CHAPTER TWENTY
"Drop the knife, Sarah," Moore called.
Alison knew that Sarah wasn’t about to drop the knife.
She wasn’t close enough to see her eyes or any subtle shifts in her posture, the telling tics and movements of her body that conveyed what might happen next.
She was going by what little she knew about Sarah Hartman and the situation they had all plunged into.
Sarah was not going to drop the knife and let her victim go, but she also hadn’t gone into a frenzy and killed him yet. That was all that Alison had hoped for, and she’d been blessed with it.
Sarah Hartman stood in the center of the room with Dr. Connor before herm using him as a human shield.
She had one hand on his shoulder, gripping him, and the other held the knife to his neck.
Dr. Connor wasn’t a large man, but he was bigger than Sarah and looked far stronger than her, too.
In a one-on-one fight, Alison assumed he could take her down, but she got the sense from how his hands were clasped before him that he was a cowardly man.
Alison stepped forward from behind Moore, raising her hands to show Sarah that she was unarmed.
As she took her third step into the large room, she kept one hand before her, palm facing Sarah, and moved the other toward Moore, behind her, waving it downward to instruct the detective to lower her weapon.
Alison wasn’t sure if the detective complied with those requests as she took four more steps and stopped, still twelve yards or so from Sarah and Dr. Connor.
"Sarah, my name is Dr. Alison Payne," Alison said. "I only want to talk with you."
"Yeah, well, I don't want to talk with you!" she shouted back.
Dr. Connor whimpered as she did so, and the knife jerked against his neck, but didn't cut it.
Alison glanced at the knife, like the same one that had cut into four people, before looking at Sarah again.
"You do want to talk," Alison said. "You want more time to kill him, don't you? You didn't kill Dr. Connor in his home, but you do want to kill him, don't you?"
"I will kill him," Sarah maintained, the knife pressing harder into Connor’s neck, but not breaking the skin.
Alison tried not to look at the dark patch as it appeared near Dr. Connor’s crotch and spread downward.
"You would have killed him already if that was your goal here, Sarah," Alison said. "You need to do more than just that with him, so here we are. You haven’t killed him yet, and you want to, but you don't want to do it quickly, so you understand that we need to talk, right?"
"Yeah, we talk, you leave, and I cut his head open."
"Okay, good," Alison said, still holding a hand up toward Sarah. The part about wanting to cut his head open wasn’t good—it was the fact that she was talking, explaining that was good.
The more she could get Sarah talking, the more she could understand each other, and perhaps get through to Sarah.
Or delay enough for tactical to get there and neutralize her with a bullet rather than words.
The room didn't have any furniture, but it was no stretch of the imagination to see it as a dining area. The space was large, but there were no windows. There was a large metal shutter on one wall, which Alison assumed revealed a kitchen area when pulled up.
She was close enough now to see both sets of eyes, and she saw confirmed in Dr. Connor’s eyes what she expected.
His eyes were wide, pupils dilated, a tear gripping the bottom lid of his right eye.
If Sarah were not hiding a knife to his neck at that moment, his instinct would be to flee instead of fight.
It would have been easy for her to get him from his home when she entered with the knife.
And her eyes? Alison couldn’t say for sure. They were both filled with fire, but wandering at the same time. Sarah was steadfast in holding the knife to Connor’s neck, but she also looked around often as if distracted by other things.
"Tell me what you want," Alison said. "I want to know what you really want, Sarah."
"I think you know what I want," she replied.
Alison glanced behind to see Moore still standing in the same spot, but she had lowered the gun.
That was good. That removed the immediate danger and bought them more time.
Perhaps there would be a moment when she could distract Sarah or long enough that Dr. Connor could escape, but would he be savvy enough to do so? Would he take that chance?
"Honestly, I don't know what you want," Alison said. "I know what you’ve done, and I think I know why you did it, but I don't know what you expect the outcome of this to be. Let me ask you one question."
Sarah was silent, but she licked her lips and then swallowed.
"Do you want to die?" Alison asked.
"What?"
"Is that your end goal?" Alison asked. "Do you want to die at the end of this, because I don't think that you do. You have more people to punish, don't you? Dr. Connor is an important one, but he’s not the last one, is he?"
