The 7th Victim

handcuffs and gently lowered her to the packed dirt ground in a sitting position against the side wall of the stairwell. A spasmodic tic rattled her body.

A voice in the darkness: “So good of you to drop in.”

Robby spun, swinging his Glock in the direction of the voice—but an electric shock jolted him, like a lightning bolt attacking his muscles. He convulsed.

Pain shot through him. His arms spasmed, his body went numb, and his mind exploded into a mess of disorientation as he dropped to his knees.

“Thanks for coming,” Dead Eyes said. “How nice it is to kill you.”

eighty-six

What happened? Where am I? Who’s talking?

A voice, in the distance . . . and a feeling that something was terribly wrong.

“I’m saving you from the evil this bitch would’ve brought upon you, Detective. It’s an evil that’s generational, an evil that must be purged. An evil that spreads, invades, and infects. You’re infected . . . you must be killed like a germ.”

Robby’s muscular twitching and fatigue were still pervasive. The intense vertigo and numbness, however, were clearing and his senses were coming back to him: he smelled a rank odor . . . felt raw nerve pain flaring in his shoulder . . . saw a dark figure looming, leaning down toward him—

And heard a woman’s scream: “No!”

Robby instinctively threw up his arms to protect himself. But his movements were still slow and ineffective. The assailant brought his arm down—

—and then crumpled to the ground, beside Robby, atop Vail’s lap.

Standing there was Bledsoe, a thick two-by-four in his hands. “You okay?”

Robby’s eyes shifted to Vail, who just sat there, apparently lacking the strength to move. His twitching ceased, the pain subsided, and normal vision returned. “Karen. . . .” He rolled onto his side and clumsily pulled the handcuffs from his belt. He got them around the wrists of Dead Eyes and ratcheted them down. Bledsoe grabbed the offender’s torso and dragged the unconscious body toward the opening.

Robby removed his windbreaker, draped it around Vail’s shoulders, then drew her close. “I was afraid I was going to lose you.”

She squeezed him softly, with all her remaining strength. “That’s never gonna happen.”

eighty-seven

Karen Vail stood behind a large one-way mirror in the Special Needs cell block of the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center. Chase Hancock had been found in New Jersey, laying low and looking for work. As for Vail, her wrists were wrapped in cock-up splints, and she was wearing a figure-eight support on her shoulders and a hinged metal brace on her left knee. High-dose Motrin floated in her bloodstream. The ER physician prescribed Vicodin, but she wanted to be lucid, in complete control of her surroundings.

It’s always about control, isn’t it?

Beside Vail stood Paul Bledsoe, along with Thomas Gifford and the rest of the task force squad. Vail was transfixed on the scene unfolding behind the glass, where Behavioral Science Unit criminologist Wayne Rudnick had begun questioning a shackled Dead Eyes killer. Normally, one or two task force members would be in the interview room with their quarry. That was just the way it was done: those who tracked and caught the killer were given the opportunity to interrogate. It was like the reward, the dessert for eating your vegetables. But due to the complexity of the offender’s psychological condition, Bledsoe had reluctantly deferred to the BSU specialist.

The Dead Eyes killer abruptly stood and shouted. “Get her in here! Fucking bitch. Where is she? I’ll kill her!”

“Sam,” Rudnick said, maintaining his calm, “Please relax. I need you to sit, Sam, so we can continue to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk. All I want to do is kill her! Where is that bitch?” The chair went flying and the metal table overturned, knocking Rudnick to the floor. Four guards rushed the room, moving to restrain the killer—who was still fairly well contained by the shackles. But it was a raucous and adrenaline-spilling situation nonetheless.

“You okay?” a guard asked.

“I’m fine,” Rudnick said, his voice tinny through the speaker. Even through the one-way mirror, Vail could see Rudnick’s face was red from embarrassment. She watched him brush back his wild, tightly coiled hair and shrug his shoulders to reseat his worn, corduroy sport coat.

Upon Vail’s arrival, Bledsoe had told her they had just completed a nightlong search of the ceramics studio and loft, and found a bogus FBI shield fashioned from brass. An old copy of U.S. News, with a close-up photo of a genuine Bureau badge, served as the model.

Vail’s gaze returned to the Dead Eyes killer, Samantha Farwell. Her twin sister.

The short red hair was parted to the side, the voice was deep and rough, and the actions were aggressive and consistent with male offenders she had faced in the past. In fact, everything in the killer’s behavior was consistent with that of a male. Above all, a true female serial killer was nearly unheard of. But it was now clear there was a great deal more going on.

Rudnick was back at the table facing Sam, who had calmed. The guards had left the room on Rudnick’s insistence. “Sam, I would like to talk with Samantha.”

“And what’s she going to tell you that I can’t?”

Rudnick shrugged matter-of-factly. “How she felt, what it was like growing up.”

“I can tell you everything you need to know.”

“I’m not here to hurt her, Sam, you know that. I realize you can answer my questions, but I’d really like her perspective. Please.”

Sam’s chin dipped a bit and his head tilted to the side. The brow softened, the face lost its hard edge— became more feminine—and the shoulders slumped inward.

“Samantha?” Rudnick asked. “Is that you?”

Her head remained still, but her eyes darted around the room before coming to rest on Rudnick’s face. “Who are you?” The voice was smooth and melodic, as different from Sam’s as the scent of a rose is from a clove of garlic.

“Whoa,” Sinclair said, watching through the mirror. “No offense, but your sister’s loony tunes.”

Manette whistled. “Man, she is definitely off her rocker.”

Loony. Off her rocker. Convenient colloquial terms, but inaccurate. “Samantha has classic DID,” Vail said. “Dissociative Identity Disorder. To understand what it is, you have to understand who she is, where she came from. Her father, Patrick Farwell, was a sadistic man; Samantha had to find a way of dealing with him. My guess is she was young and weak and ill equipped to handle his abuse. Eventually, her mind created a stronger personality, what psychiatrists call a protector persona. Sam, a male, was better equipped to withstand the abuse and probably found a way to fight back. He became dominant and Samantha remained tucked away, safe and sound.”

“Sounds like more psycho bullshit to me,” Manette said.

Vail spun to face her. “It’s a well-documented condition. It usually begins during childhood as a defense mechanism to severe abuse. And it mostly hits women. Don’t take my word for it, look it up in the journals. Hell, check the DSM-IV manual, it’s in there, too.” She turned back to the glass. “And I’ve seen it before.”

“So have I,” Del Monaco said. He had been standing in the background, engrossed in the interview. “Once. Absolutely blew my mind.”

“So Samantha was asleep for twenty-five years?” Bledsoe asked.

“Not asleep,” Vail corrected. “Dormant, probably for a little while. Patrick Farwell was arrested when Samantha was about thirteen. My guess is that when Sam felt it was safe, Samantha reemerged. When Farwell got out of prison eighteen months ago, he must’ve found Samantha. Sam reemerged, older and wiser, able to carry out the fantasies he’d created as an adolescent.” Vail continued to watch her sister through the glass. “Unleashed and