Killer Genius 2: Attack of the Gym Rats

While their incestuous relationship allowed for an unusual amount of closeness between brother and sister, Clarissa and Jon usually did their sleeping in separate beds. However, Clarissa’s emotional state called for something different. Clarissa cried herself to sleep and ended up laying on top of him. As the dutiful brother, he didn’t have the heart to disturb her. He laid there, listening to her heartbeat and light snoring, smelling the hotel shampoo in her hair and falling even more in love with her by the second.

In his heart, he knew that while her tantrum might have been overly dramatic, she was correct. They should have taken steps to get past their childhoods and become normal people a long time ago. However, it was his belief that the inner malfunctions installed in them by their sexual predator father and further contorted by their ‘family’ psychiatrist, could never be fixed. The day when the two of them could make love without killing two people first, or for that matter behave as a normal brother and sister and find other lovers, would never come. At least, not for him. In truth, he had no intentions of ever letting her go.

At 8:39pm his cellphone vibrated. He managed not to wake her as he reached a hand out to the nightstand:

“Wake up, sweetheart. We have a problem.” He sat up in the bed.

“What is the matter? What’s wrong?” Clarissa yawned. Her eyes were so puffy that it hurt to open them.

Jon’s feet found the floor. “Something went wrong. Yuri’s men were killed going after Janice.”

“We’re leaving.”

“You want to take them as they come out of the hotel?” Boris asked from the driver’s seat of the large black SUV parked across the street from the New Yorker Hotel. He was a tad anxious, having recently been promoted from strip club bouncer to driver. Yuri’s regular driver had only hours prior been killed as he tagged along on The Scythe’s ill-fated attack on Janice Thursby’s apartment earlier that day. An assignment like that was not a part of the man’s normal purview, but he asked Yuri’s permission to join the party because he was “bored.”

“No,” Yuri answered from the backseat. “I sent them the text message so they would try to make a run for it, but we are in midtown Manhattan. Our organization has already had too much excitement for one day. Any more incidents and Lieutenant Lopez will no doubt circle back and arrest me.” He looked at his reflection in the window, curling his lips back as he checked for food particles. “What we will do is follow them and wait until they have hidden themselves away and their guards are down. Then, we take them quietly and without witnesses.”

“Are we going to…” Boris let the thought trail off.

“Not unless Jon gets overly sensitive about his sister and forces my hand,” Yuri answered. “Which is possible and would be regrettable.”

“Why?” Boris asked. “These people are not of The Brotherhood.”

“True, but dead people can’t pay debts.”

“That is why you are boss,” Boris said with an approving nod. “What if they don’t leave the hotel?”

As if cued by a stage manager, Jon and Clarissa exited the hotel. Clarissa looked harried, a direct contrast to Jon’s determined countenance. They held hands as Jon successfully flagged down a cab.

“You were saying, my friend?” Yuri asked.

Through the rearview mirror, a bewildered Boris shot a look at a smirking Yuri. “You always seem to know something the rest of us don’t.” Boris pressed the engine start button.

“Or maybe, I am just a good guesser,” Yuri responded as the prepaid cellphone in his jacket pocket vibrated violently. As Boris pulled the SUV out of the parking space and started following the cab, Yuri answered the phone.

“Yuri. How are you?” the voice on the other end called out to him.

“I’ve had better days,” Yuri admitted, “But nothing you should worry about.”

“Nothing I should worry about?” the voice marveled in Russian. “Do you know that every property of ours was visited by the NYPD today? From bathhouses to restaurants. Since everyone’s affairs are in order with the local precincts, no one was taken into custody. But fines were issued. Fines which others may come to you for restitution, since you didn’t bother to warn anyone that the heat was on.”

“Everyone has my phone number,” Yuri tried to sound dismissive in the face of losing a great deal of money. He half-succeeded. “They can let me know if they have a problem.”

“And all of them looking for Ratkevich siblings that everyone thought were dead, but apparently are serial killers. And the police think you’ve been hiding them. Yuri, I must say, it is hurtful to learn these things from sources outside of The Brotherhood. To make matters worse, now I hear you lost half your men, including The Scythe?”

“I will have things under control in an hour or so,” Yuri said.

“For your sake, I hope so,” the voice answered. “Because my cleaning services do not come cheap.” The Voice ended the call.

“Everything all right, Boss?” Boris asked as he tried to subtly follow Jon and Clarissa’s cab traveling uptown on 8^th Avenue.

He took a deep breath and lied. “Everything is fine.”

“Everything is fine.” The baby had just stopped crying. Max’s phone call was well-timed.

“Are you sure, because I can come home.” Max sounded worried.

Bridgette knew this day would come and to some degree, she welcomed it. Of course, she didn’t expect to be left alone with little Bethany after having been on-air for a two-hour special edition of her new show, The Truth with Bridgette Aries. But with the White House drowning in multiple scandals, and a new segment producer that booked the most talkative and antagonizing guests ever, she could have easily done a three-hour broadcast and not discussed everything.

The worst part of her job was not the tight schedule of briefings, then make-up then on-air with barely time to go to the bathroom. It wasn’t even the hours of preparation required for her to be a credible news reporter. Her biggest issue was the constant state of anger she found herself in. A rage that came from knowing the details of every heinous thing that happened today, yesterday and a myriad of yesterdays before that. She cared and couldn’t seem to turn it off.