"I’m running out of time," Sarah told her.
"Why?" Alison asked. "Why are you running out of time?"
"It’s too much, isn’t it?" Sarah asked. "I can't do this forever, I know that. I can't keep doing this, but I have to. That’s the truth about it?"
"So, what is it you want?" Alison asked.
"What do I want?" Sarah repeated.
It came across at first listen as someone echoing what had been said to make sense of the question, but Alison heard the subtle questioning tone in there, and some of the past few days knitted together even tighter. She wasn’t merely echoing the question, but also asking it. Her mind was fractured.
"You want to punish people for the mistakes they made," Alison said. "That’s what you want, isn’t it?"
"Yes!" Sarah stated forcefully as if she were reaching out and grabbing the word, taking the answer, obtaining some understanding. "They deserve to be punished."
"What happened was wrong," Alison said. "You testified against your brother at his trial, but it was out of love, not hate, wasn’t it?"
"He wanted to hurt people," Sarah said. "How could they not see that?
It was so clear. He had it written all over his face.
He had it burning in his eyes. I knew that if he didn't go to prison, he would hurt more people.
Prison is where he would be safe and then people would be safe.
" Sarah brought her mouth close to Dr. Connor’s ear and hissed into it. "He’s a coward just like you."
"Why was he a coward?" Alison asked quickly, wanting to take the focus away from the hostage.
"My brother never liked a fair fight," Sarah said with a smile. "He chose those weaker than him to hurt. He liked to surprise them. In prison, they would have hurt him, and he wouldn’t have hurt them."
"Did he hurt you?" Alison asked, keeping her voice soft.
"Sometimes," Sarah said. "He…he…"
"Did he…was he the one who made you this way?" Alison asked.
"What way?" Sarah snapped.
"No, I didn't mean it like that," Alison said. "Do you think your brother had a psychic episode or was he faking it, Sarah?"
There was silence as the seconds dragged by.
"I don't know," she finally said.
"But it’s real with you, isn’t it?" Alison asked. "It happened after he was committed, and it happened after he was released. It’s happened against multiple times. Did it happen before he killed the father and child?"
"It’s…I don't know," Sarah whispered.
"Do you remember what you did?" Alison asked. "Do you remember the people you killed?"
"I…I don't know," Sarah said. "I think I did something, didn't I? I went somewhere. I was here, wasn’t I? With him, and now I’m here with him again, and it has to be here, doesn’t it?
This is where it all started. No, stupid.
It didn't start here. It didn't end here, either. It won't end here, but it will. It’s—"
"It’s okay," Sarah said. She couldn’t let Sarah slip away into something or someone who would kill Dr. Connor because there was nothing left to do. "Do you remember this place? DO you remember being helped here?"
"I remember him," Sarah said. "I remember seeing him."
"Michael?" Alison asked.
"No," Sarah replied as if that were ludicrous.
"Dr. Connor?" Alison tried.
"No!" Sarah shouted. "Not them. Him!"
Alison didn't want to antagonize her further, but she needed to keep her talking, to connect in some way, and give Sarah something to focus on. There was one other person.
"Judge Greene?" she asked gently.
"He came here," Sarah said, "but not to visit me."
"He came to see his sister," Allison said.
"Yes, yes, his sister," Sarah agreed. "There's always sisters to visit. He came here so many times, and he looked at me, but he pretended not to see me. I saw him, and he knows I saw him, and he still pretended not to recognize me. And Michael was here. Michael was here. He saw Michael, too, and he knew both of us, and he still pretended that he didn't. He pretended that he wasn’t the one who put us both here. And then one time—it was after it all, and I couldn’t find Michael, and the green judge came to me, and he whispered in my ear, and do you know what he whispered? "
Dr. Connor had one pale, but the dark patch on his pants had not grown any larger.
"What did he whisper?" Alison asked.
"He said, ‘I’m sorry.’ That’s what he told me.
And I could hear in his voice that he was sorry, but he said it as if that was supposed to solve everything.
He thought that would make it all better after all those years, but it didn’t; it only made it worse.
H coddle be sorry all he wanted, but he was the one who made it all happen.
