Never Knowing (31 page)

“I heard he e-mailed you again, Sara. Are you going to talk to him?”

“I haven’t decided.” I braced for her anger.

“Well, while you’re
deciding
, maybe you should consider this—the police said I might be the next person he tries to contact.” Her voice quivered on the last word and I realized how scared she was. “This time I hope he kills me.”

Then she hung up.

It took a full five minutes for my heart to stop pounding. I called Evan, but he didn’t answer. I knew I should talk to him before I made a decision and I did wait another hour, but when he still didn’t answer an odd kind of calm settled over me. I knew what I had to do.

I went upstairs and typed out an e-mail to John. All it contained was one sentence—
How can I help you, John
?—and my new phone numbers. Then, before I could allow myself to think about it any longer, I hit send.

*   *   *

But I still haven’t heard from him. It just about killed me not to ask Sandy if she told Julia I’d e-mailed him back.
Does she like me now? Now that I’m risking my life and my family
?
Now that Evan’s pissed off at me?
Then I told myself over and over again that I don’t care what she thinks. I’m getting so good at lying, I almost believe it.

The thing is, though, it’s not just for her. This will never end unless I find a way to make it end. And in my gut I know the only way to do that is to meet with him—you even agree with me. I know it’s crazy for me to think I can do something the police can’t. But sometimes, on a deep kinetic level, as much as I don’t understand what John does, something inside me
does
get it. I do think I have the power to stop him. And Evan is right, I like it.

Then I think of John, of that moment when he’s standing over those women, or lining someone up in his gun sights. I wonder if this is how he feels.

SESSION SEVENTEEN

Have you ever felt like you had it all in your hands, everything you ever wanted, but then you dropped it, or maybe you just squeezed too hard? The whole way here I was trying to come up with the perfect analogy for what’s been going on. And isn’t that just the story of my life? I’m always trying to make it perfect.

You know what my past relationships were like—epic dramas I discussed with anyone willing to listen. Either I was completely obsessed with my ex-boyfriends or they were completely obsessed with me. And as your thick file can attest, things didn’t end well.

God, when you used to say, “You’ll know when it’s the right person.…” I wanted to throw things at you. But you’d just give me that all-knowing smile of yours and say, “Trust me, Sara, real love doesn’t feel like that.” If I was currently entangled in a relationship that was heading straight for a cliff, even if deep down I
knew
it, I’d argue with you until I was blue in the face that he was The One!

I never understood just how wrong they all were and just how right you were until I met Evan. My past relationships were like a brutal hockey game—a brawl could break out at any minute, we were never on the same side, and no one ever won. Evan and I were
always
on the same team. I never had to look behind me or question where he was—I knew he was skating beside me, working in tandem with the same goal in sight. But it’s like all of a sudden I looked up and now he’s on the opposite side of the rink, we’re both playing defense, and someone’s going to get slammed into the wall.

What’s been happening between Evan and me lately, all this fighting, isn’t good. It scares me as much as John does. But it’s my own reactions that scare me the most. Because when someone pushes me, I push back harder.

*   *   *

John finally called the day after our last session.

“I missed talking to you.”

I didn’t answer right away, wasn’t sure I could without calling him every name in the book.

“I’m glad you e-mailed,” he said. “I was worried.”

He
was worried? That was interesting. Billy and most of the books I’d read said serial killers don’t feel remorse but knew how to emulate it, so I figured they must understand the principle behind it. I decided to test my theory.

“What you did was horrible, John.”

“What I did?”

“Leaving the Barbie with its face burned off, then sending e-mails you know are going to upset me. You made me feel awful.”

“You
lied
to me.”

“You were asking unfair questions. You might be Ally’s biological grandfather, but I don’t know what you want from us—or from her. I’d have to be crazy to give you personal details about my child.”

“I just wanted to get to know you better.” He sounded unsure, like he was thrown off guard by my confident tone.

