The Lion, the Lamb, the Hunted: A Psychological Thriller (9 page)

“What happened next?”

“I panicked, is what happened. Started running from room to room yelling his name. Even ran down to the cellar but couldn’t find him.” His voice became a whisper. “I suppose that’s when it hit me…that Nathan really was gone.”

He was back in that horrible moment all over again. I could see it on his face, hear it in his voice. Feel it in my bones. The sheer panic of realizing his child had vanished. It was palpable and chilling. Tears began filling his eyes, and all at once, the large man with the rough exterior was transformed into a tightly-wound bundle of raw emotion: sadness with a grip so tight there seemed to be no escape for him. He covered his face with his hands and began to sob, trying to conceal the tears seeping out between his fingers.

I took a deep breath, tried to maintain my reporter’s demeanor, stay impartial, compartmentalize—all that stuff. But the human side of me hurt for him, truly ached. I could never in my life know what he must have gone through, never, because it was unimaginable. I didn’t know what to say, what to do, so instead I began writing
monster
repeatedly in my note pad. Then I looked up and said softly, “Mr. Kingsley, would you like to stop?”

He wiped his face with his sleeve, shook his head, and then, still sobbing said, “I called the sheriff, and within a very short time the neighborhood was flooded with deputies—they were everywhere, all looking for Nathan, but they never found him.” His voice caught. “They never found my son …”

I worked through a lump in my throat, barely managing a whisper when I asked, “Mr. Kingsley, was there any chance you’d made some sort of contact with Ronald Lucas before all this happened? Or maybe your wife might’ve met him?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “We were new in town, had only lived here a few months, barely knew anyone.” He shook his head again. “No, definitely not.”

“Where did you move from?” I asked.

“Georgia.”

I could see my own shock registering on his face. “Whereabouts in Georgia?”

“A place called Black Lake.”

I stared at him, my body motionless, my mind taking off.

“Something wrong?”

“No,” I managed to say and heard weakness in my voice despite my attempt to hide it. I cleared my throat, straightened my posture, did my best to look unaffected, and then, “The necklace your son was wearing the day he went missing. Can you tell me about it?”

“The Saint Christopher medal? That was a gift from his godfather.”

“And his name?”

“Warren Strademeyer.”

My heart gave a single, heavy thud, one that went straight up into my throat.

“Mr. Bannister?” I heard him say.

“Fine,” I replied, but really, I was far from it. I forced myself to say, “So… this Warren Strademeyer. How did you and your wife know him?”

“He and Jean were friends since they were kids. In elementary school. A little town called Rose Park, in Georgia.”

I nodded slowly.

“It was a different world there,” he continued. “Warren was lucky enough to break away from it. He’s a state senator now.”

Boy, did I know that.

I said, “Do you have any contact with him these days?”

He shook his head with regret. “Not in years. Heard less and less from him after Nathan disappeared. Finally lost touch after a while.”

“Why, do you think?”

“Warren was on his way up. Everyone knew it. He changed after he graduated from law school. Wasn’t the same person anymore. He started moving in different circles. We weren’t
good enough to fit into them.”

I nodded. “And all this happened right after Nathan disappeared?”

“Well…” He stopped, gave me a wary look. “Why all the interest in Warren?”

I leaned back, crossed my leg, tried to force casual. “The necklace was never found. Just trying to understand its history.”

He nodded and seemed okay with that.

“So when did he give it to your son?”

“Right after he was born. He wanted Nathan to have it at his baptism.”

“And do we know for sure Nathan was wearing it when he went missing?”

“He always wore it. Jean insisted.”

“Did this Warren attend Nathan’s memorial service?”

“No.” He looked away, shook his head. “Claimed he had to travel on some kind of business.”

I thought about the letter from Stover, Illinois and those haunting words about a body.

Dennis continued. “Of course that tore Jean up the most. Lousy of him, business or not, don’t you think?”

I nodded, but inside, I wanted to scream.

Chapter Fifteen

The Kingsleys were from Black Lake. Warren was Nathan’s godfather.

How the hell did I miss that?

I’d found the missing thread—or at least one of them—but it only seemed to raise more questions, the biggest one being, how did Warren and my mother get tangled up in the kidnapping and murder of a three-year-old boy? Maybe even worse, how could I not have known? I’d lived around the two of them my whole life.

There was no doubt my mother was evil. I’d seen it first-hand, lived it, knew she was capable of horrendous abuse. But was she capable of kidnapping and murdering a child?

As for Warren, the risks would have been astronomical, the implications nothing short of staggering. He was on his way up the ladder at the time, a congressman with even bigger political aspirations. What could be important enough to risk losing that? I came up with only one answer: money. It was all he ever seemed to care about, apart from his career. Could that have been enough to lure him to the dark side?

Then there was Ronald Lee Lucas. I still hadn’t figured out his role in all this, or how Warren and my mother would have even associated with the likes of him. It didn’t make a damn bit of sense.

Or did it?

I allowed my mind to run free. A hired thug? A sexual predator who got carried away, then had to kill the boy to keep him quiet? But why would my mother and Warren hire him to take Nathan in the first place? What were they planning on doing with him?

