Chapter 23 Revisit
REVISIT
KAT
God damn it. I cannot believe I have to go into the office after the night I’ve had.
But the lead psychiatrist from Western State was adamant that I email over the psychological assessment immediately, so here I am.
At half past eleven at night, driving out to my fucking office.
Alone. In the rain. After Zayn had walked away from me.
My eyelids blink back tears, and I try not to think about that last bit.
I whip my black Wagon into the empty parking lot, double parking in the two closest spots.
I kill the engine. Dashing through the misty rain, I reach the front door of the office and quickly unlock it.
Stepping inside the dark lobby, I close my umbrella and shake off the water from my black trench coat.
I walk through the dim and silent waiting area, and with a pang, my eyes fall upon the chair that Zayn first sat in at his intake appointment. When I had met him as “Joseph Dillon.” Before we were… us.
Hot tears that I thought were spent threaten to leak out of my eyes again. I fist my hands into balls and manage to hold them at bay at least for now. Once I am finally back home, with Bundy, warm and dry, I’ll allow them to spill back over. I’ll allow myself to fall apart again.
Weakly, I wonder if I’ll ever be able to be put back together.
Unlocking my private office door, I move into the clean, minimalist space and smell the familiar aroma of my office.
I stride across the room to switch on the desk lamp.
But it doesn’t turn on. I flick the switch on and off several times, just to be sure.
Walking over to the standing lamp beside the sofa, I try that one as well. No dice.
Damn it, I think, just what I need, a fucking power outage.
I scan the darkened office and walk around my desk to unlock the top desk drawer to grab the emergency flashlight that sits there. Before my hand reaches the drawer, however, I pause.
Something is…. off.
Scanning the space, and I notice the letter opener that Zayn and I had put to such good use just days earlier is not where I left it.
Instead of sitting perpendicular to the edge of the desk, it lays at an odd angle across a notebook that I definitely did not leave out.
What in the hell? After thoroughly cleaning the opener, I had placed it neatly back where I always kept it.
I was sure. And I am the only one with keys to this office.
My head snaps up, and I carefully look around.
I slide up the flashlight on my phone, turning it on, and holding it up to shine across the four corners of the space.
I see nothing else of note but keep looking anyway.
I duck down and shine the light under my desk as well.
Just to be sure. Nothing else seems to be out of place.
But I cannot help the sense of dread and unease that clenches in my gut.
Striding over to the sofa, I kneel to inspect what almost looks like a faint footprint.
Squinting and running my hand over the still damp mud, I realize that it is indeed a boot print, and a large one at that.
My eyes flick over to the window to my right.
Before I can move toward it to further inspect the situation, everything changes.
With a startling shatter of the silence around me, the old office intercom crackles to life. A man’s voice whispers into the dark space like a wisp of noxious gas on the wind.
“Testing, testing…” the voice rumbles overhead.
My heart jolts up out of my chest and into my throat.
I dive behind the sofa and wedge myself into the narrow space between it, the ficus, and the wall.
The intercom rumbles to life again, and a dark, feral laugh emits from the depths of the walls.
Goosebumps rise up along my arms and across the back of my neck.
I know that laugh. Raising my hand to my mouth, I attempt to cover my now audibly ragged breathing.
“Oh, don’t be scared now,” the voice continues. “Come out, come out, wherever you are, little Doc,” the voice mock-whispers, menace dripping from every syllable. He laughs again.
My breath hitches in my throat, and I feel my stomach drop with an icy sense of foreboding. I peek out slowly from my hiding spot, and can see the outline of a tall, thin man in the doorway. He is backlit by the glow of the lights from outside the building.
The dark figure stands there and as I watch in horror, extends his pointer finger right at me and beckons me forward.
Immediately, I snap back into my shitty ass hiding place, weighing my options. It was him. And he had seen me. He already knows I’m here.
After a moment, I decide to stand, though my legs tremble.
I reach my full height and lift my head.
My eyes meet his. I swallow hard. He stares back at me with those cold, vacant eyes of his.
And then, he smiles. That familiar, terrible smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
The smile I haven’t seen in over a year.
The smile that’s haunted me in the dark nearly every night.
Eastman.
His voice breaks the silence. “Now, now, now, what are you up to in here all alone at this hour, Doc?”
My breath stutters as my heart hammers in my chest. I don’t answer his question. Instead, I press my lips together and try to take a steadying breath. I have the feeling that if I speak, I will cry and if I cry, I will scream and if I scream, I will never stop screaming.
How is he here? How did he know where to find me?
Suddenly, I realize my cell phone is still gripped tightly in my hand.
Squeezing it subtly, I try not to draw attention to it.
I wonder if I can manage to press the emergency call button before he lunges for me.
I quickly glance down at the cell with my eyes, not moving my head.
When I glance back up, Eastman has moved fully into the office and stands several feet closer to me.
It’s then that I see the glint of silver in his hand. Fuck.
Despite all these long months of Eastman’s shadow haunting my nightmares and plaguing my sleep, I never prepared for this. I never thought it was actually possible. I thought I was safe.
Last I knew, he was still in a maximum security prison. How did someone escape that?
Stay focused, Kat. And don’t take your eyes off of him.
I know better than to take a step backwards or to try and run.
This man is an apex predator through and through.
A familiar draft ripples along the back of my neck.
