Smolder (22 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Dmitri looked up, and we laughed. His bathing suit wasn’t enough to cover both of us. My robe was on the back of the bathroom door, and he retrieved it for me.

“Okay, Princess. You can look now.”

My brother’s face was pink when he pulled his hand away. “Owen and the officer are still here. They want to know if they can call the chief and meet here to decide what to do next since once the Reamer boys know Ellie’s not at home, this might be the next place they look.”

“How the hell would they know I’m here?”

“Honey, we made kissy faces at work, and Vince worked there.”

“Shit.”

“Something like that. Let’s get dressed and go downstairs. Josh, tell them they can invite whomever they want. Make sure they tell him when everyone is here, and I’ll set the motion sensors. My dear,” he said, and turned to me. “We are good in a crisis, it’s our job. I’ll get dinner for a group started, and you have your books in the garage, right?”

“Yes.”

“Bring in the ones that apply. Maybe with a little psychological insight, the cops can find these two before they find you.”

“I love it when you take charge.” I smacked him on the ass and walked into the closet.

Behind me, I heard Josh. “No, you cannot join her. Just back up and put some clothes on.”

Nice to know his horny instinct derails his brain.

My heart pounded as I got dressed. It took ten minutes to get my bra hooks lined up right. Hands shaking, I took deep breaths and walked downstairs. The kitchen table was covered in documents. Dmitri was at the front door letting the chief in; the first thing he did was send the other officer home.

“We need people,” Owen said.

“Everyone who works this case puts a target on their back, Mata. That man has two-year-old triplets.”

“Understood.”

The Chief of Police stood a head above Owen and almost looked eye to eye with Josh. He was African-American, with a friendly smile, and a figure that said food was his friend. Something in his eyes told me this was someone I didn’t want to cross.

“I called Atlanta and asked that you be reinstated. We need you on the police force here, not in the hospital. No offense, Doctors.”

“None taken,” I said.

“I turned down your job offer five years ago. I won’t make that mistake again. I’m all yours.” Owen stood a little taller.

Dmitri started cooking while I headed to the garage. My books were in the second box I opened. I grabbed the full sized DSM-IV-TR and headed inside.

Owen looked up when I came in. “What is that?”

“The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, text revision.”

His eyes glazed over before I was done.

“More detailed information on psychopathology than I have in my head,” I said.

“How much trouble are we in if
you
need help with crazy?” he asked.

“I’m a health psychologist, Owen. I’m qualified to counsel anyone, but my focus in training was on people with medical conditions, not psychopathic tendencies.”

The chief sat down and gestured for me to sit next to him.

“Owen tells me you are sure Vince lives with his mother. She was reported missing a few years ago. I’d hate to think he’d kept her tied up all this time.”

“He peeled Nancy’s skin back. It’s in his wheelhouse.” I tried to keep my stomach from lurching with that mental image.

Josh sat next to Owen and winced at the picture I painted. With effort, I pulled my personal feelings back and tried for an objective analysis. “That level of cruelty isn’t born, Chief. It’s made. Years of either neglect or abuse, or both. Serial killer levels of psychopathology frequently trace back to years of sexual and emotional abuse in childhood. The kind of bond between mother and son that leads him to never develop past the Freudian Oedipus stage of development.”

“He loves his mother.” Owen paled. “He talked about her like she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. The only time he talked about other women was after he and his mother had a fight. Then he would talk about her like they were dating. Some of the other guards asked him to stop. It was pretty sick, but I just took it as a southern man’s love of his mother. I didn’t probe further.”

“Then I hope she’s not dead because the image in my head is sickening.” Josh moved away to see if Dmitri needed help.

“Paired up with the abusive nature of Travis, Vince will be more lethal, his emotional state is fragile at best. Travis is likely the more dominant of the two and is good at manipulation. His abusive nature requires a level of control. He probably watched his father beat his mother on a regular basis. Even if he got in between them when he got older to try and stop it, he would still be more likely to hit someone anytime he gets angry. It’s how he learned the idea of family. So for him, beating Vivian was a way of expressing how much he cared about her.

“As for Vince, with the inappropriate nature of the relationship with his mother and Travis’ influence, you have someone who will do what he is told. He lives to please even if that means torturing and killing. ”

I was on a roll, and the pleased look on the chief’s face helped. Maybe I could make a difference and help out instead of wait for them to find me.

It appeared he agreed. He turned to Owen. “Do you still have her security background check from the hospital?”

“It’s at the office. I can call and have it faxed to you.” Owen got on the phone.

“Dr. Quinn,” the chief said. “I’m going to clear you as a liaison officer for the Savannah Chatham County police department. It’s a thankless job that doesn’t pay anything, and I think you are perfect for it.”

“I love my job at the hospital,” I said. “If this is just to help out when you need it, I’ll be happy to do it. Otherwise, I can’t.”

“It’s on an as-needed basis,” he clarified.

“Can I wait until after this is over before I give you a final decision?”

“You can. I’ll still call you, but you can say no.” He smiled at me.

I took it most people didn’t say no to him.

I gathered my thoughts again. “So we know Vince lives with his mother in, at best, an unhealthy relationship. Travis is now out, but had to know he couldn’t go back to the trailer he shared with his wife. That would make the Reamer place very crowded about now. The relationship between Vince and his mother is one he’ll be violent to protect.”

“You mean we have to put Travis back in jail to keep him safe from his own family?” Owen asked.