Talking to Dennis only seemed to widen the mystery surrounding Jean, the relationship with Warren putting her in my crosshairs. Might she be the final link I needed to complete the picture? I couldn’t ask her, but I could go where she spent her final days and took her last breath.

***

Glenview Psychiatric Hospital looked like it could drive a person insane if they weren’t already. Chain link and razor wire surrounded the perimeter, and beyond that, ivy snaked its way up dirty red brick walls. I let my gaze follow it to a bar-covered window where an elderly woman looked down on me, her face as white as the long, stringy hair that framed it. She nodded with a vacant, fish-eyed expression, then flashed a menacing, toothless grin that sent chills up my spine. I turned my attention away quickly, headed for the front door.

Glenview had once been a private facility, but the state had taken it over several years before. From the looks of things, they hadn’t done much to improve it. I moved down a dimly-lit, claustrophobic hallway so narrow that I doubted two people could walk it side by side. The asylum-green walls were cracked and chipped, the floors covered in nondescript, skid-infested tile. The overall theme: dismal and cold.

I came to the gatekeeper for this palace of darkness: a receptionist behind a Plexiglas partition blurred with fingerprints, grime, and other slimy things I was afraid to think about. Her expression told me she was sick of her job. Couldn’t say I blamed her. Then I heard static and a speaker going live.

“Can I help you,” she said. It sounded more like a statement than a question.

I leaned in toward a metal-covered hole in the glass. “Patrick Bannister, for Doctor Faraday.”

No verbal response, just a loud buzzer and a simultaneous
click
as the lock disengaged; I pulled the door open and found her waiting on the other side behind a service counter.

After signing in with my I.D., I handed over my cell phone. Then a security guard arrived to escort me through a sally port that looked more like a cave. Smelled like one, too. Next stop, a service elevator: high stink-factor there as well, like a nasty old gym locker.

Stepping off onto the fifth floor, I fell into sensory overload. The stench was so wicked and fierce that it burned through my sinuses—excrement, sweat, and cleaning agents all blended into one nasty funk that kicked my gag reflex into action. Then came the sounds: a woman’s hysterical laughter echoing down the hall, clearly not inspired by anything funny, along with lots of cursing and other peculiar, vaguely human cries I could hardly identify. As we moved past the metal-grated security doors, patients peered at me with flat, vacant expressions, creepy smiles, and wild eyes that made my skin crawl.

Finally, we came to a port in the storm: a nursing station. The guard nodded to the woman behind the counter. She nodded back, and he left me there.

In her early fifties, she was a striking brunette, one of those women whose beauty seems to improve with age: high cheekbones, dark-lashed, pale blue eyes, and a pair of legs that could give a twenty-year-old a run for her money. The nametag said she was Aurora Penfield, Nursing Supervisor. I eyed a photo on the desk; it was her, much younger with a small boy on her lap, both smiling big for the camera. Then I looked up and saw her staring, waiting for me to speak.

I cleared my throat. “Patrick Bannister, for Doctor Faraday.”

In a dutiful, mechanical manner, she reached for the telephone and punched a few buttons, giving me the once-over while waiting for an answer.

I smiled.

She didn’t.

Then I felt a tug on my leg. Startled, I looked down into a pair of dark, cavernous eyes staring up at me: a woman squatting on the floor, probably in her sixties but with a distinctly childlike quality. Tangled, grizzled hair surrounded a hopeless, miserable face. She barked at me, then snarled, baring her teeth.

“Gretchen!” Penfield said, leaning over the counter, her tone cross and unwavering. “Move away
immediately!
”

The woman looked at Penfield, looked at me, then frowned. I glanced down and spotted a yellowish puddle forming between her feet, but before I could react, two orderlies stepped quickly toward us; they each grabbed an arm and pulled her up, then guided her away.

Nurse Ratched went back to her work as if nothing had happened and said, “Doctor’s on his way. Please take a seat.”

I did.

A few moments later, a side door opened and Doctor Faraday appeared. He was somewhere in his sixties, tall and slender with a thick head of silvery hair and wire-rimmed glasses that missed the fashion curve by a good twenty years. His face registered zero on the expression scale, as blank as the wall behind him. As we shook hands, I noticed his were rough-skinned and ice-cold.

He led me down a corridor and past a door with a glass observation window. Inside, a patient sat in the corner, hands under his gown, giving himself pleasure. He made direct eye contact with me and started jerking himself with more enthusiasm and fervor. Then he stopped, and a shit-eating grin slowly spread across his face. I looked away, feeling my nausea return for a second round.

When we reached Faraday’s office, he took a seat behind his desk, and I sat across from him.

“Jean Kingsley,” he said, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “Haven’t heard that name in years.”

“I’m doing a story about her son’s kidnapping and murder.”

He put his glasses back on, looked down at some paperwork. “I’ve reviewed her records. What exactly would you like to know?”

“We can start with the basics, her condition, how many times she was admitted, and for how long.”

He puffed his cheeks full of air, then let it out slowly. “Mrs. Kingsley was a very sick woman. She suffered a series of breakdowns—three, to be exact—rather significant ones. She was admitted here after each of them. The duration increased with each visit, as did the severity of her condition.”

“How long was her last stay?”

“About a month.”

“Any indication why she killed herself? I mean, other than the obvious. Anything unusual happen that day?”