Twisted, p.27
Twisted, page 27
“No siren,” Ryan said. “We need to keep our profiles low.”
Archer and Singh nodded their agreement.
“Good. Let's go break this case.” They turned for their cars and headed to the suspects' location.
Archer drove their assigned cruiser as they raced down Highway 34 toward the farmhouse. A neighbour had been walking by when they called in the tip. She claimed the farmhouse hadn't been used in ages, and three women and a man had recently moved in. She managed to get a photo. They found recent ownership in the last year had been transferred from Jonathan Roche to a Blaine Roche upon the former's death.
Glancing in the side view mirrors, Ryan eyed the other cars following behind them. No sirens or lights were on.
“Do you think we'll find them?” Archer asked, eyes locked on the highway.
“Mrs. Roylends seemed pretty insistent. A car arrived a few days ago at the Roche's farmhouse.” Ryan grabbed his phone, looking over the blurry photo sent to the station. “It's hard to tell; they seem to match the profile.” He looked back to Archer. “At the very least, the timing is right.”
“Who's the guy?” Archer asked.
Ryan looked back at the picture. A large man was with the three girls outside the farmhouse. “My guess? Blaine Roche. Mr. Jefferies did say they had a bodyguard of sorts, and Gabi confirmed the story.”
“Think he'll be a problem?”
“I guess we'll find out,” Ryan said as the cruiser pulled off the highway and turned down a country road.
In the distance, the farmhouse came into view. The sun was setting behind it and the windows looked dark. If not for the black car in the driveway, he would have suspected no one was home.
They pulled into the long driveway, and the other cruisers followed. Near the house, each car cut its engine, and the officers climbed out. Ryan looked to the back car and motioned for the officers to go around the side of the house, surrounding the property and preventing any escape.
Guns drawn, Ryan and Archer approached the front door. Ryan stepped forward and called, “Mr. Roche, this is the police. Open the door; we have the place surrounded.”
No answer but a thump from the upper floor. Ryan looked to Archer and stepped aside. The larger man placed a hand against the door.
“Mr. Roche,” Archer said. “We have a warrant in hand to enter the premises. I insist you open the door, or we will enter by force.”
Still no answer.
“Your go,” Ryan said.
Archer stepped back and lifted his leg, kicking down on the handle of the door and breaking it from the frame. It swung wide open. There was a scream upstairs, and Ryan ran into the house and up the stairs with his gun drawn. A frightened woman with short black hair cowered in the corner of the room. Ryan immediately recognized Lexi despite the hair colour change.
A commotion broke out on the floor below him. There was shouting and a gunshot went off, causing Lexi to cover her head and start crying again.
“Lexi Chase,” Ryan said. “You are under arrest. I won't hurt you unless you resist.”
Lexi looked at him; her eyes were wide and frightened, brimming with tears. “Don't hurt me.”
“Just slowly stand up and place your hands behind your back,” Ryan said.
Lexi stared at him for several seconds before she stood on shaking legs and turned her back to him.
Ryan lowered his gun and cuffed her. Lexi continued to cry.
He led her down the stairs repeating the word required by law. “You are under arrest by the rules of federal legislation. Know you have the right to remain silent and seek counsel through public or private means. Remember, any words you speak from here on can be used against your case. Nod that you understand this.”
“I understand,” Lexi squeaked.
At the base of the stairs, Ryan saw Archer leading a handcuffed Brielle Jeffries from the house.
“Jackie!” Lexi yelled when she saw her.
Brielle gave her a weak smile. “Don't worry. It will be okay. Just keep your mouth shut.”
Lexi clamped her lips closed.
Ryan passed her off to a waiting officer and returned to where two officers were handling a struggling Patsy Morrison.
“Get your pig hands off of me!” she yelled, squirming in their grasp.
“Patsy, you have to calm down,” Ryan said. “We will be required to tase you if you don't stop resisting.”
It seemed to work because Patsy immediately stopped moving and turned a vicious glare on Ryan. She spat in his direction, but it fell short of hitting him.
“Where is Blaine Roche?” Ryan asked. “The man who owns this place.”
“Fuck off, pig,” Patsy hissed. “I'm not telling you anything. You'll never find Blaine.”
Ryan waved to the cars waiting in the driveway. “Get her in one of the cruisers.”
Two officers escorted her away, each holding onto one of her shoulders.
“What about Mr. Roche?” Ryan asked.
Quinn shook his head. “It was only the girls in the house. None of them would tell us where he was.”
Ryan scanned the surrounding land. It was long and overgrown. He could be out there.
“Have the dogs go through the field,” Ryan said. “Have an officer at the door waiting to see if he comes back. I want to get this guy.” He walked back to the driveway with the waiting cars. The ones carrying the girls had already begun the ride back to the station. Archer waited out front, leaning against the hood.
“Find the pimp?” Archer asked.
Ryan shook his head. “Looks like he's gone. We're searching the area. If he's close, we'll get him.”
“I hope so,” Archer said. “I'm getting tired of this case.”
“Tell me about it.” Ryan climbed into Archer's cruiser.
Archer followed and shifted the car into drive, following the route the other police vehicles had taken.
