Obsession (A Murderous Mind Book 2), page 18
John doesn’t know about Vondi yet.
I’m scared to tell him because I know what will happen to Vondi if I do. He’ll die.
I didn’t ask John what he did over there, but Vondi seems to know. He kept tabs on John the whole time. The bastard was researching, and all the while, he kept seeing me. Kept asking me questions. Kept working with me.
Ha!
After he met John, it had nothing to do with me anymore. John captivated him. I don’t know if it has something to do with being able to catch an actual psychopath. Maybe the bastard is thinking about a book deal, movie rights, and a lot of zeros on a check.
“I’d like to start seeing him again. I have some questions to ask him. Some things happened in Europe that you might not be aware of, Lori.”
That was what Vondi said.
He didn’t smile, just looked at me with the seriousness of the dead.
I redirected the conversation. I had to. What could I say? “How do you know what John was doing? What do you think he did?” The rabbit hole would have gone on for a long way and ended somewhere I’m not ready to go.
I have to find out from John what happened. I have to ask. Then I have to find out what Vondi knows.
I’ve done too much for him to end us. I won’t let it happen.
28
PRESENT DAY
The plane landed, and Scott exited in a daze.
He hadn’t finished the journal. He couldn’t. Then again, he didn’t need to.
He had learned everything he needed, or what Lori thought. She couldn’t be right. It was impossible that Scott had lived his whole life with a serial killer. Absolutely impossible. John couldn't help but go around killing people?
And the things Lori said about her mother? She hadn’t mentioned a word, not one breath during their marriage, yet Scott was supposed to believe Clara was a sick sadist who killed Lori’s father and somehow transferred it in the bloodline.
No.
Fuck, no.
Weren’t there signs? part of him asked. A part that had lain dormant for decades.
No. There hadn’t been any goddamn signs.
The only thing that made any sense—the only way the puzzle pieces fit—was that Lori’s mother was insane and that insanity had transferred to Lori, making her think these ridiculous things. Making her write them down for years.
Or perhaps you saw that insanity in a different way, one you didn’t want to think about?
He shoved the voice down, refusing to listen to it.
She had to have written all those entries in the grip of some kind of mental issue. Hell, the England thing? Scott did the research on that. John had gone for school, and look at what it did for him: two Ivy League degrees. He hadn’t gone to escape some curious psychiatrist’s obsession. Scott would have known.
He picked his bag up from the luggage carousel and walked out. He barely stopped for traffic and got into his car.
Scott pulled his cell phone out and turned it on for the first time in two days. Voicemails popped up on the screen, including four from Alicia. He closed his eyes tightly, and crow’s feet appeared at the corners. He realized the situation's gravity all at once.
Perhaps during the flight and the walk to his car, nothing had sunk into his brain’s deep wiring, remaining on the surface. Or perhaps he had ignored it on a subconscious level.
Scott slumped and leaned his head on the steering wheel. Tears flooded his eyes.
“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” he said, talking to himself as much as God. He wasn’t a religious man, but had he ever felt so lost in his entire life? The world so out of control?
What was he to do?
Who could he tell?
Scott looked at the phone on his leg—salty water dripped down his wrinkled cheeks—and listened to the first voicemail.
“Dad, I don’t know where you are. I’ve called you at least a hundred times. Look, we need to talk, and I don’t want to say it on here. Call me immediately.”
The message ended.
Scott kept going through them until he got to the fourth.
“Dad, I’m not calling anymore. No one knows where you are, but we need you. I need you. I didn’t want to say this over the phone, but I don’t know how else to tell you. John ran off to Mexico. The police are asking questions about a murder. He’s a suspect, but they haven’t put a warrant out for him. Diane has a lawyer, but no one can find John. Please call me. Please. I love you.”
Scott stared at the phone, his eyes so wide he felt they might fall out of his face.
He’s a suspect.
John’s a suspect.
And he’s in Mexico.
Simple, declarative thoughts, but they carried a force like the Big Bang.
It’s true, he thought. It’s all true.
His wife’s words came back to him and pushed out everything else: his concerns and even Alicia’s. Everything.
“You’ve got to stop him,” she had said. “You have to protect the children. Diane. You have to. There’s no one else, and I could never do it.”