He had promised he would find me, hadn’t he?
Come back to “finish what I started.” This was inevitable.
It felt silly now, to ever think that I was safe from him. Safety is always an illusion.
No, I wouldn’t run. My best bet is probably to get him talking. After all, that’s what I do best, right? I get inside people’s heads. And I had already been inside of his before. A little shiver runs down my spine and pools like an icy lake in my belly.
“You sent the email from Western State?” I ask quietly.
Eastman nods at me slowly, his eyes unblinking.
“Ok. How… how are you here, Gary?” I ask, trying to infuse as much forced calm into my voice as possible. He doesn’t answer but instead continues to regard me with a slight tilt of his head. “You look different, Doc.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap. It comes out more desperate and scared then I intend. I just can’t stand to hear the nickname that Zayn has so lovingly claimed come out of this monster’s mouth.
“Oh, but that’s what you are, Doc. A young, beautiful, and well regarded, state-assigned doctor. Assigned just to me,” he laughs mirthlessly again. “Don’t you remember what you said, Doc? In your report?”
Of course, I fucking remembered it. I wrote it.
But I wasn’t going to play his game. I press my lips together into a firm line once again.
Sending a silent prayer that this encounter won’t end the way that I fear it will, I glance down at the knife clasped in his hand.
The blade’s sharp tip illuminated red from the dim orangey light filtering in from outside.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, Doc,” Eastman says.
And never breaking eye contact, he then proceeds to quote fully from memory the words from my own court report that contained his psychological evaluation.
“Gary Jones Eastman has plead not guilty by reason of insanity. However, his psychological evaluation shows no presence of dissociation, or sociopathy. Instead, Mr. Eastman demonstrates a full and complete understanding of the depraved and cruel nature and quality of his acts. He continues to display little to no genuine remorse for his actions and crimes. It is therefore the recommendation of this court-appointed psychologist that Mr. Eastman not be eligible for parole, but instead continue to serve out the remainder of his time at Western State Hospital in Washington.”
A heavy silence fraught with the scent of rain and my growing fear fills the space.
Holding his gaze, I nod. “Y-yes. That is what I wrote. And I stand by it, Gary.”
I know that psychologically speaking, using someone’s name can be a powerful tool to forge a sense of connection. However futile it may be, I’m not going to go down without at least trying to use my skills to save myself.
While maintaining eye contact, I attempt to surreptitiously move sideways to the left, towards where the letter opener lies benignly on my desk. As I could have predicted, Eastman’s eyes fall immediately to my shifting body, and he takes another menacing step towards me.
“Uh, uh, little Doc. You’re not going anywhere. Not without me, that is.”
I swallow down the liquid panic that threatens to rise from the back of my throat. It’s a struggle to keep my breath in check. I can feel the frantic rise and fall of my chest. I force a deep inhale.
“Why are you here, Gary?” I implore.
“To give you my regards, Doc. And to tell you that I still think about you. All the time.” He adds in a whisper. He pauses, before asking, “Do you think about me?” He cocks his head again and shifts closer to me. He is taller than I remember, and gaunter looking.
My palm grips my cell phone so hard, my knuckles sting. I repress the impulse to hold down the emergency button and instead gulp down a steeling breath. I can talk my way out of this.
“No, Gary. I don’t think about you,” I manage. “I was honest and accurate in my assessment of your crimes. And I-I’ve moved on.”
The lie hangs heavily in the air between us, a tangible thing. Eastman says nothing for a long moment.
“Mmmm. You know what? I just don’t think that’s true, Dr. Pearson.”
The emphasis he puts on the last two words has me wanting to lurch out of my skin.
“You want to know what I believe? I think that you think about me all of the time. I think that I haunt your nightmares and I fill the empty moments of your day. I think you replay what I did to those poor girls over and over in your head, and you pray to God that I never come looking for you to do those same things to your body. I think I am in your head.”
Any response I might have given sticks in my throat, which has now gone bone dry. I bite my tongue to try and generate enough saliva to swallow. He’s right of course. I forgot just how astute and perceptive he is.
He was a monster, yes, but a brilliant one. I say nothing but shake my head in denial of his words. Things are coming to a head now; I can sense it. I don’t have much time left. And with a wild surge of impulsive bravery, or stupidity, I decide to act.
I lunge for the desk and the letter opener there. And miraculously, I manage to reach it. However, Eastman’s hands are on me seconds later, jerking my hand back from the instrument. He grips my wrist with his thin fingers, which are unnaturally strong. I yelp from the assault.
With a savage jerk, he pulls my pinky finger back and with a sickening crack, it snaps. A loud scream is ripped from my throat, as I clutch at the mangled digit.
Eastman spins me around and holds the cold steel of his blade up to my throat.
I can smell his rancid breath against my cheek, as he whispers against my ear, “Caught you, you fucking cunt. And now, you’ll sleep. Sweet dreams.”
And with his other hand, he presses a folded wet cloth smelling strongly of alcohol over my nose and mouth.
Knowing exactly what this is, I try to buck away from him without inhaling. The sharp edge of his blade bites into my throat with a painful sting and my mouth opens to scream. Inadvertently, I inhale a huge mouthful of the soaked rag’s fumes.
Within seconds, my strength wanes and my vision blurs. The world spins on its axis, and a moment later, everything is plunged into darkness.