“But you’re not sure if you can trust me yet, right? It’s the same for me. If you
genuinely
want to get to know me, you can’t flip out like that. And if you get mad you can’t just threaten me. You have to tell me what’s bothering you and we’ll try to deal with it, okay?”

He was quiet for a bit, but I waited him out. Finally he said, “I can’t stop it.”

“Can’t stop what?”

“Losing my temper. It just happens.”

I tried to think of something to say, but how could I give advice on something I can’t control in myself? Then I wondered why I wanted to help him. Did I actually think there could be a man in the monster? And what would that prove? That I wasn’t a monster? I pushed the thought away.

“It’s the same for me, John, but I—”

“It’s
not
the same.”

“Because you kill people?” My pulse sped up at my daring, but he didn’t answer. I stepped farther out on the limb.

“Sometimes when I lose my temper I hurt people too. I’ve done some crazy things.”

“I’m not
crazy
.”

“I meant sometimes I can understand what you might feel like when you do it. How you just want to control them and how angry they must make you feel.” I thought back to that moment on the stairs with Derek, the smug look on his face. The thud when he hit the floor. I did understand, more than I wanted to.

John was silent again, but his breathing had sped up. Probably time to pull back, but something in me wanted to push harder, wanted to make
him
squirm.

“You said your dad was violent. Did he ever touch you sexually?”

“No.” His voice was disgusted, but I couldn’t stop the next words coming out of my mouth.

“What about your mother?”

His voice was loud in my ear. “Why are you doing this, Sara? Why are you saying these things?”

“This is how it felt when
you
asked questions about Ally.”

“Well, I don’t like it.” He sounded nervous, worried.

“Well, I don’t like it either.” When he didn’t respond, I opened my mouth to launch another verbal attack.
Stop, think
. What was I doing? My breath was coming fast, my face hot. I’d been so caught up in the moment, so alive with power, I forgot who I was talking to. I just wanted to hurt him.

Then it hit me: this was how John felt.

I was frozen for a moment, coming back into myself, wondering how much damage I’d done. I imagined Billy and Sandy freaking out in a room somewhere. I was supposed to be gathering information, not provoking him. John hadn’t hung up, though. There was still a chance to get things back on track.

I lowered my voice, struggling to sound calm. “Look, I don’t think this is easy for either of us. Maybe we could play a game?”

His voice was cautious. “What kind of game?”

“Kind of a truth-or-dare thing. I ask a question, you have to answer it honestly. Then you ask a question and I’ll answer it honestly. You can even ask about Ally.” I closed my eyes.

“You already proved you lie.”

“You lie too, John.”

“I’m
always
honest with you.”

“No, I don’t think you are. You want to know everything about me, but you have this whole other world you won’t talk about. Maybe I’m more like you than you think.”

“What do you mean?”

What
did
I mean? I thought back to a few minutes ago, how heady and exciting it felt walking that dangerous edge between reason and emotion. All my senses heightened, my body keyed up and ready to fight.

“I told you, I’ve hurt people when I’m mad. I even pushed someone down the stairs.” If I made it sound worse, would he open up more? “He broke his leg and there was blood everywhere. I don’t like feeling that out of control, and something tells me you really don’t either.”

He was silent.

I said, “I’m willing to go first.…”

After a moment he said, “We can try it.”

“Okay, ask me anything you want.”

There was a long pause. I held my breath.

Finally, he said, “Are you scared of me?”

“Yes.”

He sounded surprised. “Why? I’ve been nice.”

I didn’t even know how to begin to answer that.

“It’s my turn now. Why do you make dolls with the girls’ hair and clothes?”

“So they stay with me. Were you happy with your adopted family?”

His question caught me off guard. No one had ever asked before. And there had been moments of happiness, but always wrapped in worry of when it would be taken away. I flashed to a memory of baking a meat pie with Mom when I was thirteen. The kitchen was warm and fragrant with the scent of meat cooking, garlic, onion. Her hand soft on mine as we rolled out the crust, laughing at our mess. We had just popped the pie in the oven when she rushed to the bathroom. She emerged pale and weak, saying she needed to lie down and asking me to watch the pie. I carefully took it out when the top was golden brown, excited to show Dad.

