Chapter Six – Hawthorne
It only took me an hour or two to get everything ordered. When you’re in our line of work, you have certain kinds of people on retainer, and people who know how to lock up a house are one of them. After that, I sat there and looked at the bag that must’ve come to Brock’s house with Abby.
Ezra called it a kill kit, and I’m inclined to agree.
Stuff to tie someone up. A super sharp knife. A rudimentary kill kit, to be sure, but a kill kit nonetheless.
It was as I stared at my reflection in the knife that I had an epiphany. Abby mentioned she wasn’t hurt by Brock. It would be naive of me to believe we are the only ones around who know of Brock’s rapist proclivities. There is a lot of assuming involved, but I think I have it figured out.
There have been a few deaths that were attributed to D.D.K.
, deaths that were not ours. Deaths we did not have a hand in.
The details of said cases weren’t identical to our methods, but they were close enough that the police linked them to D.D.K.
, and since we aren’t in the habit of contacting local law enforcement and informing them how wrong they are… well.
Could Abby be responsible for those deaths? There aren’t many. Just two, I believe. Brock would have made number three, if that’s what this is.
Is Abby a wannabe serial killer? Is she trying to copy D.D.K.
’s methods? So many questions swirling around my head when it comes to her and her reasoning.
I need to know the truth. If her reasoning behind her methods aligns with ours, perhaps there is a future where we can work together instead of simply keeping her here as a captive.
A captive. A prisoner. I still can’t believe it, but unfortunately keeping her here is the only solution I see, for now.
After I go downstairs for a coffee refill, it’s a short wait before I’m joined in my office by Abby herself. Once she slips through the door, she quietly shuts it behind her and stares at me from across the room.
I gesture to the chair on the other side of my desk, an old leather chair that has seen better days. “Please, sit.” I sound so stiff and formal, but I suppose stiff and formal is better than the alternative. This whole thing is not something I could have ever prepared myself for.
Abby is slow to move toward the chair and take a seat, and once she’s seated she has to adjust her position a good three times before she’s comfortable. It’s clear I’m not the only one who’s a tad apprehensive about the other person. Given everything, it is remarkable she’s as composed as she is.
“Abby,” I say her name gently, wanting and hoping to start out on a good foot with her, or as good of a foot as we can possibly start off on, since she was kidnapped and brought here against her will to begin with.
“Hawthorne,” Abby says, mimicking my seriousness.
I figure it’s best to cut to the chase, so I bend over and retrieve the bag from beneath my desk—I assumed it would be best if she didn’t see it the moment she walked in. The very second I place it on my desk, I note the way she stiffens.
Just a hair. Not a lot, but enough that someone like me notices.
“This bag,” I start, setting a hand atop it. “It is yours, isn’t it?” For now, the bag remains closed, but I know what rests on the top of all the items within: the knife. The knife she would have surely used to kill Brock, would Royal and Ezra not have killed him themselves.
“Somehow,” she says, dryly, “I don’t think you’d believe me if I say no.”
“You’d be right. This bag doesn’t belong to Royal or Ezra, nor does it belong to Brock. It’s yours. I’d like for you and I to get down to brass tacks. Cut to the chase, if you will. If you tell me the truth, I’ll tell you what I can about us. Does that sound like a deal?”
You’d have to be blind to not see the way she perks up at the possibility of hearing more about us. Abby is a deathly sort of curious about the three of us, about D.D.K. and our whole operation. Bartering with the truth, or at least some of the truth, is my only bargaining chip.
Abby must then realize how it looks, how eager she is and how plain it is to see, because she coughs and attempts to act nonchalant. “Uh, sure. I mean, I guess that would work for me. I’m already stuck here, right? Might as well know more.”
If it was anyone else sitting across from me, I’d hesitate to believe them.
I’d wonder if, perhaps, in the back of their mind, they were planning on escaping at the first given opportunity.
Abby does not act like a normal person would.
Given the bag, its contents, and its intended use… her reactions track.
I level the truth at her: “You were there to kill him, weren’t you?”