She knew what she was saying. Lori wasn’t delusional, and she’d told him something she had known for her whole life. Something Scott had been oblivious to.
You shouldn’t have been, should you? the voice asked. Just because you shoved the past away didn’t mean it wouldn’t come back.
Protect the children. Diane.
Scott leaned back in his seat and stared straight ahead.
There’s no one else.
The fever was on him.
John hadn’t ever felt it so strongly. He lay in his room, sweating despite being nude and having the shitty air conditioner turned on high.
Harry sat on the other side of the room, refusing to leave but blessedly not talking. He had a new book, but John didn't know the name. Somehow the bastard had gotten a Kindle, ditching the paperbacks.
Harry seemed interested in it, but John knew that was a façade. The only thing on Harry’s mind was on John's as well, and this respite was only a ruse.
Building up the anticipation.
Until John didn’t have a choice.
“FUCK!” he shouted across the room. “FUCK YOU!”
“Thou doth protest too much,” Harry said, not looking up.
“You won’t stop, will you? Not ever, no matter where I go. I could travel to hell, and you’d still have me knifing people down there, wouldn’t you? The devil himself if it tickled your motherfucking fancy.”
“There is no devil, John. No God, either. Don’t you realize that yet?”
John dropped his head back on the pillow, refusing the blaspheme. There was a God.
“If there is, he’s forsaken you,” Harry said.
Maybe. Probably.
John knew who Harry wanted. They’d seen her a hundred times in the past two days, or at least thought about her that many.
“Fuck you and fuck it,” John growled.
He stood from the bed and dressed, pulling clothes over his sweaty skin. He was fully clothed in a matter of minutes. He went to the desk drawer and grabbed a small knife. The blade was only three inches long, but it would do the job. No doubt about it.
Harry looked up from his book. A smile crept across his fat face.
Yes, he thought. Yes, yes, yes.
More, he thought.
There was never enough, no matter how many times or how many places. No matter anything.
Harry stood up and followed John out of the room. He started whistling, which was hard to do since he couldn’t stop smiling.
To be concluded in Book Three!
AUTHOR NOTES
Addiction isn’t all or nothing at first, not in my experience. It turns into all or nothing in a ferocious way.
This book, for me, was about John’s change—when an addict takes steps that put his addiction at the forefront of his mind and makes it more important than anything else.
There isn’t one moment anyone can point to and say, “There. That’s where I became an addict.” It’s a process with hundreds of tiny moments that rewire the brain until the addict can no longer say no.
For the longest time, I didn’t think addiction was a disease. Like a lot of people, I thought it had something to do with willpower and weakness. I did a lot of research and spoke to quite a few doctors before I came to understand addiction’s essence.
Dis·ease
dəˈzēz/
noun: disease; plural noun: diseases; noun: dis-ease; plural noun: dis-eases
1 a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury.
An addict’s brain physically changes, rewiring itself in abnormal patterns—a disorder of structure. If you compared an addict's and a non-addict’s brain, you would see large differences both in reaction to stimuli and, from what I understand, composition.
I don’t say this to excuse anyone for the damage they cause to those around them. I only say it to provide some understanding to those whose lives have been hurt. We never meant to do it. Indeed, the pain we cause rips us up inside.
It’s our addict, our Harry, that pushes us forward, and we listen to them in large part because we’re trying to fill some infinite hole inside ourselves. It doesn’t matter how much we use. The hole only deepens.
Addicts take, and John isn’t done taking yet.
See you in Book Three: Hurricane.
All the best,
Daniel
7/19/2016
THE STORY CONTINUES
The story continues with book three in the A Murderous Mind series, Consumed, available at Amazon.
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BOOKS BY DANIEL SCOTT
Heinous Crimes Unit
The Surgeon’s Scalpel (Book 1)
The Priest’s Fire (Book 2)
The Lover’s Chain (Book 3)
The General’s Weapon (Book 4)
The Animal’s Hunt (Book 5)
The Titan’s Empire (Book 6)
The Poet’s Blood (Book 7)
The Titan’s Release (Book 8)
The Accountant’s Release (Coming soon)
A Murderous Mind
Hunter (Book 1)
Obsession (Book 2)
Consumed (Book 3)
Daniel Scott, Obsession (A Murderous Mind Book 2)
