"We brought you on that camping trip to take care of you for good." The smile that crept over Watkins face sent a chill down Malcolm's spine. His head tilted to the side. Considering. What, he didn't know. How else to torture him seemed like a safe bet. Then Watkins face went devoid of all emotion. A perfect poker face. One Malcolm, with all his experience and skill, found impossible to crack. "Your father was going to kill you."
The words rocked Malcolm to the core of his being. His blood congealed in his veins. His breath froze in his lungs. The white noise growing steadily louder with every tick of the clock went silent. The only thing Malcolm heard was those words reverberating off the concrete walls surrounding them.
Your father was going to kill you.
To kill you.
Kill you.
Of all the things he expected Watkins to reveal about the camping trip the three of them took, his father killing him hadn't been one of them.
"No," he croaked. "That's not true."
It's impossible, he added silently as he stared into Watkins emotionless face. There was just no way. His father wouldn't...
Are you sure he wouldn't kill you? a slippery voice whispered. You believed he'd never hurt you. How did that turn out?
Pain blossomed in his chest that had nothing to do with the knife that Watkins stuck between his ribs. No, this bit of agony was from learning — realizing — his father planned to kill him.
The dark things living inside his head laughed and jeered. Taunted him with images of his father sitting with him in his lap and teaching him about the mechanics of the human hand. Acting out scenes from his favorite books. Following behind as he learned to ride a bike. Sneaking him cookies and hot chocolate before bed.
All things a loving father did with their son.
He's wrong.
Martin Whitly was many things — a sadistic megalomaniac, a predatory psychopath, and a malignant narcissist — but Malcolm believed he loved him.
Insomuch as a man like him could love another living being. His father wasn't capable of killing him.
He wasn't.
End of story.
He chloroformed you, that simpering voice intruded to remind him. Why else are you missing such huge chunks of your memory?
The man he hadn't believed capable of hurting him.
The man he believed loved him.
Chloroformed him.
Intentionally.
Malcolm's overeducated mind kicked in to remind him he shouldn't be so quick to believe Watkins. To trust anything the man had to say.
"Everybody lies," a cranky TV doctor from a show Sorcha introduced him to a few days ago liked to say.
He was right.
Everybody lied at some time or another.
Especially serial killers like John Watkins.
Like Martin Whitly.
"We're the same." His father's lips spread wide in that all-too-familiar grin. "Never forget that, my boy. We're the same."
Malcolm's breath wheezed out from between his teeth as he tried to tune his father out. It took every ounce of energy he had to shut that memory down.
To keep himself in the present.
To focus on Watkins.
To getting himself out of this situation.
The longer Watkins held him, though, the more his body would detox.
The more vulnerable his mind would become.
The less in control he'd be in.
Of himself and his actions.
"You're wrong." Malcolm sunk back on his feet and stared at Watkins through the strands of hair in his face. "My father wouldn't kill me."
He spoke with more confidence than he actually felt. Everything he thought — knew — about his father was in serious doubt now.
"Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm." Watkins let out a low chuckle that grated on Malcolm's steadily fraying nerves. "Your father was definitely gonna kill you. Why else did he bring you with us?"
"Why?" The word came out softer, breathier than he'd have liked. He attributed it to blood loss and growing fatigue. "Why did he want to kill me?"
"The chloroform wasn't working as it once did." Watkins moved his hands. A move meant to distract him. To shift his focus. To signify how unimportant he found the topic. "You were starting to remember things."
"What things?" That's what he wanted to know. "What was I starting to remember?"
Watkins shook his head, sighed.
"You keep asking the wrong questions here, Malcolm." Watkins placed his arm across his bent knee. "Focusing on things that aren't important."
"If I'm asking the wrong questions," Malcolm said. "Tell me what the right questions are."
"Why should I tell you what they are?" Watkins again smiled but there was no humor in it. "How are you to learn if I give you the questions and the answers?"
"What am I supposed to learn?"
"You'll see." Watkins pushed to his feet. "I have plans for you, little Malcolm."
"Yeah?" Malcolm tilted his head back so he could look at Watkins. "Sorry, I'm not exactly a team player. Ask my father."
"Trust me." Watkins eyes became sharper. His smile predatory. Like a wolf who cornered his prey and was slowly closing in for the kill. Malcolm's blood began to pump, quickly, helplessly. "By the time I'm done, you will be everything your father hoped you'd be and then some."
He left him alone then.
...
Gil found Sorcha staring out the window when he entered his office. She still wore the dress from earlier. Her arms were wrapped about herself to fight off a chill that had nothing to do with the frigid temperatures outside.
She turned to face him. Her face might have been coolly composed but her eyes burned with an intensity that left no doubt in Gil's mind about what was going on inside. Sorcha reminded him of Jessica at that moment. Neither woman would fall to pieces until Bright was back safe.
"When?"
There wasn't any need for her to ask him if Bright had been kidnapped. No, Sorcha figured that out soon as he answered the kid's phone.
