“Yes. I don’t think there have been many days she hasn’t at least caught a brief glimpse of Wade. At some point, I’m betting while he was drunk, he slept with her again, giving her hope, convincing her that he truly loved her, but all the other women in his life were the problem. It was the faceless women that kept Wade from committing to her.”
“But Alanna was her cousin,” Andie said.
“And that was the stressor. I suspect that Whitney knew about the
“Because they were on the Internet,” Sean said.
“Right. They could have been anyone and anywhere. Whitney could make up fantasies about who they were, but they weren’t a direct threat to her.”
“I don’t understand how she knew the identities of the girls on
“If she had his passwords,” Lucy said, “it would have been easy to log into his profile and see everyone he chatted with.”
“But when did it turn physical?” Andie asked.
“We’ll have to ask Wade. Maybe he suggested to one or more of the girls that they come visit him in New York. We know from analyzing the patterns of sexual predators that they first work their victims online. Eventually, photos and videos don’t satisfy them and they escalate. Wade isn’t a rapist. I don’t see anything in his psyche that he was a predator, but it’s the same escalation. Wade was no longer satisfied with cybersex, so he asked if they wanted to meet in person. Except for Kirsten, who was seventeen, they were all his peers, college-aged girls-no one gets hurt.”
The way Lucy said it, Sean knew she didn’t believe that no one was hurt in the sex games Wade and the others were playing.
“But throw in a psychopathic stalker fixated on Wade, and suddenly, everyone Wade slept with was at risk. For a while, Whitney could convince herself that Wade would come to his senses. She told herself that these girls were cruel to Wade. That they were ugly. That they wouldn’t satisfy him sexually. Whatever she needed to believe that justified why he was with them instead of her. She could even pretend they were someone else, maybe even her, because she didn’t know them personally.”
Lucy flipped through several pages of the sketchbook and stopped on one that was clearly Alanna Andrews. It was obvious to Sean that Lucy had known exactly where it was, probably remembered every image on the pages, and he wondered how long she’d been in here working.
“Alanna killed Whitney’s fantasy. Alanna was her cousin. Whitney brought her to parties, took her around New York, and I’d bet money that Alanna met Wade through Whitney. Alanna was Wade’s fantasy. She was just as sexually adventurous as he was, but she was a sweet person. She genuinely liked his handicapped brother. She stood up to Wade when he got out of line. He loved her, in his own way, but he wasn’t willing to give up his lifestyle. Alanna was young-they were both young-and neither realized that the parties they enjoyed were part of their problem. Wade didn’t see the difference between sleeping around and the rave orgies, and Alanna didn’t want to share.
“I suspect they were finding a way to get back together. According to Dennis, they were on-again/off-again. Whitney couldn’t let that happen. Her own cousin took Wade from her. Her flesh and blood stole from her. Alanna fit in with the Barnetts, but Whitney didn’t. The oldest brother, Charles, made that clear when he rescinded her art grant, proving in her mind that she wasn’t good enough. But Alanna was? How dare she take Whitney’s place as princess of the castle!”
Lucy spoke harshly, as if she knew exactly what Whitney was thinking. Then her voice went back to the well-modulated, cool analyst. “I don’t think Whitney planned to kill Alanna. She saw her at the party, and fought with her. Verbally, because there were no serious bruises on the body. She had her portfolio with her-that’s why she had the bag with the charcoal residue in it. I don’t know why she was carrying her portfolio. Maybe she was coming from a show, or going to draw at the party.” Lucy frowned, thinking. She turned to the end of the sketchpad. The images were starkly darker.
Sean said, “That looks like Wade underwater.” He reached over and turned to the page before it.
It was clearly Wade and Whitney, naked on a platform bed. Two wineglasses were spilling from their hands and their eyes were open, but blank, without detail.
“I think she was going to kill Wade that night,” Lucy said. “Murder-suicide, though she’d convince herself that it was a double suicide, that he would want to die with her.”
Andie cleared her throat. “Why didn’t she kill Wade? Why her cousin?”
“When she confronted Alanna, she saw hope. If she killed her, Wade wouldn’t have Alanna to love. In her warped mind, Whitney thought that if she took away the women Wade was screwing around with, he would come back to her.” She looked at Sean. “Did he tell you if he slept with Whitney
Sean shook his head. “I didn’t ask.”
“I’ll need to analyze the journal more carefully because with psychotics like Whitney, we can’t trust everything they write,” Lucy said. “They are pathological liars. We need facts we can prove are true, and things we can prove are false, then send the journal to a handwriting expert to help weed through truth and fiction. But I think after Whitney killed Alanna, and no one suspected her, she went to Wade and they had sex. Maybe he was drunk, maybe she was convincing, I don’t know. But he realized he’d made a mistake, told her as much, and so she went on to kill Erica Ripley. That was premeditated. She probably followed her for weeks, found the right time, and suffocated her.”
“But then Wade didn’t sleep with her again,” Andie said.
“Right. I doubt he knew Erica was dead until days, weeks later. He’d have been sad, but not as upset as he was about Alanna. He ignored Whitney. They say there is a fine line between love and hate. She began to hate him and herself. The others, Heather and Jessica, she killed out of hate and blame. She blamed every woman who’d had sex with Wade-whether in person or online-and needed to destroy them. And because of his promiscuous lifestyle, she could go to the parties and see exactly who he was with.”
Andie sighed, exasperated. “What a piece of work. How do these people function? She sounds like such a raving lunatic that she’d have been caught long ago.”
“Psychopaths aren’t usually wide-eyed crazies you can point to on the street. It’s in their head, the way their brain is wired, or rewired,” Lucy said. “When we dig deep into Whitney’s background, I suspect we’ll find several instances of impulsive behavior, particularly in her preteen years. She was probably a serious kleptomaniac. Arrested for shoplifting, both little things like candy and expensive items like jewelry. She learned to channel her impulsive behavior into drawing, but never truly conquered it. She wants something, she takes it. She wanted Wade, she got him. But she couldn’t keep him like she can
Sean said, “Wade denies knowing the last victim, Sierra Hinkle, and I couldn’t find her on the
“She was a random choice. When Wade was arrested, Whitney couldn’t allow him to go to prison-she wouldn’t be able to see him anymore. She killed the first female she found outside alone. She waited by that bulldozer until someone came by.” Lucy turned to Andie. “Did you already send the journal down to your van?”
“No, it’s right here.”
Andie handed Lucy a leather-bound journal in a plastic bag. Lucy took it out and flipped through it, stopping in the middle. It wasn’t what was written so much as the quantity, line after line of small, perfectly slanted handwriting that seemed to blend together after a while.
“Just read one page,” she said to Sean. “I think you’ll understand her.”
“I’ll never understand people like that,” he said, but took the journal from Lucy.
