Chapter 14
In my many years of breaking into crime scenes, I’ve been caught only once.
—Wheels Upside-Down: My Time with the FBI, a memoir by Donald Dellman
Tori hasn’t responded to the text I sent when I arrived at the house, even though it’s been two days. I don’t think anyone will be very happy if, three weeks down the line, she finally looks at her phone and the police come knocking, so I quickly fire off a text telling her I’m okay.
I set Bob up with a pile of blankets in my room so he won’t hurt his leg trying to jump on my bed to rest, then I head to the prep room where DJ is waiting for me.
DJ shows me a locker with my name freshly taped to it. EDEN. Right next to ZOEY.
It’s like someone just punched me, but in a good way.
I reach for the locker handle, and I’m hit with a scary realization: I want this.
I want to belong somewhere so badly it’s making me ill.
When’s the last time I had a place that was mine?
Or someone wrote my name on something because they expected me to stick around?
DJ beams, and gives me a clean jumpsuit that I take to the bathroom to change into.
It’s too big, but the next one DJ gives me suctions to my arms and legs so tightly that the iron plates dig into my skin, so I settle for the big one.
The material is stiff and a lot heavier than it looks.
It leaves a grimy residue on my fingers after touching it like my clothes do after a day at the beach, and the arms and legs swallow my hands and feet, but at least it doesn’t restrict my movement.
I roll the sleeves and pant legs up as best as the metal plates allow, then put my cargo pants and hoodie back on over it.
DJ’s waiting for me with a pair of goggles, which I take gratefully.
They may be the ugliest goggles I’ve ever seen—well, maybe except for swim goggles, which don’t look flattering on anybody—but never again do I want to experience the feeling of being locked inside my body, so I adjust the straps to my head and DJ’s face takes on a greenish tint like we’re submerged in a swampy lake.
I try to keep out of the way while the others change and check equipment. Donny, Griffin, DJ, and I file out to the garage, where the red panel van is waiting for us. Griffin slides into the driver’s seat with DJ riding shotgun, and Donny and I take the back.
There are four narrow seats bolted directly behind the driver and passenger seats.
The vinyl is cracked and patched with duct tape.
The van smells of stale coffee, warm electronics, and a hint of cleaning supplies.
I buckle in, trying not to jostle the duffel bags stuffed under the seats or knock into the metal cases strapped to the walls.
I kind of expected Nico would come, since he found the case, so why isn’t he here?
“Is Nico coming?” I ask.
“He doesn’t do field work unless necessary,” DJ says, twisting around in the passenger seat to look at me.
Griffin cranks the radio, filling the car with AC/DC’s Highway to Hell. I can sing every word because Dad loved this song, but I don’t have the capacity to even enjoy it right now.
If Nico doesn’t do field work, then what exactly was he doing at that Walmart?
I peer out at the green exit signs whipping by, dimly illuminated by highway lamps and passing headlights, as Griffin pilots the van with one hand on the wheel. DJ dozes in the passenger seat, her breath fogging the window glass.
Donny hands me a folder.
“Read this,” he says. “I want you to understand what we’re dealing with.”
Using the glow from my phone, I read a couple of lines of the first page and realize it’s a report on the Game Master’s first murder.
His first victims were Grace and Leah. Sisters in their twenties. They were forced to cut off their fingers to win. Grace cut off five fingers. Leah cut off two. Morrow slit Leah’s throat, and Grace was let go.
I try to picture making that choice. Watching Rosie across from me, both of us with a knife, and I’d have to—no. I can’t find the hair tie on my wrist under the layers. Dad’s dog tags are trapped, too. I feel dizzy without them.
I dig my nails into my palms and force myself to keep reading, doing my best to distance myself from the words.
His second trial involved a married couple in their thirties: Amy and Miguel.
Whoever peeled off more of their own skin would live, but human skin doesn’t peel as easily as Morrow thought it would.
It tore off in tiny pieces, and neither of them could remove enough to satisfy Morrow. He got angry and killed them both.
Trial three featured Carla and June, two lifelong friends in their fifties.
They both struggled with eating disorders, which feels like a random detail to include in the report until I get to the part about how Morrow starved them for days before telling them they had to eat each other to survive.