“I—wait, you’re not a cop, are you?” She makes a big show of glancing around the room. “Are there cameras in here? Is this some sort of sting?” She can barely get out that last question before she chuckles at herself. “I’m kidding, obviously.”
I don’t laugh. Her sense of humor might be her deflecting.
“If I say yes, I was there to kill him… what would you say?” she hedges.
“I would say that it is a coincidence almost too impossible to be real. After all, what are the odds that you would go after Brock the same night I send Royal and Ezra to dispatch of him?”
Abby echos, “To dispatch of him. Damn, is that what serial killers are calling it these days?”
“That’s what I call it, yes.”
She runs her hands along her knees. She still wears the same all-black outfit she wore when she was carried into this house. It makes her gray eyes and the light, pastel color of her blue and pink hair pop.
She’s pretty. Maybe early twenties. Smart, if she’s killed and gotten away with it. A little out there when it comes to her sanity, but in this house we’re all a little mad.
Then, out of nowhere, she shrugs. “Fine, yes, I was there to kill him.”
“Why were you targeting him?”
“Why were you?” she shoots back. “I think we both know why Brock was on our radars. Ezra told me you guys don’t kill women.
You send them to dispatch of—” She uses my terminology.
“—bad men. There are a lot of those around, everywhere you look these days. Like you said, it’s just one big coincidence we went after him the same night. ”
I open the bag and pull out the knife resting atop the contents.
The very second I reveal the knife, Abby’s eyes flick to it, and I swear I see some form of remembrance in her silvery gaze.
It’s possible she’s remembering her other kills, or maybe she’s wistful that she wasn’t able to kill Brock herself.
“A sharp tool,” I remark on the object in my hand. “Capable of cutting into someone quite well, given enough force behind it. I do have to say, I am impressed you were able to use this knife to cut your previous victims apart so well.”
Clearly, what I say she isn’t expecting, because the look she gives me is one of pure shock. “What are you talking about?” Where she’s normally talkative and even a bit awkward, she sounded purely stilted and caught off-guard right then.
“Your previous victims. Brock wouldn’t have been your first.” I set the knife down atop the bag and stare right at her, catching all the ways she tries to brush my comment off: an overly nonchalant face, a shrug, a wave of her hand. All dismissive.
Her words, though, aren’t as well thought out. “I don’t know what you mean.”
I cock a brow at her. “You don’t? So the names Chad Newark and Aaron Striver don’t mean anything to you?”
Abby’s eyes widen. Not a lot, but enough for me to notice.
I might not enjoy being in social situations, but I am good at reading people.
I’m great at putting pieces together. This woman…
she isn’t your run-of-the-mill average woman.
No, she’s seen things, done things, that most women, and most men, would never dream of.
As impossible as the odds may be, she’s like us. I just don’t know why she’s like us, not yet, seeing as how I don’t have her last name. Without it, I can’t look up her past and do some digging.
I know enough about her, however, and I will inform Royal and Ezra about all of it as soon as I contact the Benefactor and inform them of this turn of events.
Finally, Abby says, “Nope. I’ve never heard those names before in my life.”
Adjusting my glasses, I say with a single shake of my head, “Please don’t lie to me, Abby. If you want to know more about us, I need you to tell me the truth. Who are those two men to you? Or, perhaps I should say, who were they to you?”
She still doesn’t want to say. Instead, she asks, “Why are you bringing up those names?”
“Because those two men are dead, and when their local law enforcement found them, they attributed them to the crimes of D.D.K. It should be more than obvious to you that I know all about D.D.K.’s victims, and those two? They were never harmed by D.D.K.”
She swallows hard. The wheels behind her head must be turning, because her stiff posture relaxes somewhat. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.” She runs a hand through her hair. “I guess there’s no harm in telling you I did it.”
“Why choose them? Did they fit the same profile Brock did?” A trick question to see how open she’ll be with me; I already have my suspicions.
Chad had a record, though his court case ended up dismissed.
The star witness never showed up. Aaron was your typical young man in college.
A quick glance at his social media profiles showed just how much he liked to party.
“And what if they did? You gonna turn me in or something?”
“Of course not. If, however, they did fit the same profile… it might prove to me that you can be trusted. If we’re on the same side, if we like to hunt the same prey, perhaps you wouldn’t have to remain a captive here.”
