Killer Career (15 page)

She must have returned by now. She’d said she’d tell him
everything, no matter what. He needed to know. The uncertainty was
killing him.

And what about Julie? Was something killing her? He’d soon find
out.

* * *

Julie sat behind her desk, papers strewn about. She looked normal and
seemed to be concentrating on a file. Was it an act?

Dade’s heart pounded. He was afraid to ask, but he had to know.

“Julie, what happened? What did the doctor say?”

She looked up and gave him a small smile. “It could be worse. The
tests were all normal except for my blood sugar. I’m hypoglycemic.
Dr. Crane says my blood sugar dropped to fifty-seven on the test and
it should have been at least seventy. He says improper diet, stress
and lack of sleep are probably what caused all those symptoms:
dizziness, vertigo, shakiness, headaches. He warned me to change my
regimen or I’ll get organ damage.”

“Did he prescribe anything?”

“Not medicine. I need to avoid refined sugar and carbohydrates and
eat lots of small meals instead of large ones. I’ll miss the
chocolate, but I’ll survive.”

It took a moment for her words to sink in. Low blood sugar. It wasn’t
good, but it was manageable. She could live with it. So could he.
Thank God it hadn’t been anything more serious.

He wheeled the chair closer and touched her hand. “I’ve got to
admit, you had me worried. I’m glad it wasn’t worse. I promise
not to eat any candy in front of you.”

“Especially your mom’s chocolate chip cookies. Don’t you dare
eat one of those anywhere where I can see you. You know how I love
those things.” She fixed him a stern gaze, with eyes bright from
unshed tears.

“I won’t, word of honor. You saw me through my crisis and I’ll
see you through yours.”

“Thanks, Dade. You know, this whole thing really shook me up. It
makes me realize how precious life is.”

“I know exactly what you mean. That’s how I felt when I woke up
from the coma.”

Their eyes connected. They’d shared so much together and now
something even more basic, namely, the instinct for survival.

Chapter Seventeen

Tyler lay still, hoping the lull of the waterbed would claim him.
Today had been especially tough. While writing his manuscript, the
buried memories had surfaced. He’d ignored them then, the result
being a blinding headache.

Now, in his semi-awake state, he could do so no longer.

“You smiled at her,” Mom yelled.

“That’s not a crime,” his father answered.

“Don’t lie to me. You’re sleeping with her.”

“Not hardly. You do enough whoring for the both of us. If we didn’t
have our boy, I’d be long gone.”

“You never loved me.”

“I did once, before I knew better.”

“You bastard, eat shit and die.”

In his bedroom, hidden beneath the covers, with fingers pressed
tightly against his ears, four-year old Tyler heard the swift sound
of a slap.

She’d done it again. How much more could Dad take?

Don’t go, Dad. Please don’t leave me alone with her,
he
prayed silently.

Was Dad’s love for him strong enough to make him stay? How much
could it stretch before it snapped?

A few days later he learned the answer when Dad was found slumped in
the passenger seat of the car. Mom claimed it was a suicide and
that’s what she told the police. Tyler didn’t want to believe
that, since Dad had promised not to leave.

There was something else he should remember, but how could he think
with this pounding going on. Tyler winced as the familiar pressure
built.

If only he could rest, but each time he slept, the nightmares began,
more vivid and petrifying than anything he imagined in his waking
hours.

His eyes drooped. He willed himself to stay awake, but it was no use.

* * *

He was six again and in the back seat of his parent’s car. Mother
pulled into the garage and hit the remote. Dad slept in the front. No
one moved or spoke. The exhaust film rose, forming clouds around
them. The motor whirred. His head whirled. His throat tickled, but it
took too much effort to cough.

“Robbie, come,” his mother said.

His name was Tyler, like Dad. He didn’t like it when she used his
middle name. He glared back at her.

“Did you hear me? Get out of there,” she said, swinging open the
back door. As he stumbled out, his mother’s golden hair shone like
a flashlight lighting his way.

