Aislinn had flown back to Kansas City three hours earlier. Nyleena was in a coma, but alive. Gabriel would know where to find her. In the meantime, he had something else to deal with. Lucas sat across from him in the conference room. They should have already left Columbia, but Lucas had brought damning information that delayed their leaving.
Not only had The Butcher killed Nina and critically injured Nyleena, he had been trying to pass messages along to Aislinn the entire time. Gabriel had hung up with the hotel less than thirty minutes ago. John Bryan, their newest member, had ordered all her messages and calls be routed to him. It was problematic to screen her messages and calls. It was a huge fucking deal that he had failed to pass that information along to anyone. They could have wrapped up the case the day the plane touched down if he had given the information to Gabriel or Xavier.
Xavier came into the room. They hadn’t told him anything except to be there at four. It was two minutes to four, he was early for Xavier. The mood was somber and Xavier fidgeted uncomfortably. He said nothing though, waiting for the fourth member to come in.
At a minute past four, John joined them. He took a seat and immediately mistook the somberness as grief for Nyleena, a woman he didn’t know very well. Gabriel cleared his throat. These were serious allegations that might go beyond the SCTU. He was waiting for one more to join them.
However, the fifth wasn’t showing up. He was late. The minutes ticked by, Xavier fidgeted more and more. Lucas was calm. Gabriel was not. His hands kept clenching and unclenching.
“What’s this about?” John asked after a half hour.
“Just a few more minutes,” Gabriel checked his phone. A text message appeared. He sighed and clasped his hands together. This was going to be tricky. He needed Malachi to do his job and not let his personal impulses control him. Sometimes, Malachi needed help with that. Gabriel hoped Lucas, Xavier and himself were up to the task. Especially since Malachi was in a heightened state of psychopathy due to the shooting of Nyleena. He might not have a personal attachment to her, but she was Aislinn’s life line, transference ran both ways.
Any semblance that Malachi was a healthy, sane, well-adjusted thirty-four year old male, was completely lost when he walked into the conference room. He had completely dropped the mask that he wore all the time. His face was devoid of emotion, but his nostrils flared when he breathed, his heartbeat was strong enough to make the pulse in his neck visible, tendons stood out on his forehead, creating ridges, his eyes were alive, vividly green and containing nothing short of the fires of Hell within them. His body screamed that he wanted nothing less than to bathe in blood. None of them wanted to guess what he was thinking, they were sure it involved pain, unbearable pain that would make eternity in the hands of demons seem like a pleasure cruise.
He didn’t walk, he stalked into the room. The door banging loudly as it bounced off the wall with his opening it and slamming closed from the momentum. He moved to stand behind Gabriel, his rage too consuming to allow him to sit down.
Xavier didn’t know what was going on, but he knew it wasn’t about Nyleena. John squirmed under Malachi’s searing gaze.
“We were informed that Aislinn Cain received four messages from The Butcher, Patterson Clachan, while we were working this case. The first one arrived at the hotel a few hours after us. We also know that she didn’t receive these messages and that they contained the identity of the killer. Can you explain why you directed the hotel staff to have all her messages sent to you as well as any phone calls she received?” Gabriel asked John. John squirmed a little more.
“Someone died because she didn’t get that message,” Lucas spoke calmly to John. “That was vital information. It doesn’t matter that it came from a serial killer, you had no right to keep that information from the team.”
“Or pretend to be in command so you could dictate what messages one of my Marshals received.” Gabriel added. “Now, we are giving you the chance to explain yourself. Special Agent Blake is here to act as a witness.”
“You’re all crazy,” John snorted. Malachi growled. It was low. More predator than human, John didn’t even know humans could make those noises. He felt it rumble in his chest.
“That’s not going to help you,” Lucas said.
“Marshal Cain has been helping a serial killer avoid justice for a long time.” John said. “She has repeatedly been in contact with Patterson Clachan over the years.”
“We know,” Gabriel said. “She reports all contact to Special Agent Blake because he’s in charge of the investigation into The Butcher.”