On the sixth day, Carla waited until June fell asleep, then killed her and carved off a chunk of her thigh.
Morrow abducted two adult brothers for his next trial, Arthur and Eli, and brought them to the meat processing plant where Arthur worked.
He forced both brothers to hang above a giant meat grinder, telling them that the first to let go would be ground, but the other would go free. Eli slipped first.
My brain decides this is the perfect opportunity to play Would you rather?
—Would I rather eat another person, or fall into a meat grinder feet-first?
I might choose the meat grinder if I could fall into it headfirst, because then at least my brain should shut off quickly, but I’m nowhere near coordinated enough to execute that swan dive.
I get an uneasy feeling and glance up at Donny.
“Did Morrow have a flair for the dramatic?” I ask. “He brought the brothers to where one of them worked. The eating disorder thing with the friends. Did he get off on making it personal?”
Donny nods. “He certainly did.”
I flip to the next case. Howard and Louise were married for sixty years.
Morrow put them in a room with a knife and said the first to kill the other would go free.
They wouldn’t touch each other. Morrow got so angry that he began cutting off their limbs, trying to tap into their primal survival instinct, but still neither of them touched each other, and they were found in pieces.
The words blur on the page, and I raise my eyes to the ceiling of the van as I blink away tears. That’s love. Choosing to die together rather than live with what you’d have to do to survive. Morrow must have been so pissed that his whole theory fell apart right in front of him.
His last trial was between a young woman and her brother-in-law: Kate and Kenny.
Morrow mistakenly thought they were a couple and forced them through the trial, ignoring their pleas to let them go, that they weren’t romantically involved.
Kate gouged out her own eyes. Kenny refused to participate, and Morrow slit Kenny’s throat.
Only four people survived the trials. Two died by suicide. One died of old age, but Kate’s still alive. She lives with her sister in Oklahoma, but has never recovered. Obviously. How could she?
Does she lie awake at night, wishing she could change her choice? Or does it give her comfort to know her brother-in-law loved her enough to die for her?
I can say from experience that knowing Dad died for me hasn’t given me any comfort. I already knew he loved me. All it gave me was guilt.
The miles blur. DJ wakes up as we take an exit ramp, and Griffin drives past industrial buildings that give way to run-down strip malls and neglected commercial zones.
“Welcome to beautiful downtown shit hole,” he says. “Current temperature is a balmy thirty-two degrees, and local attractions include trash and the strong smell of urine.”
I’ve never been to Pittsburgh before. I stayed around New York and Jersey most of the time, or went up to Boston when we visited Mom’s family for Christmas. Dad used to joke that we were tri-state people, born and raised, and anything past Philadelphia was not worth visiting.
Since aging out of foster care, I haven’t strayed far from Jersey.
It’s always been home. Dad loved Newark with fierce loyalty that made me love it too, even the ugly parts.
I can still feel him in the city sometimes, in the smell of diesel and cart hot dogs, in the way people walk fast and talk faster.
Pittsburgh feels different. Quieter somehow, even with the highway noise.
As Griffin pilots the huge van through the streets, DJ reaches under her seat, pulling up a tablet on steroids. The screen glows blue, covered in a collection of tiny windows and readouts.
She swipes to another screen, and I catch a glimpse of a map with a blinking dot.
“The strip mall’s part of Officer Henley’s beat, but he’s currently three blocks east,” DJ says.
It’s after midnight when Griffin pulls into a strip mall.
A Thai massage place sits beside Danny’s Cleaners, which is next to what used to be a bakery, the windows boarded up and covered in low-effort graffiti.
The Verizon store at the end looks like the only place people actually visit, its sign still on and glowing red.
We pull around to the loading dock, which looks exactly like the crime scene photos. The dumpster sits against the brick wall, its blue paint chipped and faded.
Griffin parks at the mouth of the loading dock so we have a clear view of anyone coming.
Donny steps out first. The temperature slaps me in the face the second I’m out of the van—cold enough that my eyes water immediately. I zip Dad’s jacket all the way up to my chin, burying my nose in the worn canvas for warmth.