American Devil (52 page)

Nick sat without another word and listened to the doctor.

 

I
n a dungeon forty feet below Manhattan, an old pump room with brick walls was about to witness a bizarre experiment. Nick was going to undergo CBT. Denise was going to alter his behaviour - at least for long enough to allow her to escape. It had to work. But first they had to trust each other, form an alliance. An alliance against Sebastian. And Denise knew that she needed to convince Nick that it was not about Sebastian, it was about himself. It was Nick who let this fiend take over and control things. In that respect he was no different from a drunk or a violent husband or a depressive.

Denise found her mind twisting between the horror of her situation and the practical truth that the anti-social part of his behaviour needed to be removed from his coping strategies. She was even surprised herself that she could switch so easily from a horrified victim to a doctor.

Nick stayed in his seat. Denise was hooded but free to move around. She needed to move to think.

Nick sat patiently and expectantly. In his eyes, she - like Marty before her - was his only hope of escaping this vicious cycle of murder and guilt. He was nervous, though. Anxious about the treatment and afraid because Sebastian would punish him for letting her do this.

She started by trying to find the words, trying to formulate a way forward. It was hard. The circumstances were so strange that she was close to shrieking, but she didn’t. She opened her mouth and let the routine come out all of its own accord.

‘What this is called, Nick, is cognitive behavioural therapy. What we’ve got to do is identify the problem we have. I don’t want to know about your childhood or any internal feelings, I just need to know which actions and behaviour you find unacceptable.’

‘He murders people, Dr Levene! I want to stop him hurting people!’ Nick shouted and then hid his face in his hands, ashamed of his weakness.

‘What we have to do is to discover the nature of the problem in terms of the pattern inside your head. The relationships between how you feel, what you think and what you do. Do you understand that? Feel-think-do. We’ve got to look closely at these things.’

Nick stayed silent. He was thinking. Feel-think-do - that was Sebastian all over. He felt the urge, he thought about it and then he killed. Feel-think-do.

‘We will agree goals for you and a method of identifying trigger feelings and trigger words, then we will find a simple physical way to re-programme your behaviour. That sound okay?’

‘Yes.’

She breathed deeply. This was a journey into the unknown. She knew that CBT had been successful even in cases of extreme schizophrenia, so why not with this guy?

Denise’s hunch was that Nick had called on Sebastian early in his life when he needed help to cope with some painful trauma that had made him feel so weak and useless that he basically collapsed inside. Sebastian had been a saviour at some point - a friend, someone who supported Nick and gave him strength. But when strange demonic urges started entering Nick’s head, Sebastian was there to take the blame. Then, at some point, Sebastian had started living an independent existence.

‘Do you think what you do is wrong?’ she asked.

‘I know it is. I can see that what Sebastian does is evil.’

She felt that if she could connect to him, she might prevent him from hurting someone else. She continued: ‘Let’s try some basics. Let’s see if we can stop the urges becoming so bad that Sebastian shows up. Shall we? Shall we try to see if we can keep things so quiet, he doesn’t even know you’re there?’

Nick smiled. ‘Yeah, that sounds good.’

She took him through the events leading up to the point where Sebastian took over. She was trying to identify the trigger. The emotion. The thought.

‘What sets him going? What brings him out?’

‘Fear, I think. Water, too. When he sees the kind of girl he likes, he comes into my throat.’

‘That’s a compulsion, isn’t it? You feel a compulsion, but it’s mutated into him. So you feel weak and you feel this strong desire and then he comes, doesn’t he?’

‘Yeah. I guess.’

‘There’s something that releases him. What is it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Think!’

‘This is hard for me!’ Nick shouted. He felt the power rise and his spine erupt with sudden anger. He put the tap on hard. Water rushed across the floor. Nick felt the light flash across his mind.

‘He’s coming,’ he said.

‘What can we do?’

‘Nothing. He’s here.’

Denise ran to Nick and put her hands on his arms. ‘Please help me.’