He didn't do anything back then, so what was the point in being sorry? He didn’t do anything once he was sorry, so was he really sorry?
Do you know what I said to him the last time I saw him? I told him I was sorry."
Sarah shield wide and then broke into a cackle. That laughter was quickly silenced when boots were heard in the distance.
"It’s fine," Alison assured her. "I’m here with Detective Moore, and you knew more of us would come, but the situation hasn’t changed. You’re still in control."
"I am," Sarah maintained. "I knew this moment would happen, and…I killed him, didn't I?"
"Judge Greene?" Alison asked. "Yes, you killed him. Do you remember that, Sarah?"
"His photo was on my wall," Sarah said. "Then it fell, and it ripped, and I picked it up, and…" Another wide grin covered her face. "That’s when I knew what to do. He split me in half, he split my brother in half, he split us in half, he split the world in half."
"How much do you remember, Sarah?" Alison asked. "About all of it? How many people have you killed?"
"I killed the green judge," Sarah said. "And all of the ones who mattered, and some of them or all of them, and the doctor! He needs to be next. He wouldn’t look at me either. He only looked at my brother, his diamond in the rough, and my brother spoke to me about him. Do you know who I’m talking about? "
"Dr. Connor?" Alison asked.
"Yes, he was the one. My brother spoke to me about him. He came to my room when no one else knew, and he whispered the truth to me. He told me that Dr. Connor was going to heal him and make him all better and then send him out into the real world again, but it was all a big joke, a practical joke. Michael was never going to be healed. That’s the punchline, don't you see? And I couldn’t tell him because they wouldn’t believe me.
They wouldn’t even listen to me. No one ever listens to me! "
The knife was pulled backward into Connor’s neck, but not voluntarily.
A small trickle of blood trickled down from where the skin was cut, and it was as if any noise that Dr. Connor was able to make escaped through the small wound.
He opened his mouth slightly, but nothing came out, and it was the only part of him that moved. He was stock still apart from that.
Alison took two steps forward while raising her hand behind her again to tell Moore not to move.
Moore had the gun and was the more threatening of the two.
If she raised the gun, Sarah might be forced to react.
Alison had seen situations like this before, and she knew people.
Sarah had cut the skin, but she hadn’t meant to.
Not yet.
"I’m listening," Alison said. "I’m here, and I’m listening.
You’re right, no one listened to you in the past. Judge Greene didn't listen, the members of the jury didn't listen, Dr. Connor didn't listen, and your own brother didn't listen to you, did he? No one listened, and that’s a failing, but I’m here now, and I’m listening. "
"Only because I have a knife to the neck of the man who, though he was better than me," Sarah hissed.
Alison took another step forward, keeping her hands raised before hr.
"Yes, I’ll admit that. I’m here right now because you took a hostage, but I do want to listen to you. To the real you. I know what you’ve been through, and no one should have to suffer that, but you need help, and I know you know that. Not here, not with him, but real help so you can get better."
Sarah scoffed. "Better? Better than what?
Better than who? I see it in your eyes, too.
I saw it in all of their eyes right before I killed them.
They all begged, they were all sorry, but they all thought they were better than me.
No, they didn't think it; they knew it. They held the unshakable belief that they were a better human than I was. Do you know how idiotic that is? Do you know what I’ll do with him? "
"You told me already," Alison said. The other half of the mind was at the forefront, the part that could kill people at the drop of a hat or the slide of a knife. "You want to cut out his mind. Is that what he did to you?"
"He didn't do anything to me. He didn't dare. He took one look at me and knew he couldn’t help me.
He thought he could help my brother, but my brother didn't need help. We were both fine, but he still tried to treat Michael. And now, you come here, thinking you can talk to me and make me better. This is the me that’s better.
" Sarah licked her lips again. "I like doing this. You need to understand that."
"Okay," Alison said. "Help me to understand it. I understand some of what happened and why, but not all of it. If you want me to understand it, then you have to help me. I don't know you, Sarah."
"No, you don't know me, no one knows me," Sarah shouted.
The thundering of boots suddenly got loud, and Sarah’s eyes widened.
"How about I show you!" she shouted.