“My question is, were you in a gun battle tonight?”

During the first part of her courtship with Max, he managed to earn the title of ‘Best Boyfriend Ever’. Along with being generally good humored and attentive, he was an endless wellspring of encouragement both while she was unemployed and later, when she started the new show. He had become the perfect companion to end her day with, a ‘soft place for her to land’ as her very romantic mother would have said.

“Not exactly, but there were some casualties today. How did you know?”

Max seemed deliriously happy to be with her and with a number of good reasons. He was on the rebound from his atrocious wife, Shelia, who had set the bar so low that Bridgette could do no wrong. Running a little late for a dinner date? No big deal. If Shelia would have showed up at all, she would have been much later and would have complained about anything and everything the whole time. Not in the mood for sex any given night? Who cares? A night or two of menstrual cramps and ‘just cuddling’ were nothing compared to the sex droughts he’d have to endure courtesy of a cheating, manipulative spouse who never actually loved him. Got a last minute social event you’d rather not attend alone? Well, let’s go! At least your friends talk about more than rap music, overpriced shoes, basketball and which black celebrities are boning one another. Not to mention, her friends never treated him like a pariah because he’s a cop.

“I work at a news channel, remember? And I know what your clothes look like because I see you every day before you leave the apartment. That was our helicopter hovering over that rooftop with you, Smitty and half the NYPD standing there sorting through dead bodies. Now, what is this about the Russian mob?”

Things were going so well that they moved in together after ten months of dating bliss. Two weeks after that, he took her out to their favorite Thai restaurant and proposed. The wait staff made so much noise congratulating them that he almost pulled his gun and shot them. Two more weeks later, the FBI called for an appointment. He assumed it had something to do with The Good Grades murders and in a roundabout way, he was right. She expected him to come home in a pensive mood after a day of being reminded of the most bizarre and terrible thing to ever happen to him. Instead, she was greeted by an utterly beleaguered Max and a newborn baby girl who looked almost as equally befuddled.

“Woah, those details were not released! You can’t…”

“Nor am I going to Max,” Bridgette answered calmly. “I’m not Shelia. I’m not going to go on-air and do something irresponsible for ratings. Unlike your ex-wife, I am a serious journalist with some integrity. I’m asking about the Russian mob because I saw men with their faces torn apart, heard the rumors and now I’m deeply concerned for your safety.”

Since they couldn’t tell anyone that the baby was the offspring of Max’s encounter with a serial killer that was supposed to be dead, they had to make up a cover story to her friends that she and Max decided to adopt. Everyone from her personal life, especially Bridgette’s parents had found the idea of a pre-wedding adoption bizarre. There were tons of questions, many of which she deflected better than a White House Press Secretary covering for a madman. For Bridgette, it wasn’t so much the lying as it was keeping track of the lies for later.

“This is the part where I assure you that I’m fine. I guess.” Max sounded contrite.

Things were much easier for Max on his end of the baby reveal. As a detective, he was better suited for remembering a series of nuanced falsehoods all to achieve a desired effect and was the perfect accomplice when it came to lying to her parents. That’s as hard as it got for him. While she had to fool enough people to fill a small town, Max was able to come clean with his sister, brother-in-law, Smitty and Pedro. And not only could he tell them the truth, he could sleep soundly at night, secure in the knowledge that all four of them would take that secret to their graves.

“Listen, Max. I’m going to try to clear the air here and say some needed things. I’m doing this because I feel like your big brain and your overactive imagination have taken you to a place you have no business being in. Here it is: I’m not leaving you. We’ve hired some great babysitters and I have actually taken care of a baby before so I’m under no more stress than anyone else with a child, an eventuality I was mentally prepared for anyway. That being said, you need to know that whether you’re going after Jack the Ripper or The Hamburglar as long as you come home in one piece, the two of us will be here to cheer you on. I’m never leaving. Even tonight, as scared as I was I’m not angry with you. At least not to the point that you’re going to come home to screaming or an empty home. I love this baby and I love you, Max Baxter.”

He almost felt the sting of tears. “You know, all this time I…”

“…was afraid I would somehow forget how this baby came to be, get all self-righteous about being forced to raise a child that’s not my blood, and leave the two of you? That’s why you’ve been killing yourself, making sure you are always home by a certain time, paying the babysitter extra and not letting me change a single diaper for months?”

“Sounds kind of extreme when you say it,” Max admitted.

She chuckled despite herself. “This is a partnership, Max. That means shared responsibilities. We have a daughter and I’m good with that. And I’m glad you’re finally on a case that forced you into a little overtime, so Bethany and I could finally have a moment alone. Just come back to us without any bullet holes in you. Can you do that for me?”

“I will certainly give it a shot.” Max caught himself. “No pun intended.”

“Tell Smitty and Pedro I said hi! See you when you get home.”

“You got it, babe!”

Bethany began to cry as soon as the phone call ended. “Ah! Daddy’s little girl! At least you let me talk to your father in peace.”

Bridgette put the phone down and rocked Bethany in her arms until she settled down and fell back to sleep. Looking in the tiny face that half-resembled the man she loved and half-resembled her old high-school friend turned serial killer, Bridgette couldn’t help but think of Kendra. For a moment, she focused her gaze at her living room TV monitor. “This Russian thing has something to do with you, doesn’t it? Well, I just hope you’re watching out for him. Especially, now that you gave us this baby.”