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  The victim clearly went on a rampage. Why leave the two screechiest little bastards in the place behind? He would’ve bit their heads off first if it were him. Why stop at eating… he counted… just ten birds? Why not finish the job? Ten bothered him too. It wasn’t a nice round number. It was even, but there was one extra, no matter what you did. You had one too many. Or four. You could divide it in twos, but you’d have five pairs. He would stop at six. Three pairs. That’s good. But this guy killed four more than that. Two more pairs. Two two’s, which was doubly unlucky. Double was two as well.

  He scratched his neck. Four wasn’t as unlucky as two, but it was suspicious. Four said there was fuckery afoot, and two said it’d get you in the end.

  “Stop it,” he told himself. He had to get this number thing under control. He’d promised Lou he wouldn’t let it consume him again. He counted to six. Slowly, the itch faded, and he forced his thoughts away from the numbers that mocked him.

  Someone cleared their throat behind him.

  “What?” he continued to make notes.

  “Just here to process the scene,” a male voice said.

  “Good.” He didn’t look to see who stood behind him. “There are footprints in the blood there. Probably just partials, but looks like a woman’s shoe. Wedge heel.”

  “The employee’s, I imagine.”

  “Was she wearing a wedge shoe?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Milo shook his head. Idiot. “I guess that’s something you should find out before you leave. I saw her outside. She had sneakers on. Ugly pink ones. Not that it matters if they were ugly, I suppose. And she told the cop outside she stopped at the aquariums.”

  “Could’ve lied.”

  “She could’ve. Again, though, she wasn’t wearing a wedge shoe. She had sneakers on when I saw her.”

  “Could’ve wore wedges to work and changed.”

  “After seeing a dead guy, she’s going to think about changing her shoes?”

  “I’ll confirm she was wearing the sneakers.”

  “Whatever. Any idea on cause of death?”

  The sound of footsteps. Then he watched as the blue-suited boy—was he even out of high school—knelt next to the body. He examined the eyes, the hands, and then opened the man’s mouth.

  “Yep,” the boy said. He pushed a gloved hand into the mouth and foraged around a bit.

  Milo’s nerves tightened at his carelessness.

  “Here you go.” The boy stood and held his hand out, palm up.

  He grimaced at the savaged bird’s head.

  “Choked on a budgie. That’s a new one.”

  “Or someone choked him with it.”

  “Not everything is a homicide.”

  “Of course not.” Fuckwad. “But most dead bodies I find happen because of murder.”

  “We’ll know more after we process the scene and do an autopsy, I guess.”

  He guessed…

  “Um…” a voice behind them interrupted his reply. “Detective Smalls?”

  He turned. “You’re supposed to be outside.”

  The officer smiled. “Captain called. You’re supposed to go back to the station.”

  “When I’m through here.”

  “She was pretty clear; you’re supposed to go now.”

  He clenched his jaw. “I’m investigating a potential homicide. Whatever bullshit she’s dreamed up this morning can wait.”

  “Detective Jones is outside. Captain said he’ll take over and to tell you to leave the scene. She said to remind you of the restraining order.”

  And Jones would make a cluster-fuck of the evidence. Milo sighed. “Fine. I have what I need.” He pointed to the body. “I want lots of pictures. Get everything from the front door to the cages. Got it?”

  “Sure.”

  The officer stood back as he walked toward the door. Captain Cunt better have a good reason for giving his scene to Jones. What was she thinking anyway? Jones wasn’t even a mediocre detective. How the moron even had a job was a mystery. He had zero solved cases, and he smelled like sausages and sour milk on a good day. Milo kept his distance from the smelly bastard long before the restraining order made it mandatory.

  CHAPTER 5

  The house was quiet, except for the muffled sounds of Charlie snoring upstairs. The other patients, cut down to six now, including Charlie, would sleep for several hours yet. At their emergency meeting last night, which Rochelle arranged to calm her own nerves more than those of her patients, she’d laced their drinks with a sedative and then gently nudged them all to bed.

