“What happened to you? Where’d you go?”
He drops the hose. “What do you want from me?”
“Your help,” I say. “If Emma reminds you of your sister, then you owe it to her to help her. This is your chance at some redemption, Jesse. Don’t let it pass you by.”
He looks up at the ceiling and keeps his gaze up there as he comes to a decision. When he looks back at me, his face is tight with anger. “A bunch of us were sent to a halfway house,” he says. “I was allowed to move out about six months ago. I have my own place now and I always show up to work and I never miss my doctor’s appointments and always take my meds. I’m fine now. I’m no longer a danger to society,” he says, and he says it as though he’s rehearsed the lines over and over, as if he were forced to memorize them on the day Grover Hills was shut down and he was sent forth into the world to fend for himself.
“The guy from the picture, it also looks like another guy who might have been there too.”
“Where? The halfway house?”
“Both. The Grove,” he says, “that’s what we called it. He was there and at the halfway house. I really can’t remember his name.”
“Did he have a habit of killing and digging up pets?”
He pulls back a little in disgust. “What? No, no, not that I know of. Jesus, that’s wrong,” he says, and I picture the day we found him after he’d had his hands deep inside his sister. I wonder what would have gotten the same wrong reaction from the predrug Jesse Cartman.
“The Twins have names?”
He bends down and picks the hose back up. “Just the Twins. Twin One and Twin Two.”
“Where is this halfway house?” I ask him.
“Town. Worcester Street,” he says, and gives me the address.
I thank him for his time, not real sure how I feel about Jesse Cart-man. Back when I first saw what he had done, all I wanted to do was put a bullet between his eyes. Now he’s a different person. It’s as though the man who killed his sister has disappeared, and this new version of him has to live with that guilt. For the first time it really sinks in that he was a victim back then too, a victim of a sickness he couldn’t control, a victim who slipped through the cracks along with others who, with the right medication in the first place, never needed to have hurt anybody.
If he were a criminal, he’d have been locked away. He’d have been released from jail within the last couple of years, and he’d have come out a far more violent man. At least this way there’s a chance he can function in society.
“I truly am better now,” he says, as if reading my thoughts. “I truly hope you are,” I tell him, aware the only thing stopping him from trying to eat somebody else are a few small pills that he pops every morning along with his cornflakes when he wakes up to carry on with his normal life.
chapter thirty-five
The walls are blurry and sway a little when Cooper starts coming around. There’s a metallic taste in his mouth and he probes it with his finger. He’s bitten down on the side of his tongue, the flesh torn and swollen.
There is no light coming into the room. He can tell by feel that he’s in a padded cell. He’s either in Sunnyview or Eastlake. Most likely it’s Sunnyview. Adrian must have followed him out here the other night since he knows about Emma Green, and he certainly would want to hide somewhere he was somewhat familiar with. Cooper doesn’t remember any of the trip here. In the end he had to accept Adrian was going to shoot him with the Taser, but it was the only way if he wanted to change location. The police are probably already at Grover Hills and he couldn’t afford to be found there covered in a dead girl’s blood. They’d arrest Adrian and he’d tell them everything he knew about Cooper, including what he knew about Emma Green, which was turning out to be quite a lot. Adrian would have led the police straight here. The police would be saving Cooper only to crucify him.
He’s done with the baby steps. Now he has to go full throttle. It’s a three-part plan. Escape. Kill Adrian. And make up a story to put him in the clear. It’s all going to work out. In fact, there’s no reason he can’t come out of all this looking like a hero and write his book. And, if he can get hold of the file Adrian was holding up earlier, he might be able to track down Natalie Flowers.
God, that would make all of this worth it.
Unless the cops have found the photographs.
That’s what he needs to determine once he gets out of here. He’ll have to return to his office and see if the pictures are still there. If they are then the three-part plan will work out. If they’re gone, then the three-part plan has to change. Escape. Kill Adrian. And get the hell out of New Zealand. He doesn’t know exactly how somebody goes about doing something like that, but if people dumber than him can flee the country, then there shouldn’t be any reason he can’t too.
He walks the room. It’s completely padded. Not just the walls, but the floor too. He jumps up but can’t reach the ceiling. It might be padded too. There might also be a light up there. He walks a grid formation and finds nothing else in the room with him. One of these walls has a door in it, and he finds the join in the padded wall and can pull it back barely enough to reveal the door frame. Light comes in around it. He tugs at the wall hoping to tear it away, but it’s no use. He finds a mail-sized slot in the door at head height. He can’t open it from this side. It’s hot in here and stuffy. There will be no power to the building, and even if there was there’d be no air-conditioning in this room. These were never designed to be comfortable-only designed to stop the crazy from banging themselves into oblivion.
The room is slightly bigger than the last cell he was in, cleaner, and much hotter. He’ll have to speak to Adrian, see what he can do about the heat. And he’s got no bucket to piss into this time and no water to drink.
When he brought the girls here he only spent time with them at night and the only heat in the room was coming from the flashlights he brought. He made Emma Green drink a bottle of water before leaving her, but that was. . what? He’s lost track of time. Three days? Four? And he left two more bottles with her. He kept her tied up, but the bottles were open and she could roll onto her side and sip them. He was going to bring her more when he returned, along with some food. He needed her to stay healthy long enough to enjoy her. The first night he was happy with keeping her tied while he cut away her clothes and took photos. The duct tape over her eyes kept her from seeing him. He liked exercising control. The following night he was going to do more. A lot more. But the duct tape would remain over the eyes. He didn’t want her seeing him. Didn’t like the disgust that would have been in her eyes.
He puts his hands against the wall. The texture is canvas, the padding beneath it thick, made up from cushions of foam. Emma Green could be in the room next to him. He tries tugging again at the material, but it’s secured too tight and all he does is hurt the tips of his fingers. He begins to pace, then gives up when he starts sweating. He tries banging on the walls but can’t make much of a sound. All he can do is wait. He sits in the corner and doesn’t have to wait long before the slide opens. The light coming through almost blinds him and he has to look away, but then it disappears when Adrian looks through the slot.
“How are you feeling?” Adrian asks.
“It’s hot in here, Adrian. Really hot.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But like you said, it’s only temporary. Only. . I kind of like it here. I didn’t, at first, but it’s. . growing on me.”
“I’d like it too if it wasn’t so hot,” Cooper says.
“Sorry about that.”
“Where are we? Is this Sunnyview?”
“Something like that.”
“Are we at Eastlake?”
“No,” Adrian answers, shaking his head.
“So it’s Sunnyview then.”
“Maybe,” Adrian repeats.
“Okay, Adrian, why don’t you let me out? I need to be in a room that’s cooler. It’s hot in here.”