“Relax. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Her adrenaline spiked as she tried to figure out what was happening. They were driving through the wilderness. Where were they? All she could see were woods. She panicked. “Where are you taking me? What’s going on?”
“You’re in shock. You need to calm down.”
Everything outside of her window grew misty around the edges as the Renegade rumbled over cracked asphalt and sleet streaked against the glass. The road was free of traffic, but even if another vehicle had driven past, the Jeep’s tinted windows provided protection from prying eyes. No hope against the automated door locks. She leaned forward, muscles trembling with effort, but a wave of nausea forced her back against the seat.
“Don’t fight it,” Palmer said. “It’ll be easier if you don’t fight it.”
She stared at him. “Where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“Safe from what? Why am I tied up? What the hell is going on?”
“I was thinking about the various ways I could handle this,” he said in a confessional tone. “But then I thought… honesty is the best policy.”
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.
The spindles clicked softly. The tumblers fell into place. All the doors swung open at once. She saw it with crystal clarity— Palmer Dyson’s limitless deception.
She reared like a horse twisting in its bridle, screaming and thrashing as the duct tape bit into her flesh. He observed her coldly, analytically. Zero emotion. Not a flicker.
She stopped struggling and swallowed her outrage. “This isn’t you,” she insisted. “You’re a good person, Palmer. Stop the car and let me go. I promise I won’t tell a soul.”
“Sorry, Kate.”
Dumb. How dumb to have trusted him. She felt a pure shining hatred for this man, the same raw fury she’d seen in some of her chemically restrained patients—the impotent rage of the captive. “You’re sick,” she spat.
“You have no idea,” he said.
Her mind went blank. She screamed and twisted in her seat, flailing and thrashing again, wearing herself out completely, until a brutal hopelessness threaded through her veins. She collapsed, panting with exhaustion, like an insect trapped in a web.
“Face it, Kate. You put yourself into this position. I told you not to be na?ve.”
A stillness closed around her. “Are you going to kill me?”
He smiled at her in the rearview mirror. “Why would I do that? I feel a bond between us.”
“A bond?” she sneered.
“I know you feel it, too.”
All she felt was a humming, deafening terror.
“I consider us close. Yes, I do. I hope to explain it all to you someday soon. We can play shrink and patient, how about that? You can psychoanalyze me, and I can tell you how and why I did it. And then you’ll have your answers and I’ll have mine.”
Another rolling wave of fear crested and broke inside of her. She twisted and pulled on the duct tape, but it only made things worse.
“Calm down,” he said, watching her.
She caught her breath and contemplated her next move. She would have to talk him out of whatever he was thinking. In a hostage situation, you were supposed to develop a rapport with your captor. Use their name a lot. Appeal to their ego. She would have to be smart if she wanted to survive.
If Kate couldn’t use force, then she’d have to use stealth. She needed something sharp, something to cut through the duct tape binding her wrists. She looked around, but there was nothing in the back seat. She clasped her hands nervously together and noticed James’s ring. She felt the setting with her fingertips.
“They won’t find the bodies until the spring,” Palmer said softly, and Kate glanced up. “A hiker or a hunter will stumble across the SUV on an old logging road. Stigler blew his brains out. He left a suicide note—I dictated it myself. Your father was his last victim. Stabbed twenty-two times. As a psychiatrist, I think you can appreciate the symbolism.”
“What symbolism?”
“Think about it.”
Twenty-two times. Her mother had died twenty-two years ago. She stared blindly ahead, trying not to lose it completely as she angled the ring into the duct tape and began to saw back and forth with tiny motions. She kept her hands in her lap, out of sight.
“Anyone who is the least bit curious might get it. But I doubt the local police will be that astute. Regardless, Stigler will go down in history as one of the greats. He’ll be right up there with BTK and Ted Bundy.”
“You sound envious,” Kate said.
“Nah. I’d rather be a hero. You gave Dunmeyer the flashdrive, right?”
She nodded. She felt a glaze of sweat break out on her face.
“They’ll be honoring me posthumously. It’s all been arranged. I died undergoing an unproven treatment. A Mexican official will be sending my ashes stateside soon, along with the death certificate. You’d be amazed at the things people will do for a buck.”
Her anger flared. “Do you even have cancer? Or was that a lie, too?”
“It’s in remission. Going on ten years.”
“So you aren’t dying?”
Palmer shrugged. “Not today.”
She took a sharp breath. The sleet was tapering off. The sun peeked out behind the clouds as the road began to climb. They were heading into the mountains, and the view was surreal. Remote as a postcard.
She had to stay focused. She sliced into the tape with tiny precise movements—the tear was half an inch deep now. She had to keep him distracted. “You said you wanted to explain it all to me someday. Tell me now, Palmer.”
He stared at her. “You’ll have to work harder than that, Kate.”
“Come on. Psychiatrists are like priests. You want to confess. You’re dying to tell me about it. I’m the only person in the world who knows what you’ve done, that you spent decades setting up this elaborate game, and for what? So you could disappear and pretend it never happened? Be a dead hero? Doesn’t that bother you? It must feel like you just won at the Olympics, only you can’t even brag about it.”
Palmer shook his head. “Don’t play me, Kate.”
“I’m not playing you. You have your sick pride, and you’re the hero of your own story. So tell me why you did it. Natural psychopath? What catastrophic event in your childhood triggered all this carnage?”
“That’s not a worthy question.”
“Suit yourself.”
He shrugged. “Why did I do it? Because nobody stopped me.”
“That’s a lie. There’s a deeper reason.”
“Are you trying to shrink me? Because it isn’t working.”
“I want to know why you did it. I want to know why I’m going to die. Come on. Talk about your most fascinating subject—you.”
He grinned. “Ya got me.”
“How did it start?” She moved the ring back and forth— there was a one-inch-long cut in the tape now. Gradually, very gradually, she could feel it loosening. “I really want to know. What’s the reason?”
“Does there have to be a reason?”
“There’s always a reason.”
He scowled. “You think you’re pretty self-aware. But I know you so much better than you know yourself. You haven’t done a very good job of self-discovery, Kate. You have a lot of work to do.”
“What are you talking about?” she said.
“Oh come on. I led you here. To this time and place.”
“You led me?”
“Like a mouse in a maze. It was so predictable.”
She thought for a moment. “You mean Dr. Holley’s book? Patient J?”
“I intended to get you to notice it at some point, but when you got lost and I invited you to stay at the cabin, it was too good an opportunity to pass up. I left it right where you’d find it. And the next morning, you handed me your phone to put in my emergency contact details, remember? Never give your phone to anyone. They’re surprisingly easy to hack. I downloaded a couple of apps, and I’ve been tracking you ever since. Reading your texts, listening to your conversations. Tracking your GPS.”