  She didn’t like them staying over, because mornings were Rochelle’s time to reflect and find her center, but she couldn’t have one of them hearing about Shamus on the news or driving past the pet store, which Ozzie had visited with Shamus less than twelve hours earlier, and seeing the emergency vehicles outside. It angered her to know Shamus could undo all of his friends’ progress in a single night. She wouldn’t allow him to cause any more damage.

  He was gone. They would have to move on.

  Rochelle smoothed the letter she’d retrieved from the mailbox she rented in her mother’s name. She only checked the box once each month. There was only ever one letter in it. From him.

  She tore the end of the envelope, careful not to damage the stamp. Rochelle then slid the blue paper from inside. She unfolded it slowly.

  Rebecca, it read. I miss you terribly. You’ve stopped replying and this causes me great concern. It makes me worry you might have abandoned me and our project. We will make history with this, Rebecca. Please, tell me you haven’t given up. Tell me I don’t have to find you.

  Rochelle bit her lip. He didn’t know how to find her. She had no reason to feel the anxiety that leapt to her chest. He only knew about the mailbox. She was careful when she visited, and never went on the same day. Sometimes she sent one of her patients, to throw him off. No. He couldn’t find her. Taking a deep breath, Rochelle continued reading.

  The program details have been finalized. All I need are our test subjects. Please, let me know if they’re ready.

  Rochelle Middleton was proud of her clinic and the thought of closing it and giving her patients to him felt like failure. True, it had been an old farm house she bought for almost nothing and then remodeled so it looked less quaint retreat and more sterile place of healing, but it was a project she’d labored over for years. She’d stripped the horrid wallpaper in the six bedrooms, one master suite and five smaller guest rooms, hired a contractor who gutted the entire place, lathe and plaster was so disgusting after all, and then she instructed him to put delicate iron latticework over the windows. Security bars disguised as posh decoration.

  Downstairs, Rochelle fashioned the old summer kitchen at the back of the house into a sanctuary for her furry children. She loved cats. Not in a crazy, lonely spinster way. Rochelle had been in two long-term relationships. She had even been pregnant once. It didn’t stick. The child, a girl, had died before Rochelle made it to the third trimester. Rochelle realized soon after that she had a natural dislike for kids. Dirty, needy creatures, all of them. He agreed, although she suspected he mourned the child a little. His ego was big enough to have enjoyed having a mini version of himself roaming around.

  Her feline companions were much easier to love than humans. Cats were fastidiously clean and mostly independent. They didn’t demand attention just because they could. Rochelle appreciated that. Every cat in her home had a name and its own bed in the sanctuary, although they seemed to like cuddling together in a mass of fur and whiskers. Rochelle never met a cat she didn’t want to take care of. The patients knew she had a few, but they had no inkling of the true number. Forty-three. She used to have forty-five, but Edgar and Sullivan fought like little demons. She had to remove them from the family.

  Still, she loved them despite their faults, like she loved her patients. All of the cats who’d been unable to fit in had a tiny cross to mark their graves behind the barn. Rochelle shed a
tear for them, murmured a prayer, and showed the other cats what happened if they didn’t behave. Cats were smart. They took notice, she was sure.

  In the mudroom next to the cat area, she’d lined up litter boxes. Although many of her cats preferred to use the cat door and do their business outside, a few of them were persnickety about pooping in the grass and preferred the litter boxes, which Rochelle cleaned three times a day. One learned quickly to keep the litter boxes fresh. Cat urine was a most offensive smell.

  Rochelle kept the summer kitchen locked when the patients were visiting. The cats roamed freely outside and in the barns. They were not allowed in the main part of the house unless she invited them. Her favorite was Murray, the oldest and best behaved of all of her cats. He spent most of his time in the main part of the house, because he’d earned that privilege.

  She’d already cleaned the boxes shortly before the sun rose. After the others went to bed, she brought Murray and Dexter into the house. Dexter was a baby still, but he didn’t behave as most kittens do. He liked to scurry upstairs to the guest bath, where he would curl up in the sink and clean himself before falling asleep. Rochelle found the behavior curious, but endearing. She’d sent them back into their room after cleaning the litter boxes and getting a cuddle from Murray.