Nick stood up. He looked around. He could feel the demonic power coming up through his body. He had about thirty seconds before Sebastian would be there. As quickly as he could, he untied Denise’s headgear. Then he ran to the internal door, a single barred exit. He rushed outside, threw the door shut and pulled a key out of his pocket. He was concentrating hard. His hand was shaking as he locked the door. Sebastian was in his head, right there: any second he’d be out. Nick tossed the key through the bars.

‘I’ve locked you in to protect you, Dr Levene. Throw the key down the sluice grate. If you’ve got it, he’ll kill everyone you know until you give it him back or just shoot at you until you come to him.’ Nick suddenly went into spasms against the bars of the door.

Denise pulled off her headgear and searched around. She saw the small key, and against all her instincts she lurched to the sluice grate and threw it down into the sewer.

Behind her the bars of the door rattled and thumped. Sebastian was the other side and he wanted her badly. He was snorting with rage.

He stared at her through the bars. She stared back. There was no way out any more. She felt the horror in every muscle of her body.

‘The water brings me out,’ said Sebastian. ‘I always did like the sound of water.’ He had arrived.

‘Is that you, Sebastian?’ said Denise, keeping the tremor hidden in her voice.

‘Yes, it’s me. Seeing you there, Dr Levene, seeing you there, it makes me . . . it makes me so full of anger. I want to kill you now. Cut you open, put my hands inside that warm skin of yours.’

Once upon a time Denise had watched a man in a cage with a tiger. The tiger had become aggressive. The man didn’t back down. He hit the tiger and pushed her away. Even when the tiger broke his arm, he remained in the superior position. It had saved his life.

‘I want to feel your neck, Denise. That’s a feeling you don’t forget. Now I’m thinking about it. I just might do it.’

Sebastian’s clear eyes bulged. He reached his arms through the bars. ‘Come to me, Denise. Come to me now and I’ll make it nice and quick. It’ll be over in a minute and you’ll be free.’ The veins in Sebastian’s neck were throbbing. ‘Or else I’ll keep you alive a long time as I hurt you.’

She saw that he didn’t know what to do. He wanted her, but she was out of reach. He wanted her right there. He wanted fresh meat. They were several metres below the earth, hidden and alone, and a single locked door was keeping her alive. It was driving him crazy. ‘Come to me, Denise,’ he called.

‘Sit down and shut up!’ Denise shouted. Inside her head, she was imagining a huge tiger. She heard him pace outside her cell.

‘Are you trying to provoke a response, Denise?’

‘Go away. I’m talking to Nick. This is his session. He doesn’t want you here. Nick! Nick! I know you’re there.’

‘I am the keeper here,’ said Sebastian. ‘It is you who are in the cage. You are the animal.’ He whistled.

‘Nick!’ she cried again. She needed Nick. ‘This is my session, Nick, and my rules. No Sebastian. He’s a fake. He’s not you. Do you understand? I don’t want to talk to Sebastian. He doesn’t exist. I want to talk to Nick. To you.’

She felt the risk. She felt the air in the room. She knew that he was staring intensely. She knew he could do anything he wanted - he could cut through the bars of the door given time or just get a gun and shoot her right away. Time was short. She needed Nick.

Sebastian hit the bars over and over again. She heard him scream, then he slumped down against the wall and out of the darkness it was Nick’s voice that replied, ‘Sorry. I’m not capable of stopping him.’

‘You just did, Nick. You just did.’

Denise reached out her hand through the bars. It was risky, but she had nothing. Her fingertips touched his arm. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I can help you to control him. If you don’t he will kill your son. Stick with me here. Help me, Nick.’

Nick stood and looked at her hand. ‘What can you do?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ She thought for a moment. No, it was a stupid idea. But she had nothing else. ‘Listen, Nick. Find an elastic band. Wear it round your wrist. You twang it whenever you feel him coming. There must be a series of feelings and thoughts that trigger Sebastian. If you stop the train of thoughts, he won’t come. He’s not strong. You’re strong. He’s not real. You’re real.’

She knew it was a ridiculous idea. Absurd in every way. A serial killer monitoring his own feelings and thoughts with an attitude band. But it might just give her more time.

‘Wear a band?’ said Nick.