“At least it's almost over,” Archer said.
Ryan grimaced. “I'm afraid it's only beginning.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you saw those girls. We've studied them for the past weeks, and none of them matched their suspected personalities. It took two officers to even handle Patsy. She wasn't the terrified woman we've been profiling.”
“Maybe we were wrong,” Archer said.
“No,” Ryan shook his head. “I know what it was. I can't believe it.”
“Yeah. What a strange case.”
Chapter 46
Brielle Jeffries
The detective entered the questioning room. His head was cocked slightly to the side, and he regarded her cautiously. There were two folders in his hand and a notebook in the other. Brielle had to admit he was handsome, with crew-cut brown hair and dark eyes. He clearly worked out by the way his suit fit nicely to his buff form, though the stubble lining his chin and bags under his eyes implied he had been working around the clock. How much trouble had she and the other women put the police through?
“Ms. Biggs?”
Brielle shook her head. “I only told them I was Jackie so you would see me, Detective.” The truth still caused her confusion. How could she not have known for all these years?
“You know you don't have to speak to me until your lawyer is present,” Detective Boone said, taking the seat across from her and placing the files on the table. “Your parents requested we don't speak with you until then.”
“I don't care,” Brielle said. “Make it off the record if you're so worried. I have to know.”
“What did you want to speak to me about?” Boone asked. He retrieved a pen, poised to make a note in his book.
“I heard the officers talking,” Brielle said. “Saying my abduction wasn't fabricated. Does that mean you believe me?”
“We found the bunker, Ms. Jeffries,” Boone said. “I have no doubt you suffered a very traumatic experience.”
“And they are really dead?” Brielle asked. Her mind immediately went to Sam and how she pressed a pillow into his face in her dream. How Jackie had killed him. How Jackie was her.
Boone grimaced but didn’t ask who “they” were. Instead, he slid the two files across the table. “Are these them?”
Brielle flipped open the first folder, and a picture of Sam stared back at her. It was his victim profile, detailing his death. Her breathing hitched for a moment. She checked the second one and saw his son. Then she pushed them back toward the detective, uninterested in learning more.
“That's them,” Brielle said. “How did they die?”
The look on his face told her she should know. He sighed, scratched his chin, and played along.
“One was shot in the head,” Boone said. “The other, suffocated.”
“Wow ...” Brielle stared at the table in front of her. Whatever vision she'd had was true. She'd pressed the pillow into his face and ended it all. Or Jackie did. The whole idea was still so baffling. “I don't know what happened. I wish I did.”
Boone collected the files but didn't speak.
The silence unnerved her, and she continued, “I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't escaped. For years, I've lived with this. I used to dream about being taken. I used to remember him coming into my room at night. I don't know where the will to escape came from. I guess it was from Jackie ...” Brielle blinked back tears.
“Can you tell me where the gun is?” Boone asked. “Or how you got it?”
Brielle shook her head. “Maybe it was my dad’s? We used to shoot on my great-granddad’s property up north when I was just a kid. Shooting a gun is something I’ve always known how to do. I guess Jackie used that part of me. She probably knew where the gun was hidden too.”
“We’ll look into it.” Boone jotted a note down on the folder.
“What about Jackie?” Brielle asked. “Is it true what they say about my condition?”
Boone looked away for a moment. “It's complicated, but yes, it's true.”
“How could I have never known?” Brielle looked down at her hands, trying to think back over the years, over the time she’d spent with Jackie, or what she believed. Her parents had hidden the truth from her, convincing her Jackie was nothing more than a bad friend. That she was the reason Brielle did drugs. Little did Brielle know Jackie had been inside of her all along, something her parents had hoped to keep buried.
Brielle couldn’t properly describe what she felt when the truth had first come out. Disbelief, certainly, but perhaps almost relief. Like she wasn’t losing her mind. She wasn’t some hopeless drug addict and Jackie wasn’t someone who seemed to vanish without a trace, but, in reality, a part of her. Something that maybe Brielle suspected all along.
“Like I said, it's complicated.” Boone folded his hands on the table in front of them.
“My parents hid it from me,” Brielle said. “Why did they want me to think it was drugs?”
Boone frowned. “I'm afraid I don't know. Your parents will have to explain that.”
Brielle shook her head. “They won't tell me what I really need to know.” She paused for a moment before continuing. “What about Patsy and the other girl? Are they like me?” Blaine had implied as much before he left them behind.
Boone’s expression remained solemn. “They are. Though it seems different.” He paused. “Each one of you was a patient of Dr. Miranda Konch. Did she ever allude to anything about the drug you were taking or the other girls?”
“No,” Brielle said. “She has been my doctor for several years. I didn't know Patsy had seen her, and I'd never met the other girl.”
Boone grimaced. “Konch has vanished. If you have any information on her, it would be greatly appreciated.”
“I'm sorry, Detective, I wish I did.” Brielle sighed. “I'm still having a hard time believing this is true.” A part of her held some reassurance, however, as if this was the answer to so many questions that had been unanswered for years. The explanation for all of Brielle’s memory loss or strange happenings, something that had held such a mystery for years.
“If I hadn't seen it, Ms. Jeffries, I would be the same.”