  If she followed through with the plan, she’d have to tell him where to find her, and he’d know about the cats. She’d promised not to collect anymore… and he’d figure out what she’d done with the failed patients. He wouldn’t be pleased. She wasn’t supposed to hurt them. But he wasn’t there. He didn’t see what Rochelle saw. Sometimes the best thing you could do for someone was to just let them go. Prolonging their suffering was inhumane.

  Rochelle read the last line of the letter. And I know what you did, Rebecca. I forgive you, but must demand you stop this foolishness immediately. I deplore punishing you, my love, but I will if you force my hand.

  She crumpled the page and tucked it into the pocket of her robe. Rochelle picked up her coffee and then she crept down the stairs to the basement, careful not to wake her patients, not that they would ever follow. The basement was her sacred place, and they knew the first rule of the program was that they never intruded on this space. However, they’d realize Shamus hadn’t returned last night and they’d come looking to her for reassurance, just as they had when Tom, Peter, and Sally’s bodies were discovered. One might disturb her, or they might notice her outside and then she’d have to eliminate another one.

  Damn Shamus.

  Rochelle took a deep breath. She had to find her center. Her calm, happy place. Otherwise, they’d get restless too, and if the patients grew restless, she risked losing the tenuous control she managed to gain. They had to be completely under her thumb before she allowed him to meet them.

  Shamus was better off now, she told herself. It was the only way to put him out of his misery.

  She flipped the switch on the overhead fluorescent lights, which were covered by a thick plastic panel, because light bulbs were untrustworthy things that Rochelle preferred not to look at. She’d keep the entire place dark if she could, but her eyes had started failing, and Rochelle couldn’t see as well as she used to. Replacing her fixtures with fluorescent ones made it a little easier. The standard bulbs, particularly those new curly energy-saving monstrosities, made Rochelle anxious. She wasn’t fond of the fluorescent tubes either, but they weren’t as nerve-wracking as the bulbs.

  Perhaps her anxiety was because her father died while eating a light bulb. He had a thing about glass. The doctor in her knew there was no perhaps about it. Rochelle still felt a little guilty about feeding it to him, but she was different from the others. She’d evolved and had worked hard to move past her fears and compulsions. Light bulbs weren’t an irrational fear. They could spark and cause a fire, or they could explode, becoming a sharp hazard to anyone nearby. In general, light bulbs were dangerous. She wasn’t strange for not liking them. And her father shouldn’t have tried to change that.

  She eyed the light overhead, a tiny sliver of anxiety pierced her heart. Damn Shamus again, for making her weak.

  The basement, when illuminated by the light she preferred not to think about, instantly soothed Rochelle’s frazzled nerves. Her contractor had done a marvelous job with this space. When she’d taken over the house, the entire basement had a dirt floor and cobweb infested rafters. Now, a cement floor covered in soft carpet hid what was buried in the cellar many years ago. Sure, Rochelle could’ve gone to the cops about the skeletons, but she knew who they were. A little digging revealed the previous owner, a woman in her seventies, had been left by three husbands. Turned out they hadn’t gone far. Nobody missed them so there was little point in digging up old ghosts.

  She’d only redone half of the space. The old pantry, with its many shelves and tables, she’d left alone. And in the utility area, only a rough cement floor had been installed, so she didn’t have to walk through the dirt to escape out her secret exit. The center section of the basement was all she needed for her office.

  The walls and ceiling took more creativity than the floor, because the basement was musty and damp, and the contractor said it’d be unwise to make the wiring and pipes completely inaccessible. In the end, he convinced her to use paneling on the walls and to install a suspended ceiling. She’d painted the paneling a serene sky blue, her favorite color, and furnished the room with her father’s large desk, and two soft couches in a slightly darker shade of blue than the walls. In the far corner was a filing cabinet, where Rochelle kept her patient information. She walked to the cabinet and then opened the drawer marked “S”. Rochelle pulled out Shamus’ file and walked through the small door to the utility room.