“What about---” he began, glancing back at his father in the
front seat.

“Forget him.” She yanked Tyler away from the mounting film and
into the house.

In the background the engine drummed to the beat of his throbbing
temples.

Then she was all over him, removing his shirt, gliding her hand over
his chest, touching him, reaching lower. His stomach turned. He knew
this was wrong.

“No,” he screamed, jerking away from her.

She reached for him again. He bit her arm.

“You ungrateful little brat. I should’ve left you in the garage
with your father. I can still do it. Is that what you want?”

A chill shot through him. He shook his head.

She flashed a smile that didn’t reach her glittering eyes. “All
right, listen to me, young man. From now on, you’ll do what I say,
when I say it. Now get to your bedroom.”

His feet wouldn’t move. She grabbed him by the arm and dragged him
down the hall as if he were a stuffed animal. Once in the bedroom,
she locked the door.

With bleary-eyed amazement, he watched her rummage through the closet
and take out two long-sleeved shirts. Before he could guess what was
happening, she’d tied one sleeve around his wrist and onto the
bedpost.

“What’re you doing, Mother?”

She grabbed his other wrist.

“Let me go.”

He bucked and squirmed.

She shoved a pillow over his nose, making him gasp for air.

The bonds grew tighter, digging into his wrists.

“Now you’ll obey,” she said. “I birthed you. You owe me your
life, and I can take it away any time, kiddo.”

When he’d given up, she removed the pillow from his face. With a
tender smile, she brushed the wet hair from his forehead.

He lay still, watching her.

“Be a good boy. You’re mommy’s little man now,” she said.

“No, I’m not.” He glared into her gleaming emerald eyes.

Her smile chilled him like an ice cream headache.

“That’s no way to speak to your mother,” she said, smacking his
cheek.

Everything turned red as helpless rage filled him.

* * *

Tyler awoke with a start.

It took him a few minutes to realize he was in bed by himself in his
penthouse on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. He wasn’t a child, but a
best-selling author. His dream couldn’t have been real. Probably
his imagination working overtime, nothing more.

What he did remember was after Dad died, his mother grew meaner, if
that was possible. Then there were the men who showed up in long
cars, honking their horns for her to come out. She would disappear
for hours, leaving Tyler to fend for himself.

One morning, when he was twelve, Mom didn’t come out of her room.
Assuming she’d overslept or not arrived home from the night before,
he made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and dressed for school.

As he stepped outside, he noticed the garage door lay open. He better
close it or Mom would blame him. Everything was always his fault.

He sensed a difference before he knew what it was. His finger froze
over the button. Strange. Something big was hanging from the pulley.
He stepped inside for a better look.

What he saw made him gape. Mean Mom hung by her neck, with her eyes
glassy and lips purple. She had to be dead. For once something had
gone right and his prayers were answered.

After the ambulance was called and the body removed, the authorities
stepped in and put Tyler in an institution. At first it seemed like a
jail, but once he figured out people didn’t bother him if he kept
to himself, he had no problem being there.

Sure, once in a while, he was trotted out for inspection by
prospective foster parents. No one wanted him, but he didn’t want
them either, so it didn’t matter. Except maybe once.

As usual, he and five other boys were summoned. A not bad looking
guy, who kind of reminded Tyler of his father, strolled up and down
the line, examining each boy as if he were a piece of meat in a
butcher case. Old Melba, the skinny black-skinned social worker,
accompanied the man.

They stopped in front of Tyler. His heart beat fast as the man looked
him over and smiled. Tyler smiled back. It might not be bad living
with this guy.

“You seem like a nice young boy.”

“Mr. Condon, you better think twice about this one. He’s
unstable,” Melba broke in, flashing Tyler a condescending look.

“But he seems intelligent,” the man said.

In a loud whisper, Melba replied, “In all good conscience, I must
inform you he’s got bad blood. His parents committed suicide.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

He flashed Tyler a regretful look and turned away.