“And you need to keep him in solitary confinement if you want him to live until the trial. The man hurt children, there is no way the general population lets him live more than seventy-two hours.” I’m positive the people who put Jeffrey Dahmer into the general population also knew that fact. And used it to make sure he never hurt anyone ever again.

“Look, gentlemen. I know they have me on their list. However, if they start to get on each other’s nerves, the emotional control could go, and then anyone is a target.”

Suddenly, being the target sounded like the best thing I could do. I didn’t say it out loud because a part me still wanted to live. The very large part looking at Dmitri and Josh in the kitchen and felt like I was home and loved. Add my father to that picture, and they were the most important people in the world to me. It might have been a selfish decision. I didn’t care.

The chief and Owen started to compare notes. They rearranged the papers on the table and looked for old photos of Travis’ trailer. Being a surgeon, Dmitri had an office tucked behind the kitchen. I didn’t even know it was there until the chief asked him if he had a fax machine and a pocket door opened by remote.

“That is very cool,” I said.

“You like me for my brains, but you keep me for my cool gadgets.” He kissed me and disappeared into the office. He came back out with a combination printer-fax machine and plugged in into sockets in the legs of the table.

He winked at me when he stood up. “You like that touch?”

“I may never leave.”

I didn’t realize I said it out loud until he walked over to me and kissed me. “You don’t have to.”

The chief turned to Owen. “Are they always this gooey?”

“Yes, and they deserve it.”

The chief made a few phone calls and got pictures faxed over. They were photos taken by investigators when Vince reported his mother missing.

He lived in a shack in the woods, about forty minutes outside of Savannah in a rural area where you could drive for a mile between residences. The house, according to the investigators’ notes that also come through, was thirteen-hundred-square-feet with two bedrooms, living room, bathroom, and kitchen. The notes said the house was spotless on the inside. Even the baseboards and grout in the bathroom was scrubbed clean.

I pulled the last page off the fax and knew I had the answer in front of me.

“Guys, this page said Vince had a tool shed about thirty yards behind the house. An officer opened the door and looked inside, but dismissed it because it was small. This is a perfect place for him. He could live out there if he needed to. And the pictures don’t show any concrete under it.”

“He could bury things out there and no one would know.” Owen finished my gruesome thought. “Or people.”

The chief was already on the phone yelling at someone. I don’t know who was on the other end of the call, but they were going to need to change their underwear.

I sat down at the table and took a deep breath. If this was the answer we needed all along, it all could be over by tonight.

It’s never that easy. If another shoe was going to bitch-slap me, I was going to sit here and wait for it. My desire to help stopped at the intellectual end. While Owen jumped at the chance to ride with the chief, I had to be convinced.

“I’m not going. What part of no isn’t working for you?” I stood with my back against the outside window. Like they were going to come around the table and pull me outside if I moved. Josh and Dmitri were just behind Owen, held back by my insistence they not assault policemen in a house with so many security measures. Not the best logic, but it worked.

“Doctor, if they aren’t there we need to talk about other options. Only we aren’t going to sit here and figure each of them out while those two are loose. We have a target, we are moving out. You will be safe in the back of the car.”

“Can we child lock the doors so no one can get in or out?” I asked. Locked into the back of a police car might be the only way I would go with them. As my thoughts screamed for me to run away as fast as I could, I pulled back my emotional response and tried to look at it logically. They had a point that I would live in fear as long as this man was free. And a large part of me was okay with that. It had worked out so far right? No. It hadn’t. Nancy was in the hospital barely alive because this man wanted to get at me.

I tried to remember all of the information from my book on how to deal with bullies and what to do when a client becomes aggressive and each one of them had a different answer. That’s psychology for you, a different answer for every problem depending on who you asked.

I didn’t want to go, I wanted to sit here and have dinner with Josh and Dmitri and let the police chase him. And then something Owen said to me echoed in my memory. This family hurts children, small innocent babies who can’t even cry out because they don’t have the language skills yet. Josh and Dmitri opened their mouths to speak, and I stopped them. I made my decision and tears ran down my face as I said, “This could be the last night we spend not knowing what will happen next.”

Owen and the chief walked outside while I said goodbye. Josh picked me up in a bear hug, and I felt something go in my pocket.

“Josh?”

“Knives are handy little weapons that fit in pockets.” He patted the pocket. “With this, I know that if one of those idiots gets in the back seat with you, you’ll kill him.”

I’d never thought about killing anyone before. He was right though. This duo was worth the exception. I tried to push the thought of someone getting into the backseat with me away.

Dmitri leaned down and pulled me into an embrace. His kissed my eyelids, my nose, my cheeks, and when he got to my lips he was so gentle. I didn’t have time for gentle. I grabbed the back of his head and kissed him hard. He pulled back, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. He put his hands around my waist and ran them under my ass to hold me up and tease me with his fingers.

“Damn,” Josh said. “You might want to let him go, El. I’m not sure he can breathe right now.”

I slid my legs back down, and he set me on the floor. “I want to finish that when I get back.”

On wobbly legs, I walked to the police car. Tears streamed down my face. I was terrified and gripped the knife in my pocket and licked the lips still warm from Dmitri’s kiss.

“I’m ready now.” I didn’t turn around when we drove off.

The doors were locked, and I was stuck in the backseat of a police car until something happened. I was sure they could hear my heart pounding. I could hear it. My diaphragmatic breathing exercises helped keep me a little ahead of fainting, but I did get lightheaded.