"We believe it happened a little after seven."
Only silently did he add, Right after he replied to your text and told you to be careful driving back into the city.
Not that Bright was careful. No, the kid never stopped to consider his own safety while working a case. His own health and well-being wasn't something that ever crossed Bright's mind.
His guilt over all the people Martin Whitly hurt prevented him from valuing himself. To seeing he mattered. That he mattered. No matter how much Gil tried, he just couldn't get Bright to accept that he didn't owe the world for what his father did. Bright saw himself as responsible and there was no changing his mind about it.
"Is it Lazar who has him?"
She doesn't know that Bright figured out who Paul Lazar really is.
That thought played through Gil's mind as he shut the door behind him before crossing towards her. Bright hadn't gotten the chance to tell her what he and Owen Shannon learned in Deputy Chief's Turner's storage locker.
There hadn't been any time for him to tell her.
No, the kid sent one quick message to her before following Shannon into the proverbial lion's den and getting himself caught by the lion after Watkins killed Shannon.
Dammit, Bright, why didn't you wait for backup to arrive?
Why he even thought that, Gil didn't know. The kid asking, much less waiting for backup would be sign the world was coming to an end.
He only had himself to blame, though.
He shouldn't have allowed Bright to leave the precinct.
Not when he knew Owen Shannon was lurking around, still carrying a grudge against the kid after all these years. The probability for a confrontation between the two had been high. Gil had known it was. Yet he allowed Bright to waltz out of the precinct without once thinking to ask Dani or JT to go with him.
I should have made sure he got to Jessica's as he intended.
He hadn't counted on them actually working together to solve the riddle of who Paul Lazar was.
Tying him to the Junkyard Killer.
To the Surgeon.
Nor had he imagined them tracking the man to his grandmother's house.
Now, Owen Shannon was dead, and Bright in the hands of a man who already hurt him once as a warning.
His only hope for figuring out where Watkins might have taken Bright was the woman in front of him.
Gil needed a profiler.
One who understood Bright.
Who knew everything he did about Watkins.
Who'd focus on finding Bright and bringing him home alive.
"Bright found out Paul Lazar is really John Watkins."
Sorcha's only outward reaction to that revelation was a widening of her eyes.
"So, we know who the Junkyard Killer really is."
"And that he murdered Deputy Chief Ian Turner."
"Watkins killed Turner?" Sorcha couldn't quite mask her surprise. "You're sure?"
"Yes."
"Why?" Her brow furrowed. "Turner doesn't fit his victimology."
"Bright and a former detective named Owen Shannon found out Turner was secretly investigating the Junkyard Killer."
"Because he suspected him of being involved with the Surgeon."
Gil wasn't surprised at how quickly she made the connection. He had suspected she would. Sorcha had had been raised by one of the finest men Gil had ever met. Ian Corbin taught everything he knew about profiling to his daughter.
To Bright.
It not only made her his best resource at that moment but also Bright's. Sorcha was his closest confidante. One of the few people he trusted with his deepest, darkest secrets. Who believed him about the girl in the box.
Bright would have told her things he wouldn't have felt comfortable sharing with him or the rest of the team. Bounced ideas off of her. Shared theories.
Created a more complete profile.
"That's what Bright believed, yes."
Sorcha turned to stare pensively out the window. "The woman I saw Swanson bring in here... is she connected to this Watkins?"
"His grandmother."
Sorcha made a soft sound deep in her throat.
"She won't tell you anything."
"Why do you think that?"
Not that he didn't doubt her. Gil also suspected they wouldn't learn anything from Mathilda Watkins.
"It goes back to what my father believed about how killers aren't all born."
"Someone has to break them."
How often had Bright said that to him?
"Watkins is a mission-oriented killer," Sorcha said. "He sees himself cleaning up the world by ridding it of the addicts, prostitutes, and derelicts. An avenging angel or instrument of God." She waved her hand towards the door. "Something most likely learned at the hands of a grandmother who was a religious fanatic."
"Watkins killed Owen Shannon."
"She probably called him once she figured out why they were there."
"She set Bright up then."
"Yes." Sorcha turned her eyes to his in the glass. "Watkins told Malcolm before that he wasn't his mission. That changed tonight. He wouldn't have taken Mal if he didn't plan on his being his new mission."
Withdrawal was only the beginning of what Watkins would do to Bright. Starvation, dehydration, physical and psychological torture. All designed with one purpose: to break the kid.
"We have to find Bright."
"We have a maximum of twelve hours in which to find Mal." Some of Sorcha's anxiety leaked through into her voice. "Any longer and who knows what condition we'll find him in."
Gil set a hand on her shoulder. "We'll find him."
She reached up to cover his hand with her own. "Then let's get started."
A/N: Hello, all! Hope this finds you well!
I just want to send a special thank you to Rookblonkorules for their lovely reviews!
