Parrish kept looking at Donovan in a considering way, as if gauging whether he was an asset or a threat.
Kai also appeared interested in Donovan, although the interest seemed different, almost wistful. Was he longing for a big brother?
What, I wondered, had Kai’s childhood been like? For all I knew, he had met some of his half siblings before now. I doubted it, though. He struck me as a loner, but I might have been mistaking his aloofness toward me for a general policy. I thought of my conversations with his neighbors and decided that the bonhomie edition of Kai Loudon did not exist. He had been persuasive with his mother’s health care providers but did not seem to have any close friends or go out of his way to seek the society of others. Violet’s paralysis made the perfect shield.
Was there ongoing contact with Parrish’s other children, if any? If any. How many half siblings were there? Were there daughters as well as sons?
I thought of Marilyn Foster and Cade Morrissey, and wondered how many women might have put their children by Parrish up for adoption, felt ashamed of the connection to him. Or believed it was in the children’s best interest to be hidden from their father or left unaware of their connection to him.
At the time of Parrish’s first arrest for murder, there had been shocked and disbelieving protests by people who had worked with him or lived near him, saying he was a quiet and charming man. Perhaps he had used some of that charm on women like Violet.
I wondered why he hadn’t been sued for child support. Perhaps he had been. It seemed more likely that he would have conned these women, given them phony information about himself, kept most of his encounters short and superficial. I thought of the things Marilyn’s friends had said about that evening in the park-perhaps he chose vulnerable women, domineered them during brief relationships, then made them so afraid of him it was unlikely they would protest or do anything to draw his attention back to them once he was gone.
My previous experience with Parrish had eventually led me to take up a grim study, an effort to understand more about serial killers. I did so in part, I suppose, to try to understand why he had chosen me to play a role in his plans but mostly to know my enemy. So the idea of family links between pathologically violent men was not difficult for me accept.
Over the past twenty years, neuroscientists, geneticists, and others had been discovering more about the biology of violent behavior. Imaging systems were being used to study the brains of violent individuals and had determined that, in at least some cases, there were physical differences in the way their brains worked. Magnetic resonance imaging studies of the brains of violent individuals taken while they were viewing images of violence indicated areas of their brains were active that were not active in nonviolent individuals viewing the same images. Discoveries had been made of genetic links to high-risk behaviors. In recent years, scientists had been studying the role of variants of the MAOA or “warrior gene” in antisocial and violent behavior, especially when severe childhood abuse was also a factor. Oddly, a variant of that gene might even be a predictor for credit card debt. I’d put that tidbit to use in a consumer economics story last year.
Other factors played their own roles in violent behavior, of course, and these studies did not imply that every child of someone who killed was destined to be a killer. There was a great deal of work yet to be done before the biology of violence could be thoroughly understood.
Kai’s neighbor had hinted that Kai’s stepfather abused him. I looked again at Donovan, wondering what his family history had been. I wasn’t sure what to believe of what he had told me at the Fireside.
So here I was at the family dinner table, such as it was. It occurred to me that Donovan’s display of dominance had not only allowed me to move around without my hands and ankles taped but had probably allowed me to use the restroom with the door closed. It might also be why I was eating at the table, treated not as an object but as an individual during that meal. Donovan was distracting the others from me though not overtly.
“What do you want to do about sleeping shifts?” he asked Parrish.
Parrish puffed up a little with this deference. He checked his watch. “It’s ten o’clock now. I want to be on the road again at two. Kai will stand guard.”
No one raised an objection. Donovan again took on the role of leading me, holding my upper arm and guiding me to an area where there were five cots. He took me to the one closest to the wall and told me to lie down, that Kai would not hesitate to shoot me if I moved from the cot. He then lay down on the cot next to mine, facing away from me.
Parrish laughed as he took the next one over and said, “Yes, Irene, you’ll soon be very busy, so rest up.”
Whether Donovan’s positioning was protective or possessive, I could not tell. I did not fall asleep as quickly as I had in the SUV. My last waking moments were spent wondering why there were five cots and five chairs at the table. I remembered that Violet had said Quinn Moore was one of the half siblings. I had no idea why he was missing, but I felt a flicker of hope. Maybe he was ratting out his “family.” Then again, maybe they had killed him. If nothing else, the extra chair and cot must mean they were shorthanded now. I was outnumbered only three to one instead of an obviously planned-for four to one.
I would have felt better with a different lineup on the opposing team.
I woke with something cold and hard pressing painfully against my forehead and opened my eyes to see Kai Loudon staring down at me. He pushed a little harder, until I thought he might intend to kill me just by driving his gun barrel into my skull.
He smiled. “Wake up, you fucking bitch.”
FORTY-FOUR
Rachel had taught me a set of moves that I probably could have executed before he executed me. Even lying flat on my back, I could have disarmed him, especially since he apparently didn’t think I was much of a threat. He was right-handed-his wounded arm would make him even more vulnerable. I could make him feel intense pain and possibly disable him enough to keep him from coming after me if I made a run for it.
Which still left two other assholes to deal with. And the run-for-it idea had a major drawback-even if I somehow managed to get out of the building, there was nothing close by that would offer cover or a haven. Recapture seemed inevitable, and the follow-up might include removal of my hands, which would make everything else Rachel had taught me a little more difficult to do.
I decided to save my energy for a later fight, and in the meantime encourage his idea that I was incapable of self-defense. So far, all he had ordered me to do was wake up, and I had definitely obeyed.
I wondered, in those seconds of looking into Kai’s eyes and seeing his desire to pull the trigger, if it might not be worth it to go ahead and resist while I could still breathe.
“Let’s go, Kai,” a voice said. To my surprise, it was Parrish’s.
Kai’s smile grew, and he eased up on the pressure, then stood.
“How’s the arm?” Donovan asked, and Kai finally looked away from me.
“Better. Still hurts, though.”
“I’m sure it does.”
“Kai,” Parrish said with impatience, “help me with the car. Donovan, tape her hands and feet again.”
“Do you need to use the restroom?” Donovan asked me.
“Yes,” I said.
He escorted me, as before, although I didn’t need to lean on him this time, my circulation having recovered. When we were close to the bathroom, I whispered, “Why are you helping them?”
“Don’t take too long,” he said and stepped away from me.
When I came out, Parrish was standing next to Donovan, who was listening to someone on the phone. “That’s enough for now,” Parrish said, taking the phone away. Parrish was silent as he walked to the far end of the building, then spoke in a low, angry voice into the phone. I couldn’t make out what he was saying. If Donovan had any reaction to the call, I couldn’t see it.