

“The usual. Normal kids striving to be popular. Popular kids worrying about being unseated. Geeks and nerds trying not to get bullied. Same-old same-old.”

“And where does Madison fit into the grand scheme?”

She sighs. “I don’t know.” What she doesn’t say is that she’s beginning to care less and less about school and friends and grades. Is that from the medication? Is that depression?

She doesn’t want to ask, because then Dr. Jump might cut off her happy pills. It was weird how easy it was to get the pills in the first place. Way too easy.

She said she was depressed and just like that he gives her a prescription for the cure. Well, sort of. The pills dull the pain for sure, but they dull everything else, too. They make her sluggish and slow, like her whole life is taking place underwater in a snow globe filled with viscous liquid. Very weird.

She gave a few to Sienna and Ziggy and they thought it was awesome. Go figure.

Sometimes she thinks that maybe she’ll stop taking them, but Chucky—Doc—keeps reminding her that it takes the medication awhile to work. So, she sticks with it.

And that’s why she’s as relaxed as a jellyfish all the time. She yawns. Even right now, as Doc talks about something that happened to him in high school, she could drop right off to sleep.

But she’s sort of in trouble with school. Junior year grades have a lot of weight for when you apply to college, and her four-point-oh is shot to hell right now. She’s got a paper overdue in American history that she hasn’t even started, and a big fat 54 percent in red ink on her last trig test.

Oh, well.

Doc is still hot, his voice a mellifluous charm in her ears. When all else fails, she’s got this.

Unless Abby gets her way. She heard her mother talking on the phone last night, arguing with Abby about whether she should be in therapy with Doc. Mom had said something about cutting off the sessions.

What was that about?

Abby’s all worried and bent out of shape about something, but Madison is sure she’s overthinking it. Abby’s good at heart, but now that she’s almost finished with her psych master’s, she thinks she knows everything about therapy.

If Abby really got the whole psychology thing, she would see how Doc helps Madison. She’d understand how good it feels to have an older, more mature guy listening to her problems. Doc is worlds apart from the guys at school. Skinny giraffes who trip over their own legs. The Emos and the Goths, ready to bleed black ink. Lazy jocks who think a good time is sitting home with an on-demand movie and cutting farts on the couch.

She folds her hands on her lap, suddenly wondering who’s been on this couch before. Hopefully, nobody too gross.

Sometimes Madison daydreams that Doc Jump is really into her in a mature, sensitive-guy sort of way. That he falls in love with her, lifts her off this couch, and carries her out the door to a cool mansion where they can live happily ever after with cute little sons who will never have to move to another house and never have to fight in a war. Sort of like that scene in
An Officer and a Gentleman
, which her mother melts over every time it’s on cable. Except, well, duh, in Madison’s version, he’s wearing scrubs instead of a U.S. Navy uniform.

“You’re not talking much today,” he says. “What else is going on at school? Made any new friends lately?”

“Girls or boys?” she asks.

“Either one. Whatever you want to tell me, although one of these days, when you really trust me, you’ll start telling me about the boys you like at school.”

“I’d tell you if there were any that didn’t disgust me,” she says.

The first time he asked her about her sex life, she laughed and nervously told him a few lies because there was nothing else to say. She told him that she and Sienna had gotten naked for Ziggy and touched each other. She got that idea from a porn show she saw on cable at Sienna’s house.

He actually believed her…and he seemed to be interested.

Which made her a little nervous that he’d catch her in the lie, so she admitted that she was a virgin. And he seemed to like that, too.

Now, he asks her, “Have you had any more sexual experiences with your friend Sienna?”

“No,” she answers, feeling too lethargic to dream up something new. “And it’s not sex or anything. I mean, I’m not a lesbian.”

“But you enjoyed touching another woman’s breasts?”

“We just did it to get a rise out of Ziggy.” She folds her arms protectively, then, realizing what she just said, laughs. “That’s pretty funny. Get a rise out of him? Get it?”

“Yes.” His voice is silky and dark, like chocolate fudge melting on her tongue. “You know, Madison, sexual needs and desires are a normal part of a healthy young woman’s life.”

“I know that.” She senses him moving behind her. Moving a little closer? Whatever he’s doing, she has this feeling that he’s kind of into her, too.

“Do you ever think about having sex with a man, Madison?” From his voice she can tell that he’s closer, almost leaning near her ear.

“Sometimes,” she whispers, sure that he’s going to lean close enough to touch her. She closes her eyes, a tingle of anticipation dancing over her skin as she waits for it to happen.

Instead, she gasps at the sharp jab of pain in her upper arm.

What the crap was that?

Her eyes flutter open, a hypodermic needle filling her scope. A swelling wave tingles up into her head…and then the room swims over her, swirling her down the drain.