“How can you justify allowing your Marshals unit to be in contact with a known serial killer and pedophile?” John shouted.
“The Butcher is not a pedophile,” Lucas answered. “Patterson Clachan has no gender preference for victims, but he does have an age preference. During his years in Europe, it was Nazi soldiers and occasionally, a civilian when soldiers were in short supply. Back in the states, he kills both men and women, but they tend to be people he thinks has slighted him in some way. George Killian tried to kill Aislinn Cain when she was in high school in a drive-by shooting and has since been following her and killing to frame her. Nina Clachan asked Patterson to kill her, so that she wouldn’t suffer through the end stages of her cancer. His next target is the sniper that killed Michael Giovanni. Unfortunately, he knows more about the killer than we do and he was unwilling to share that information because he felt slighted that Aislinn wasn’t responding to his messages. He attempted to kill August Clachan when August was a child, but that was because Tennyson Unger raped August’s mother and August was the by-product. He never sexually abused any of the people he killed. He likes to kill, but it does not give him a sexual rush. It gives him a feeling of control and power.”
“He raped and murdered my daughter!” John shoved his chair away from the table.
“No, he didn’t,” Malachi frowned at John. “Unless you found your daughter with her organs removed and nailed to different pieces of furniture in your house, Patterson Clachan didn’t kill your daughter and he certainly didn’t sexually assault her. He considers rapists and pedophiles to be the lowest of the low.”
Gabriel turned the full weight of his stare at John. “I don’t know why you thought Patterson Clachan killed your daughter, but he didn’t and your personal vendetta not only cost a life, but endangered the safety of this unit. You are relieved of your duties and will be turned over to the FBI to be prosecuted. Do you understand?”
“If it wasn’t Patterson Clachan, who was it?” John demanded. “My daughter was raped then butchered.”
“No, your daughter was killed and then raped,” Gabriel told him. “Your information is wrong. In your mind, she might have been butchered, but in reality she was stabbed seventeen times. That is nothing compared to what Patterson Clachan does to his victims.”
Malachi produced a photo and put it on the table. George Killian, split from navel to chin, sat in a chair. The torso cavity was devoid of everything. Blood had soaked into the chair so heavily, that it dripped from the bottom.
“That is what Patterson Clachan does to his victims when he can’t think of a more ‘poetic’ way to kill them, like breaking their legs and leaving them to be eaten by their abused dogs, like he did with Tennyson Unger.”
All heads turned towards Malachi. He had forgotten they didn’t know that or that Patterson Clachan had an MO. He had known for years that Patterson Clachan was The Butcher. He had kept it secret because of a letter he’d received telling him that he had personally taken care of Tennyson Unger and that their family no longer had to worry about the old devil who had done things worse than raping Gertrude Clachan.
Two VCU agents came into the room and took John into custody. They were alone. Malachi knew what came next. He had slipped up. Aislinn was making him soft and forgetful at times.
“Would you like to elaborate, Special Agent Blake?” Gabriel reminded him of his job. Malachi was an old pro at lying, it was one of the benefits of being a psychopath.
“When Aislinn first started receiving letters from The Butcher, I did as well. They stopped after only a few, then after the funeral of Tennyson Unger, I received my final letter from him. He knew that Tennyson had molested my younger brothers. I didn’t know it was Aislinn’s grandfather and I didn’t know how he knew about it. The only people that knew were my mom and Aislinn’s mom. In the letter, he stated that he had incapacitated Unger by breaking his legs and then left him to be eaten by his mutt. Since I was glad he was dead, I burned the letter. Now that I know about Gertrude Clachan tapping Nina’s phones, I understand how Patterson Clachan found out about it. I wasn’t an FBI agent at the time, I hadn’t even graduated college yet. I should have turned it over, like Aislinn did, but I was young and I didn’t want my brothers to be humiliated by it being revealed to others.”
“And the MO?” Gabriel asked.