  File in hand, Rochelle made her way up the stairs that led to the main floor mudroom. It was handy having this little exit, hidden from passersby and house guests. Rochelle slid her feet into her rubber boots, and then opened the mudroom door. Once outside, she quickly walked toward the barn, where she had a large metal barrel that she typically used to burn leaves and garbage. She tossed Shamus’ file in the barrel and then fished the matches from her pocket. Shamus was new to the group, so she hadn’t started an electronic file on him yet. Rochelle seldom logged patient information into the computer until they showed signs of progress. If they passed their first two desensitization tests, patients could have a legitimate place in Rochelle’s program. If they didn’t, they were eliminated. Entirely. This allowed her some deniability should they prove to be hopeless cases like Shamus.

  Rochelle struck the match against the box, stared at the flame for a moment, and then tossed it into the barrel. She waited for the folder and the many pages it contained to ignite, and then tossed the crumpled letter inside. When the blue paper was nothing but ash, she turned back to the house.

  Time to tell everyone the bad news.

  ***

  Amanda pushed a pile of papers off the edge of her desk. She’d almost made it through all of the cases he had handled since starting at the department. Soon she could clean the mess up, which drove her nuts, and focus on current cases, but she had to confirm her suspicions about him first.

  He wasn’t crazy. Okay, he definitely wasn’t what one might call mentally stable, but the lack of social skills and his tendency to obsess over certain things was a product of his genius. His brain just didn’t work the way normal brains worked, and it got results. Every single case he’d solved was laid out in meticulous detail. He never overlooked a clue, even it didn’t seem like a clue to anyone else. His obsessive need to document everything meant he made arrests, and the convictions stuck. No throwing shit out on a technicality.

  These murders he wouldn’t let go of would be another one of those cases, if he just caught the right lead. His neuroses were getting in the way this time, though. Amanda tried to keep him toeing the line, but he just didn’t give a fuck. Now her bosses, the commissioner and the mayor, took notice of him and it wasn’t in a good way.

  It was time
to call in the big guns.

  “Joy?” Amanda called.

  The sound of a chair moving and then a shadow loomed over Amanda’s desk.

  “Milo’s not here yet,” Joy said. “I think he’s avoiding the inevitable, or trying to annoy you.”

  “He’s trying to annoy me.” Amanda knew he hated her. Perhaps hate was too strong a word. He resented her. Maybe he had his eyes set on the captain’s office. He’d be effective, if his entire force didn’t quit on him. She would place bets on the latter happening. “Did you get the email I sent?”

  Joy nodded. “He’s going to be pissed about this.”

  “I know, but my boss is breathing down my neck about him. Something has to be done before he goes over my head and fires Milo.” Amanda scrolled through the website she’d discovered the night before. When Amanda had stumbled across Doctor Middleton’s name on one of Sally’s old arrest reports, she had done some digging. Rochelle Middleton’s website was impressive, but there were huge gaps in her personal history.

  Peter, the guy who’d torched himself, had also mentioned a Rochelle when he was arrested the month before his death. The arresting officers had made note of the name, but hadn’t recorded the number he’d given them to call for him. Idiots. However, Amanda suspected it was the same Rochelle who’d bailed Sally out of jail.

  Rochelle Middleton ran a treatment program for people suffering from extreme phobias and compulsions. She offered various levels of therapy, including a thirty-day treatment program that included group therapy almost daily.

  Amanda enrolled Milo in the program the minute she got into the office that morning.

  He would be furious, but he needed this. If the doctor wasn’t killing patients, and Amanda didn’t really believe she was, then it had to be someone connected with the group, most likely another patient. Or they were accidents as Amanda had been forced to sign off that they were. Doctor-patient confidentiality prevented Amanda from getting the information she needed from the doctor, but as part of the program, Milo could find out what they needed to know, and then he’d determine which was true. However, he had to act like himself to be believable. If he knew she was planting him to gather information, he’d focus too much on investigating and someone would realize he wasn’t a real patient.