Tyler wanted to scream. He was himself, not his mother or father.
That damn Melba. She’d ruined everything.

“You’re a mean bitch. I’ll get even with you,” he said right
to her face.

The woman arched her eyebrows and grabbed him by the elbow. “You’re
a troublemaker, boy. Blood always tells.”

Right then and there she dragged him to the administrator’s office
where he received a lecture and was ordered to read a pile of books
as punishment. Little did Melba know she’d been responsible for
handing him a reward. Through reading, Tyler entered a whole new
world where, instead of being himself, he became the characters in
his books.

He grabbed more novels from the institution’s library and devoured
them. After a while, he decided he could do better. He’d make up
his own fictional world where people like Melba paid for their sins.
He kept his writing hidden and used different names for the
characters in case someone discovered what he wrote.

How ironic when Melba finally got hers on a boring field trip to
Willow Falls, Wisconsin. He’d gotten separated from the group, but
when he’d caught up with it he’d heard she’d slipped over the
rocks by the waterfall and hit the back of her head. Tyler knew
better. Someone threw a rock at her and she’d lost her balance,
just like in his book.

What genius. Great minds do think alike.

Power filled him at the thought his books could actually force things
to happen in the real world. While in the villain’s viewpoint, he
could do anything he wanted. Adopting the guise of fiction, he
tortured and killed everyone who’d made him suffer.

He fell further into a make-believe labyrinth, embracing it,
substituting the book world for reality, sometimes not emerging for
days. The experience was exhilarating, frightening and addictive.
Each time he had to have more.

At the institution, no one cared what he did. He was a fixture to be
fed, clothed and educated. If he escaped into his writing world, no
one paid attention. No one could guess what lay beneath his model
student veneer. His hungry mind ate up the courses offered, though
his favorites were computer technology and biology. Through long
hours in the lab, he learned to take apart a computer and how to
design and set up programs.

Because he was smart, he never fit in with the other guys. The girls
were a different story. They hung all over him, but they didn’t
matter. They were unreal characters to be manipulated for pleasure
and release.

Tyler was smart enough, so he should have seen it coming, but for
some reason he didn’t pay attention. He’d become so engrossed
with his fantasy world, he’d lost track of the passing years. When
he turned eighteen, the blow hit him. He was thrust out of the
institution and forced to fend for himself, with no family or friends
to support him.

To survive, he had to work. He put his computer knowledge to use and
became a technician by day. As soon as he got home at night, instead
of watching television or going out for drinks with the other
workers, he escaped into writing. It carried him through what might
have been lonely hours.

Reality and fiction blurred. His plots and images grew complicated
and graphic, fixating on solved and unsolved murders, as if he’d
actually been there.

That might have been enough for him, if not for chance. On his
twenty-eighth
birthday, he grew
restless. Instead of writing, he flipped the channels on the
television’s remote and landed on a commercial promoting Max Rex’s
latest bestseller,
Liar
.

Tyler had read it. It was good, but not half as good as anything he’d
written. The question preyed on his mind,
Why should Rex receive
all the adulation
?

Tyler knew he was better, but for other people to know it, he’d
have to share his secret world. All this time his writing had been a
private part of him, not something to be trotted out and examined by
the public. With irritated fascination, he charted the growth of
popularity for Rex’s mystery. The last straw came when
Liar
jumped up to first place on the New York Times bestseller list.

In a fit of pique, he dashed off a submission to Rex’s editor. Less
than two weeks later he got a call requesting the entire manuscript.

Almost four weeks to the day, the phone rang again. “I want it. Do
you have any others,” the editor asked.

A sense of elation filled Tyler as he hung up the phone. The man had
confirmed what Tyler already knew. He had talent. Soon the world
would realize it.

He dialed Max Rex’s agent and relayed the generous offer he’d
received from the publisher. A bidding war ensued, with Tyler gaining
a larger advance than before. Not long afterward, Tyler became an
“overnight success” and could do no wrong. As more of his books
were released, his star ascended. The adulation became as addictive
as writing.