‘It seems a stupid thing to do, but it can help you to make you notice your feelings. Noticing them and questioning them helps to neutralize their force. At the moment, your response to the trigger feelings leads you to kill. So when you have the feelings, you must distract the mind from its pathway and give it a new one.’ She waited a moment. ‘Snap the wristband every time you have a thought that is inappropriate.’

There was a long silence. Nick was thinking. Finally, from behind the door, he said: ‘Yes. Okay.’

‘Use the band to bring these thoughts to your conscious mind. You must have an alternative course of action when you feel Sebastian coming. Write down a list of what to do. Three firm direct orders that you cannot forget. Then just follow those orders. By the time you have carried them out, the moment will be gone.’

It sounded plausible. Nick looked at her and felt love for her. It was a simple feeling: he loved her because she showed she cared. And then it happened. The headache was so sudden and so intense, it caused Nick to black out for half a second. He fell and hit his head on the wall. When he opened his eyes, Sebastian stood up again. ‘Dr Levene, I think I’m ready to go now.’

‘For what?’

‘I have a date with a blonde called Kimberly.’

‘It’s too early! Don’t put yourself in this position yet. Nick! Stop!’

But he was gone.

 

H
arper was standing outside Denise Levene’s apartment. He was waiting, his head bowed to the ground. A few seconds later, the door opened. Daniel’s tired and ashen face looked out.

‘They told me you’d come over to get some of your clothes,’ said Harper. ‘I wanted to catch you.’

‘She wouldn’t be gone if it wasn’t for you, Detective, so I can do without the house call.’

‘I can understand what you’re feeling, I’m just here to try to help.’

‘How can you understand what I’m feeling? You killed her.’

Harper stood and met Daniel’s gaze. ‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t do this. Denise walked into this all on her own. She wanted to help.’

‘She’s not a cop. She’s not trained. She can’t even fire a gun. How is she qualified to hunt serial killers, Detective?’

‘She’s a damn fine profiler.’

‘She was a damn fine research scientist.’

‘She wanted more.’

‘What the fuck do you know about her?’ Daniel’s voice was harsh.

Harper took a step back. ‘I don’t want to make this worse for you. I’m sorry. That’s all I wanted to say. I’m sorry. Denise is a great lady. I’m doing everything I can. I’m sorry.’

Daniel didn’t reply and Harper turned and walked out of the apartment building. He called Kasper from the street. ‘Did you get my message?’

‘Yeah, sure did. You think Sebastian was a teenager when he killed Chloe.’

‘Yeah, and that means I think that if he was in love with Chloe he was at her school.’

‘I’m on the same train track, Harps.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Meadow Trail High School. There’s no one here. I’m waiting for the caretaker to come and let me in. I want to check back through the yearbooks. If we can get an ID on this guy, maybe we can trace him back to New York.’

‘That’s the plan,’ said Harper. ‘Keep me up to date.’

‘Will do,’ said Kasper and signed off.

Harper went across town to Maurice Macy’s schoolhouse. The forensics guys had finished their search and the lab guys would be busy. He looked into the rooms, walked through. On the floor there was an old photograph, creased and torn. Harper picked it up. Two boys. One big and tall and one small and slight, standing in front of a sign of some kind. Maurice Macy before he turned into a killer. Harper looked close at the picture of the boys. He looked at the sign, but it was obscured. Just the letter A was visible. Harper put the photograph down and turned round. He saw the empty wardrobe: hardly any clothes at all. Then something clicked in his head. There was no suitcase in the apartment. There had been no suitcase in Marconi’s van. Harper pulled out his cell and called Blue Team.

‘Garcia, get me the evidence list from Maurice Macy’s apartment. I need to know something.’

Garcia came back a moment later. ‘Got it. What do you want?’

‘Did they take a suitcase?’

Garcia looked down the items slowly, his finger on each line. He stopped at the end. ‘No suitcase on the list.’

Harper left the schoolhouse apartment. Someone had seen Sebastian wheeling a suitcase away from Denise’s building. There were suitcase tracks at Lottie Bixley’s dump site and Lucy James had seen a guy with a suitcase. Harper knew that Macy had used the suitcase, but now he was thinking something else. It wasn’t just a copycat. Sebastian was using the same suitcase. There
was
a link between these guys. Somehow they knew each other.