"I bet being committed to an institution hindered her schooling." Hoffman remarked dryly.
"It didn't though." Gordon said, shaking his head. "She still received school lessons from tutors. The doctors in charge of her case had noticed that learning helped her take her mind off of what happened. She was able to graduate on time with everyone else in her class. Even more remarkable, she got accepted into John Hopkins School of Nursing. It's is an honor considering how prominent John Hopkins is in the medical community."
"So, when did John get the Skinner?" Hoffman asked impatiently, wanting to know how a cancer patient was able to track down the whereabouts of a serial killer when the killer's step-daughter didn't even know where the fucker was.
"Not long after he tested Cecil." Gordon answered, stretching out a bit in his chair.
"Before I got recruited"
"Before anyone got recruited"
John searched through the files in the filing cabinet in the home office. Jill was at the clinic again, helping those poor lost causes. He would've thought after what happened at the clinic couple months ago that she wouldn't want to work there again. Apparently, he was wrong. She was determined to help those sorry bastards get their life on track. That was hard when they didn't cherish their life to begin with.
He had to admit that their marriage had been strained lately. It was from the grief of losing Gideon and the bombshell that he was recently diagnosed with cancer. Of course, since Cecil was found dead not far from his workshop, Jill had been acting very suspiciously towards him lately like he did it.
Well...he did have something to do with Cecil's demise. However, it was indirect. The knife chair trap had failed since the chair collapsed. Cecil could've easily walked away, but decided to lunge at him instead. It wasn't his fault that he had been standing in front of a tumble of barb wire, which Cecil ended up in. His own blood thirst for revenge had killed him. Despite all that, Jill didn't seem incline to turn him in. Probably because she felt like Cecil had deserved it
He smiled triumphantly when he finally came across Jesse "Lansing" Anderson's file. He couldn't believe that huffing addict was the very same sweet nurse at the hospital. She definitely turned her life around. However, it was hard for her to lead a good life when her step-father was on the loose. Mick Lansing didn't cherish life if he was killing others and trying to make his step-daughter's life a living hell by treating his victims. That had to stop.
He opened Jesse's clinic file, and read the contents. The last known location of Mick (aka the Skinner) had been in Buffalo, New York. Originally though, Mick and Jesse were both from Maryland. Mick was a native of the Salisbury area while Jesse was a native of Annapolis. John read through the notes that Jill had made during her sessions with the sixteen-year-old Jesse.
He wasn't surprised that her biological father had died two months before she was born. Jesse's mother, Glenda, had brought her daughter up on her own until Jesse was six-years-old. He was hit by a realization that this could've been easily Jill if Gideon had been born. How long he would've been around to see his son before the cancer claimed his life? That was a depressing thought. It was even more depressing that Gideon being miscarried was a bit of a blessing in disguise because his son wouldn't have had to gone through the pain of losing his father at such a young age. He shook his head to clear it. He needed to focus rather let his mind be overcome with depression, guilt, and regret.
He continued reading the notes. Glenda had met Mick when Jesse was four months shy of being seven online in a chat room for widowers. They met in person eighteen months later, and they hit it off well. They dated for a year in a long-distance relationship before Mick asked Glenda to marry him. Jesse remarked that the first four years that they were married had seemed fine to her. However, when she had turned twelve, that's when things began to go downhill. Or, to Hell…whichever
It started off with him molesting her. Again, that didn't surprise John since Jesse had told him that during the biopsy. However, she had told Jill a lot more. John could feel his blood boiling at what Mick did to his step-daughter. He couldn't understand why people did these horrible things to their families.
As Jesse had previously mentioned the night before at the hospital, he read an old article about Mick's arrest for murder. Jesse mentioned in the article that she saw Mick's true side when he killed her mother in front of her after she confronted him over stealing money from her bank account and cheating on her with other women. John's blood pressure was at critical as he read Jesse's painful and traumatic account in detail of how Mick tied her in a chair in the basement, which had mirrors on all sides of the wall. The basement had been converted into a practice studio for Jesse to dance in. She watched him go over to her mother, who was hanging upside down with a ball gag in her mouth. He began to skin her alive. How awful to be skinned when one was still alive!
After the skin had been removed from her mother, Mick took the knife and slashed her throat. When she was dead, Mick picked up a piece of skin from the floor and ate it. John had to stop reading after that. He couldn't take it anymore. He went to the kitchen and made himself a cup of tea to collect himself. Then, he went back into the den to read more on the Skinner.