“Our love will unite us forever,” she whispered.
“Our love will unite us forever,” said Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid.
He held up his hand and watched the blood spill from his wrist. Watched as the patterns trailed down his arm and into the water. Watched as little rivers of blood dripped from his elbow and then twirled into the current, across his legs, around his heart, toward his girlfriend.
She took the knife, placed the blade against her left wrist, looked up at him. “Forever,” she said.
“Forever.”
She pulled the knife sharply across her left wrist and let out a gasp. He’d shown her how to do it right. The cut was more than sufficient. They’d practiced together using a butter knife to get the angle right. They’d rehearsed it all, down to the last detail. And this cut was not the tentative probing of someone who was unsure. Paramedics called those “hesitation marks.” But she wasn’t hesitant at all. No, she wasn’t just doing it for attention. She believed in everything he told her. He knew she did. She believed in Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid more than anything in the world.
“I’m doing this for you, Aaron,” she said. And the look in her eyes told him it was true. She would have done anything for him; had done everything for him. “I love you.”
“I know.”
Aaron watched her stare at the whirlpool for a moment. Blood was pumping out of her opened wrist now, pouring out. Swirling all around her in crimson currents as her body emptied itself of life. He wondered what she was thinking.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
“Don’t be scared. We’re going to be together now. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Just do the other wrist like we practiced and hand me the knife.”
“Nothing can keep us apart,” she whispered, pressing the blade against her right wrist. “Nothing.”
“Nothing.”
She tried to make the cut, but the tendons had been damaged. Her hand trembled. “Help me,” she said feebly.
He eased over to her side of the whirlpool, took her hand in his, and held the knife firmly against her skin.
Then he pulled.
She grimaced, then twitched, then relaxed her arm. “Thank you,” she said.
He let go of her hand, and the knife dropped into the water-this second cut was even deeper than the first.
“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “I’ll get it.”
The water became darker and darker as the jets of the whirlpool chugged on. Curling and pumping. A deeper, sharper red. She had dropped her arms into the water now and was slumping a bit to the side. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Hold me.” She tried to reach out to hug him but could barely lift her arms above the water. Blood kept coursing from her wrists.
He leaned close to her. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” He held her until her arms dropped into the water one last time.
Then, instead of reaching for the knife, he stepped out of the water and picked up a towel.
She’d done it. She’d done just what he asked. Yes, he’d had to slice his own wrist, that was true, and he’d had to help her, but she had agreed. She had listened. She’d been obedient to the very end.
No one had seen them together. He could easily hide the wound on his wrist until it healed. No one would ask any questions. It was even easier than he’d imagined it would be.
Father would be proud.
“Everything is going to be all right, Jessie,” he said softly as he stared at her. He tried to imagine what it was like for her in that moment… darkness clouding into the sides of her vision… the image of her boyfriend leaving her alone in the whirlpool… water and blood dripping together onto the linoleum.
Water and blood. Water and blood.
“Where are you going?” Her words were soft, hardly audible. A whisper.
“Don’t worry, Jessie.” He was holding the towel up against his wrist to stop the bleeding. “Everything is going to be just fine.” Her mouth formed a silent question for him, but the words never came. Her arms quivered slightly and then stopped moving forever as Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid sat down beside the gently humming water to watch his girlfriend bleed to death in her parents’ whirlpool.
Oh yes. Father would be very proud.
1
Thursday
October 23, 2008
Somewhere above the mountains of western North Carolina
5:31 p.m.
I peered out the window of the Bell 206L-4 LongRanger IV, helicopter of choice for both the Georgia State Patrol and the Department of the Interior, as we roared over the mountainous border of Georgia and North Carolina. Clouds rose dark on the horizon.
The colors of autumn were still lingering on the rolling slopes of the southern Appalachians, although winter had started to creep into the higher elevations. Far below us, the hills rose and fell, rose and fell, zipping past. For a few minutes I watched the shadow of the helicopter gliding over the mountains and dipping down into the shadowy valleys like a giant insect skimming across the landscape, searching for a place to land.
Even though it was late fall, ribbons of churning water pounded down the mountains in the aftermath of a series of fierce storms. In the springtime these hills produce some of the most fantastic whitewater rafting in all of North America. I know. I used to paddle them years ago when I spent a year working near here as a wilderness guide for the North Carolina Outward Bound School. Now, it seemed like those days were in another life.
Before I became what I am. Before any of this.
But as I looked out the window, the waters weren’t blue like I remembered them. Instead, they were brown and swollen from a recent rain. Wriggling back and forth through the hills like thick, restless snakes.
I glanced at my watch: 5:34 p.m. We should be landing within the next ten minutes. Which was good, because with the clouds rolling in, it didn’t look like we had a whole lot of sunlight ahead of us. Maybe an hour. Maybe less.
My good friend Special Agent Ralph Hawkins had called me in. Just a few hours ago I was in Atlanta presenting a seminar on strategic crime analysis for the National Law Enforcement Methodology Conference. Another conference. Another lecture series. It seemed like that was all I’d been doing for the last six months. Sure, I’d consulted on a couple dozen cases, but they weren’t a big deal. Mostly I’d been teaching and researching criminology. Trying to forget.
I’d have to say that despite how disoriented my life had become, the biggest casualty had been my sixteen-year-old-wait, seventeen-year-old-stepdaughter Tessa. After the funeral, I tried to get close to her, but it didn’t work. Nothing did. Eventually we just drifted into our separate routines, our separate lives. Case in point: here I was in the Southeast while she stayed with my parents back home in Denver.
Ralph wasn’t the kind of man to waste time or words being cordial. He’d jumped right to the point when he called my cell earlier in the day. “Pat, I hear you’re back in the game.”
“Trying to be.”
“Well, you heard about what’s going on down here?”
“Yeah.” I followed the postings of all the major cities’ crime labs and FBI listings. Occupational hazard. I was a regular VICAP junkie-the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program is a way to track crimes across jurisdictions, so I’d read about the murders. Even the details they weren’t releasing to the public. There’d been at least five so far, just since February.
“You found another one,” I said.
“Yeah. Some hikers stumbled across her about an hour ago. We’re out at the site now, and, well, I could email you some stuff, but I gotta say, I could use your eyes over here. There’s got to be something we’re missing. The signature is the same. It’s the same guy, Pat. The press is calling him the Yellow Ribbon Strangler.”
Ralph knew that I hated when the press got involved. I’d looked at my watch: 4:02 p.m.