That has her attention. “You’d really let me join the team?”
“I make no promises,” I say with a shrug, “but the possibility is there. So, with that being said, care to answer the question now? I need you to be honest with me.”
“They did fit the same profile,” she says.
“How did you know? What kind of research did you do on them?”
“Research?” She makes a pft sound. “Who do you think I am? My research involved going to bars and parties, scoping them out. I didn’t even know their names until the police came out with them.”
A haphazard way of stalking her prey, one that could’ve gotten her caught.
Still, she succeeded in getting the victims attributed to D.D.K.
, so her plan worked. The police would never suspect someone like her as the culprit, given how gruesome our kills are.
Plus, it isn’t like she went home with them from the bar or the party; something like that would’ve made the news.
She probably followed them home, got to know their routines, and then struck on another night with her kill bag in tow.
“So you’ve been lucky,” I say.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say that. It isn’t like I left a note at the crime scenes saying, Hi, my name is Abby. I like long walks on the beach, pepperoni pizza, and cats. Oh, and by the way, I killed these guys.”
“No, you didn’t do anything of the sort, I’ll give you that. You were smart to copy our methods to hide your activities. I never assumed the other killings would be from someone like you, though.”
Abby cocks her head at me and wrinkles her nose. “Someone like me? What do you mean by that?” Though her question is in good faith, I’m taken aback by the tiny wrinkles on her nose. It’s an expression I’ve never seen before, and I hate to admit it flusters me.
I have to look away from her and cough. “Oh, um, just that, as you’re probably well aware, such violent killings are typically done by men.”
“Are you saying us girls can’t be violent?”
“That is not—”
“Because, I assure you, we can. We’re just better at controlling our impulses than most men these days.
I’d bet anything most women out there have fantasized at one point or another about killing someone.
Women can be violent too. We’re not just nurturers by nature, we’re also humans, and human beings are violent.
” She speaks with conviction, such conviction I can’t argue with.
And I wouldn’t. Because she’s not wrong.
Everyone is capable of terrible deeds. People simply have a different threshold for accepting bullshit and the status quo.
Some people need to be pushed quite far before they’d even think about hurting someone else, but the option is always there, ready to emerge in the back of someone’s head.
I decide to change the subject by asking, “Were Chad and Aaron your only kills?” Thankfully, she’s a bit riled up from my previous statement, so she isn’t currently wrinkling her nose. Good.
“Yes.”
Even more impressive that she was smart enough to copy D.D.K.’s methods. Typically killers evolve from their first kills, get into their own routines. Copying another serial killer isn’t a normal choice of action for someone like us.
“So Brock would’ve been your third, had we not been there,” I say. “You would’ve joined us in the ranks of being an official serial killer, by some definitions.”
“Yeah, thanks for that. You know, it’s kind of funny that you keep saying ‘us,’ like you go out on the kills, too.
It sounds like you’re always here, the man behind the computer or whatever.
Have you ever gotten your hands dirty like Royal and Ezra?
” Her curiosity makes sense; she is owed some truth, but until I speak with the Benefactor, she’ll have to wait.
“You’d be surprised at what I’m capable of, Abby.”
She grins at me. “Ooh, chills.”
“I know I said I would tell you more about us, but there are some things I need to do, first. I hope you understand.” I can tell she’s about to argue with me, so I add, “Please, be patient. This is… new to all of us here. You’re new.
You’re a complication. I will tell you more, I promise, just give me some time. ”
Abby stands. “Fine. I guess I have lots of time, anyway. I’ll go back to bugging Ezra.” She heads toward the door, but before she leaves, she stops and glances back at me. The corners of her mouth tug into a sly smile. “You looked good holding that knife, just thought you should know.”
And then she leaves, as if she didn’t just say something completely out of pocket.
I sit there, staring at the door long after she’s not in sight. I don’t know whether she meant that last remark seriously or not, and if she did mean it seriously, I don’t quite know how I should take it.
Let’s just say it’s a good thing she left the room after that, because the blush that creeps up my face in response to that comment is not something I can fight.