The 7th Victim - Alan Jacobson [119]
“Sounds silly, huh? But I worry about it sometimes. If it wasn’t for Deacon, it’d be the furthest thing from my mind. But he’s such a bad influence. When you’re in a relationship for so many years, and you know he’s going through tough times and you’re trying to help him through it. . . .” She shook her head. “I overlooked a lot of things. It took me months to step back and see there was nothing I could do, that he was beyond help. I realize that now. But what if he did things I never knew about, when Jonathan was younger. . . .” Her body tensed. “It’s not unusual with killers, in their youth, to withdraw into themselves. They’d never talk about things that happened to them when they were young. It hurts me just to think about the possibility.” She let the words hang in the air, then continued: “I keep playing things back in my mind, memories, things I saw in Jonathan’s behavior. Searching my memory for the warning signs.”
“What kind of warning signs?”
“Behaviors that show a lack of regard and caring for others.” She sat up and pulled her legs beneath her, winced in pain from her knee, then straightened it out. “When the early profilers interviewed convicted serial killers in prison, they found that the killer’s internal world was filled with thoughts of dominance over others. Cruelty to other kids, to animals. They set fires, stole things, destroyed property. I had a problem with Jonathan at one point where he was getting into fights at school. Third grade. He was bullying other kids. I tried talking to him, and he seemed to stop. But it bothered me he didn’t have any close friends. I worked with him on developing his social skills, and I thought I’d gotten through. But he started having problems again when Deacon and I started having problems.”
“That could be considered normal.”
“That’s what I kept telling myself. But that type of behavior, unless checked, can lead to other things. Things I’d never find out about. If he killed a cat or a dog, or a squirrel, I’d never know. During the interviews, the killers almost always described times when they’d killed an animal. It allowed them to express their rage and use it as an outlet because there were no consequences. No one knew they’d done it. That only isolated them more from family members or other kids their age. They eventually realized they were different, and that just made them retreat further into themselves. They never learned empathy, or how to control their impulses. They thought they were entitled to act the way they did because no one was there to tell them otherwise.”
“You know what I think?”
Vail looked at him, inviting him to continue.
“I think you’ve been in the minds of serial killers so much, twenty-four/seven, three-sixty-five, that you begin to look for things that aren’t there. You live the life, deep in the trenches, and it consumes you. I think you need some time off.” He paused a moment, then said, “Maybe permanently.”
She looked at him, in a fleeting second realizing he was right, but not wanting to acknowledge it. She rose from the couch, banded her arms across her chest, and began to pace in her nyloned feet. “Quitting is not my style. But you’re right, I’ll take some time. Once we catch Dead Eyes, I’ll take a month assuming I can work it out with the timing of my trial. I’ll need the time to get my mom’s stuff settled and the house sold.”
“I think it’ll do you some good. Get away for a while. I’ll come visit you on weekends.”
She bit the inside of her lip. “And if I don’t win this case? If Deacon succeeds? I’m out of the Bureau. I’ll never carry a badge again.”
Robby stood and stopped her from pacing. “He won’t. But if by some strange twist of fate he is successful, then I’ll be there with you, by your side. We’ll get through it together.”
Vail forced a smile. “I could do consulting, right? Write a few books.”
“Yeah, like that guy, one of your BSU pioneers, Thomas Underwood.”
“I could fly all over the world, developing profiles, helping out the locals, visiting exotic places.”
“Doesn’t sound so bad,