When he came home an hour later he glanced at the stove, then slammed his hand down on my shoulders and spun me around. “How long has the stove been left on?” His face was red, his neck corded.

I was so scared I couldn’t answer. From the corner of my eye I saw Lauren take Melanie’s hand and leave the kitchen.

“Where’s your mother?”

When I still didn’t answer, he shook my shoulder.

“She’s … she’s sleeping. I forgot about the stove. But—”

“You could’ve burned the house down.”

He released my shoulder, but I could still feel where his hand had been. I rubbed at it. His voice was mean and hard as he pointed down the hall. “Go.”

But I didn’t tell John any of that now.

“I was happy sometimes. My turn. Why do you want the girls to stay with you?”

“Because I get lonely. Did you wonder about me when you were younger?” He started to say something else, then stopped and cleared his throat, like he was uncomfortable. “Am I what you wanted for a dad?”

He couldn’t be serious. But he was.

“I wanted to know who my real father was, what he was like, yeah.” How was I going to answer the second part? “You … you have a lot of the qualities I would’ve liked in a father.” As I said the words, I realized they were partly true—he had given me something I’d wanted from my dad most of my childhood, something I didn’t want to admit I still needed: attention.
Change the subject, Sara.
“Why do you always kill people in the summer?”

He was quiet for a little while. Then, his voice cautious, he said, “The first time it happened, I was hunting. I came across this couple in the woods and they were … you know. The man saw me.” His voice sped up. “And he comes at me, and he’s swinging. So I have to fight back, and we’re down on the ground and he’s hitting
really
hard with these sucker punches, and he got a couple of good ones in, but I had my knife and
smack
it goes in right up under his rib cage.”

“So you killed him?”

“One more thrust did it. But the girl, she’s screaming. Then she sees me looking at her and she starts to run—I only ran after her because
she
ran. So she’s running harder, but I just wanted to explain that it’s not my fault, it was self-defense. Then when I caught up to her…” A long pause, then he said, “Maybe a father shouldn’t talk to his daughter about this kind of stuff.”

I didn’t want to hear any of what he was telling me, but I said, “It’s okay, John. It’s good to talk about it.” I kept my voice casual. “What happened?”

“I didn’t want to do it. But I had her pinned down and she kept screaming. I wasn’t feeling well that day—it was really hot out. But after she was dead I felt better.”

He paused, waiting for me to say something. But I was mute.

“I stayed with her for a while. But when I left, the noise came back, so I visited her again and it went away. But then they found her.…”

I pictured a decomposing body in the woods, John staring down at her. I closed my eyes.

“So you started making the dolls?”

“Yeah.” He sounded relieved, like he was pleased that I understood. “With your mother I didn’t get to finish.” His voice turned angry. “I had to do it again with another woman, then the noise left. That’s when I knew for sure.” He was quiet for a few seconds. “But I’m glad I didn’t finish or I wouldn’t have you.”

This time I was the one who changed the subject. “This noise, John. Do you hear voices?”

“I told you, I’m not crazy.” He said it like I was the crazy one. “My head just hurts. And my ears won’t stop ringing.”

Then it clicked.

“Do you get
migraines
?”

“All the time.”

“They’re worse when it’s hot out, aren’t they?” Now I was the one who sounded excited.

“Yeah, that’s when they’re really bad.”

How did I miss this? All the signs were there. His groaning, the slurred voice, his irritation with noise. Heat-induced migraines.

“I get them too, John.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, they’re awful. And they’re worse for me in the summer too.”

“Like father, like daughter, huh?”

His words snapped me back to reality. This wasn’t a bonding talk with a long-lost father.

“They started when I was a teenager,” I said. “When did they start for you?”

“When I was kid.”

“Do you take anything for them?” If he had a prescription the police might be able to track him down that way.