“Michael and I were keeping it secret. If Aislinn had found it in the database, she would have known her grandfather was The Butcher. The powers that be are in the dark about it, as well. There are things about our jobs that they neither want nor need to know. With Aislinn, it was a matter of protection, she questions her humanity enough without having to wonder how many killers her family has produced. His favorite targets are pedophiles. He really doesn’t like pedophiles.”
“Tennyson couldn’t abuse you sexually, so he did it physically.” Lucas said slowly.
“Yes,” Malachi answered. “Aislinn doesn’t need to know that, either.”
“Aislinn doesn’t like secrets,” Lucas said. “With good reason.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Malachi agreed. “And she’s about to get more answers than she ever wanted.”
“Why?” Xavier asked.
“Patterson Clachan is about to make his final stand,” Lucas looked at Xavier. “He told me he had a list, when he finishes the list, he’ll let Malachi take him into custody. He won’t turn himself into us, he’s afraid of what Aislinn will do. Nyleena was an accident, but one that Aislinn is going to have trouble ignoring, even when Nyleena wakes up.”
“Do we know any of his other targets?” Malachi asked.
“I think we can safely add Joe Clachan, August Clachan, and Gertrude Clachan to the list. Can you think of anyone else that has slighted Aislinn or her family?”
“That’s a long list considering what Patterson sees as a slight. You can add John Bryan.” Malachi looked at them. “As a matter of fact, with the exception of Nyleena, Ace’s mom and her immediate family, and us, I’d say everyone is a potential target.”
“Patterson felt guilty for shooting Nyleena in the face like he did. He said he didn’t mean to do it,” Lucas told everyone. “He says it was supposed to be a through-and-through to her shoulder. She was going to bleed, maybe have a broken collar bone, nothing more, but she turned and Patterson fired into her face by accident. He specifically shot Nyleena with a .22 though and Nina with a .9mm. His intentions were obviously different.”
“A psychopath with a conscience.” Gabriel sat back down.
“It gets worse,” Malachi told him. “Patterson doesn’t really have a conscience like you do, he has one like Aislinn does. It’s fake, completely created by Nina and Lila. He feels bad about Nyleena because he knows he is supposed to, because Nina and Lila would have told him to feel bad about it. Now, they’re both dead and he’s wounded, because he’s lost his connection with Ace and Nyleena.”
“Wounded?” Lucas asked.
“If Aislinn were ripped out of my life, I would suffer some serious side effects. He killed Lila, sure, but not because he wanted to, I think he wanted to kill Gertrude, but Lila was there. That’s why he disappeared. It wasn’t fear of going to jail, it was fear of never getting revenge on Gertrude. Nina always stopped him. Nina’s gone. In a perfect world, Aislinn and Nyleena would fill the void, but it isn’t a perfect world and with the loss of those women, so goes his grip on whatever control he had.”
“So, he didn’t just kill his sister, he killed his touchstone,” Lucas said.
“Yes,” Malachi answered. “He wouldn’t have killed her if she hadn’t made him promise to do it.”
“Psychopaths need contact with their touchstones,” Lucas said.
“No, they don’t. They just need to know they are around if they need them. I don’t have to talk to Ace. I can hear her voice in my head. Ace hears Nyleena’s. Ace requires more contact than I do, because I am not trying to be a sociopath. I just need to know that Aislinn Cain is alive for me to keep some of the darker parts in check.”
“Like the urge to kill,” Xavier said.
“I’m not a killer,” Malachi answered. “Death is interesting, the power of life and death is a thrill, and I have no problems making the decision, but that isn’t what my psychopathic urges are about.”
“You’re a sadist,” Lucas said.
“I don’t torture people because Ace tells me it’s wrong, even if they want it.” Malachi admitted. “Pain is my world. Death would be accidental in that situation. And before you go over thinking that statement, mixing pain and pleasure does not always mean sex. Sometimes, it’s about control and feeling invincible.”
“You’re a true sadist, not a sexual sadist,” Lucas gave a soft whistle. “That is truly rare.”
“You would have made a great inquisitor,” Gabriel said.
“I would have been one of the best,” Malachi answered.