The Naturalist (The Naturalist #1)(85)

“And if they don’t?”

“If you don’t convince them? What do you think, Theo?”

I hesitate. “I don’t know . . .”

“I’m sending you a photo.”

My phone chirps as a text message arrives. A black-and-white image pops up. I have to squint to see the details at first. When I recognize what I’m looking at, the world stops.

It’s an image of Jillian, taken with a night-vision camera.

She’s sleeping in her bed.

“I was there last night, Theo. I stood over her for an hour, watching. I’m very quiet. But I don’t have to go to her house again. I could sit at a table in her restaurant and slip a knife into her ribs as she refills my coffee. I could grab her as she goes to her car at night. I could shoot her from a hundred yards away. I have a lot of ways. And your friend, the old man, how hard do you think that would be? I could kill them both in twenty minutes and then be on my way to Florida to visit your mother. Or I could go to Texas and start killing random students at your college.”

I snap out of my dreamlike state and feel my blood boiling. “You fucker . . .”

“You started this. Now you have to end it. Right now you’re weighing the odds. Do you tell the police everything I told you? Or do you do exactly as I asked? Do you think they could protect everyone? They don’t even think I exist.”

“I know your name. I’ll tell them.” I don’t yet, but I know it’s in the binder.

“No, you don’t. You know an old name I haven’t used in thirty years. That boy, the one that . . . He doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Is that what it is? Some hick molests you and you become a serial killer?”

“It’s not that simple, Theo. Deep down we’re all animals. But that’s not important. You know what you need to do.”

“How do I know you won’t harm them anyway?”

“You don’t. But you’re a logical man. It’s not in my interest to do that. I just want to hear on the news tomorrow that you confessed.”

“What if I do everything you ask me and they don’t believe me?”

“That’s why you need to do one more thing to convince them. I can’t trust you not to eventually tell them. That’s why you’re going to use that gun of yours to put a bullet in your head after you make your confession.”

“I . . . I’m supposed to kill myself?”

“Yes, Theo. Videotape a confession. It had better be the performance of your life. Then shoot yourself. It’ll be quick. You won’t feel a thing. Jillian will be safe. And if you don’t, someone you care about will be dead by tomorrow night. Maybe her. Maybe Gus. Maybe someone I haven’t mentioned.”

I don’t know how long after he hangs up that I sit here, staring at a swaying tree branch, hypnotized.

My ringing phone wakes me out of my stupor.

“Hello?”

“Hey Dr. Cray, it’s Sergeant Graham.” Her voice is friendlier than the professional tone she struck with me this morning. “We didn’t get to finish up. I have a couple more questions for you. Are you still at the pancake place?”

“I . . . had to run an errand.”

“Okay. Well, if you could pop by the substation, we can wrap up. Can you be here in an hour?”

“Sure,” I lie.

“Great. See you then.”

I’m not the only liar. She was too friendly, too cordial. I’m sure she went by the pancake place and realized I wasn’t there.

They want to talk to me about Mrs. Lane.

Right now they’re wondering why I would kill her, torch the woods, then go to them with a story about the Cougar Creek Monster. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s insane. But it all leads back to me.

Damn.

If I want to keep Jillian and Gus safe, I better think of something.





CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE


ADMISSION

Joshua Lee Clark, that’s his name. At least that’s what it used to be. When I turn to his page in the binder, the eyes give it away. Dark green, sitting under a mop of reddish hair. The eyes are intelligent but unsure. It’s not a photo of a scared eleven-year-old. It’s a wary animal caught in the flashbulb’s glare.

He was placed in foster care after his mother was found stabbed to death in the kitchen. Joshua told the police it had been a domestic dispute between her and his estranged father. Nobody else saw his father come or go, but there had been a history of violence and the police found Joshua’s story credible.

I’m not sure I do, knowing what I know now. The calculating voice on the other end of the phone was capable of anything. He admitted to killing Julie Lane, his foster mother, in an attempt to silence her and frame me.

Killing for him is effortless, whether it’s for pleasure or expedience. And now he’s threatened to kill people I care about if I don’t do what he says.

I have to lie and invent explanations that will be paper thin. I have to do everything I can to convince the people I was trying to get to believe there was a killer out there to now think it was all some scheme I concocted.

It’s absurd and won’t stand up to scrutiny. But Clark is right: if I punctuate the lie with my own death, they’ll make it fit.

If I admit to killing Juniper, they’ll believe me. I can convince them I arranged Chelsea’s death if I say it happened on a trip I made up here the year before.