The Butcher and the Wren(36)

And beyond that, Jeremy knew from the start how rare it is for a plan to follow the initial blueprint without even minor deviations. Contingencies are built into plans for this exact reason, and Jeremy felt thankful for the hemlock he injected into his victim’s sleeping body before placing her into that not-so-final resting place. Of course, it would have been better if she was found already dead upon exhumation, but contingency plans are better than abject failures. The poison hemlock coursed through her veins, and respiratory failure finished the job.

Just like Socrates.

He was seventy years old at the time of his trial for impiety and the corruption of youth. When found guilty of both charges by a jury of his peers, he was told he would be acting as his own executioner. Ancient Greece was nothing if not theatrical. Socrates was hastily led down to a jail cell and handed a cup of poison hemlock tea. He was instructed to drink and then walk around until he felt his legs give out beneath him. History would have us believe that his was a harmonious death. That he did as he was told and that he did so stoically. But Jeremy knows the real havoc that poison hemlock can wreak—vomiting, seizures, respiratory failure—and he is glad to see history repeat itself in his latest victim.

Jeremy knows it’s not healthy to ruminate on his past failures. He can feel himself getting increasingly obsessive to the point of carelessness, but much like a plane in a nosedive toward the ground, he just can’t stop himself.





CHAPTER 26





WRENS ARE TRULY MAGNIFICENT LITTLE creatures. They signify rebirth and protection, immortality, and strength. Because of the wren’s small stature, most larger birds and predators underestimate its incredible ingenuity and intelligence. But while technically fragile, the wren outwits its underprepared predator to come out on top when threatened.

It’s for all these reasons that she chose the name for herself.

Seven years ago, Wren Muller was Emily Maloney, working steadily toward her dream of becoming a doctor. She was trusting, na?ve, and blissfully unaware of the horrors that would soon befall her. A perfect mark. And then, she was drugged, kidnapped, hunted, stabbed, and left for dead in a remote bayou—one that she still can’t quite pin down on a map—by a sadistic killer masquerading as her lab partner and friend.

At first, she had blamed herself for missing the signs. She ran through it over and over in her mind. How she waited for what felt like hours on the ground with her eyes blurry and burning. How her back throbbed and her head pounded. How she didn’t dare move for fear he would come back. She remembers the fear bubbling in her throat like bile, so all-encompassing that she thought she might drown in it. But, eventually, it faded. The torture he inflicted on her mind and body healed. She learned to survive, and, ultimately, to move on.

But now Cal’s crooked smile haunts her once more.

She’s transported back in time to that same cursed stretch of bayou and watches herself, bloody and bruised, feel behind her body to touch the deep wound in her lower back. He had missed the mark. Missed the spinal cord, wounding but not paralyzing her as he had intended. They were only second-year medical students together, after all. She remembers dragging Katie’s body along the spongy ground. Her eyelids were like sandpaper that night, but her adrenaline carried her through the suffocating pain and exhaustion. She knew she had to redirect the electric current from the fence so she could pass it freely. It took every ounce of her strength to push Katie’s limp body into it. She can’t remember now what it felt like to climb over Katie’s body, and she silently thanks her brain for protecting itself against the full extent of the sensory memory. She does, however, remember running. She ran for miles. It was like running through water.

She blinks herself from her racing memories and swallows hard.

Now she knows Cal was the Bayou Butcher. He had killed several women and men before her and is doing it again. She quickly snaps her glove from her right hand and snatches her cell phone.

“John.” She says his name as a sob catches in her throat. “Are you on your way here?”

She can hear passing vehicles in the background.

“Yeah, I should be there in about five minutes. What’s going on?”

She can hear the concern in his voice. She wants to scream at him that she knows who the Bayou Butcher is, that she has proof that he’s back. She takes an unsteady breath in and glances at the bracelet.

“I’m okay. It’s just when you get here, I have to drop some information on you. It’s pretty big. Just don’t want to blindside you.” She’s speaking too quickly, but she can’t slow herself down, still reeling from this shotgun blast of reality.

“Stay put. I’m coming,” he says kindly, but with his trademark steeliness.

The line cuts, and Wren drops her phone on top of the steel table in front of her. For a moment, she listens to her own breaths in the silent autopsy suite. After a minute, she grabs a scalpel handle. She carefully unwraps a blade and presses it to the handle until it clicks into place.

“I didn’t finish the external exam,” she says out loud as if talking to the victim herself.

She places the scalpel onto the sheet that covers the victim’s torso, then replaces her gloves and straps a face shield around her head. She pulls down the sheet and holds the blade over the right shoulder, preparing to begin the Y-incision. Before the blade hits pallid flesh, Wren stops.