“What do you think caused this, Detective?” Brielle asked.
“I'm still working that one out,” Boone said. He leaned back in his seat and eyed her for a second. “Do you know about the other death?”
Brielle shook her head.
“She was a woman working for your abductors. In her sixties, working as a nurse.”
Brielle frowned. “She released me.”
“Yes. Do you know what happened to her?”
“I don't,” Brielle said. “I'm sorry. I had hoped to save her from them. She looked pretty beat down when she came to my rescue.”
“Anything else, Ms. Jeffries?”
Brielle tilted her head to the side. “Is Patsy okay?”
“Under the circumstances,” Boone said. “She'll be just fine.”
“I think she's been through a lot.”
“We only want to help.”
Brielle looked away. “It sounds like we've needed help long before today. I think you're too late.” Then she glanced back at Boone and forced a smile through the tears formed in her eyes. “Thank you, Detective. That's all I need.”
“I'll have more questions for you once your parents and the lawyer arrive,” Boone said.
“Yes, of course.” Brielle dropped his gaze and folded her hands on her lap. “I'll do my best to remember all I can.”
The detective regarded her silently for a few seconds before he stood and left the room.
Brielle glanced toward the mirrored window where other officers likely watched her. Perhaps that was why her parents kept her condition a secret. Even in the psychiatric hospital, she never felt as watched and studied as she did in this tiny room.
Chapter 47
Melanie Parker
“Look who it is.” Mel smirked, leaning back in her chair and arms crossed over her chest. “Detective Hotshot here to learn all my dirty little secrets.”
“Ms. Parker,” the lawyer seated beside her said. “Please.”
Mel shot him a cold look. “No, I want this bastard here to know exactly how I feel about him.”
Detective Boone lowered himself into the chair across the table from Mel and her public defender. Her lawyer was an older man with greying hair and nearly twenty pounds overweight. His cheap suit strained around his large middle. He'd mentioned his name twice already, but Mel didn't care enough to remember it. Still, she knew better than to reject the free legal aid.
“Mrs. Morrison,” Boone said. “I assure you I'm only here to learn the truth. I want to help you as much as I can.”
Mel stiffened at the mention of Fraser’s last name. She still felt so separate from the woman Blaine claimed she really was. From the wife who’d married the bastard Fraser. How was it possible she was merely a creation in someone’s mind, that she wasn’t a real person. That she inhabited the body of the woman Patsy.
Mel spat on the table in front of Boone. “That's exactly how I feel about you helping me.” She uncrossed her arms and leaned forward, placing her hands on the cold metal table. In a low voice she said, “Where were you, Detective Hotshot, when we needed help before? Where were you to stop all this from happening?” She leaned back again. “I don't think you can help. I don't think you understand what helping us means.”
Boone pulled out his notepad. “I'm not sure I know what you mean.”
“I guess not such a hotshot.” Mel chuckled.
“Ms. Parker,” the lawyer said. “Please try to be a bit more respectful.”
“It's okay, Mr. Phillips,” Boone said.
Mel could admit the detective was a good-looking guy, in his late thirties, likely, and determined. Were she meeting him in another situation, she may have felt differently. Now he was here to change things, to separate her from Jackie and reprimand her for her crime.
“Mrs. Morrison,” Boone said again.
Mel looked at the lawyer and laughed. “This fool can't even get my name right.” Looking back at Boone, she said, “How did you get here if you have such trouble with names, Detective Hotshot?”
She wished he’d stop reminding her of it. That she could pretend she never learned the truth and go on like Melanie Parker was real. Instead, she was stuck trying to sort out two conflicting personalities and learned that some of the things she believed she’d run from were still very much a part of her life when her body was taken over by another.
At least the strange phenomenon seemed to explain things. The mornings she woke up at Fraser’s or the missing bits of memory, how she’d dream about Patsy, and it would all feel too real. It wasn’t a dream. She’d lived it, somehow.
Boone frowned and glanced at the notebook on the table. “Very well, Ms. Parker.”
“See, not so hard.”
“Are you willing to let me speak to Patsy?” Boone asked. “I'd like to hear her side of things.”
Mel's amused expression contorted into an angry grimace. “If she wanted to speak to you, she'd be here.” However it worked, Mel still wasn’t sure.
“Very well,” Boone said, making a note on the page. “Then why don't we talk?”
Mel crossed her arms again. “I'm sure a smart guy like you doesn't need my help figuring this out.”
“Perhaps you're right,” Boone said. “I could certainly work faster with your assistance.”
“I hate to ruin your day, Detective, but—” Mel stopped and smiled. “Actually, I'd love to ruin your day.” She motioned with her hands, zipping her lips closed and then winking.
Boone sighed. “It's not just my day you're ruining.”
Mel said nothing and turned her head away from him.
The page crinkled as Boone flipped it. “Okay, let's start with a few questions. Why did you kill Fraser Morrison?”
“You don't have to answer,” Mr. Phillips said.
Mel glared. “I'm not stupid, thanks.” Then she turned her cold gaze on Boone. “Got anything better?”
Boone made a mark. “What is your relationship with Patsy Morrison?”
