Chris Carter - An Evil Mind

‘Great choice,’ she said in reply. ‘I’ll be right back with a glass.’

‘Excuse me, Kate?’ he called, as she was turning away. ‘How long before we take off?’

‘We have a full flight tonight,’ she replied. ‘And we just started boarding all the other classes. If no one is late, we should start taxiing toward the runway in no more than twenty to thirty minutes.’

‘Oh, that’s great. Thank you.’

‘But if there’s anything I can do to make this short wait more comfortable for you, just let me know.’ Her smile gained a flirtatious sparkle.

Mr Tailor-Cotton nodded, with a flirtatious smile of his own. ‘I’ll keep that in mind.’

His gaze followed her as she started down the aisle. When she disappeared past the dividing curtain, his attention returned to the window. He’d never been to Brazil before, but he’d heard great things about it, and he was really looking forward to spending time there. It would be a nice change.

‘I’ve heard that the beaches in Brazil are simply breathtaking,’ the passenger sitting directly behind Mr Tailor-Cotton said, leaning forward. ‘I’ve never been there before, but I’ve heard that they’re like paradise on earth.’

For a split second Mr Tailor-Cotton’s heart almost froze, then he smiled at his own reflection staring back at him from the airplane window. He would recognize that voice anywhere.

The passenger behind him stood up, moved forward, and casually leaned against the armrest of the single seat across the aisle from Mr Tailor-Cotton.

‘Hello, Robert,’ Mr Tailor-Cotton said, turning his head to look at Hunter.

‘Hello, Lucien,’ Hunter replied calmly.

‘You look awful,’ Lucien commented.

‘I know,’ Hunter admitted. ‘You, on the other hand, have done a great job on the look. Different hair color, contact lenses, the beard is gone, even the scar is gone. All that in the space of just a few hours.’

Lucien looked like he was accepting a compliment.

‘You can do wonders with makeup and a little prosthetics if you know what you’re doing.’

‘And you have mastered that Canadian accent to perfection,’ Hunter admitted. ‘Nova Scotia, right?’

Lucien smiled. ‘You still have a great ear, Robert. That’s right. Halifax. But I do have a collection of accents I’ve mastered. Would you like to hear some of them?’

That last sentence was delivered with a perfect Midwestern accent — Minnesota to be precise.

‘Not just right now,’ Hunter replied.

Lucien looked at his nails, unconcerned. ‘How’s Madeleine?’

‘She’s alive. She’ll make a full recovery.’

Lucien looked back at Hunter. ‘You mean physically, right? Because mentally, she’s probably fucked-up for life.’

Hunter’s stare became even harder. He knew Lucien was right again. The trauma Madeleine had experienced would stay with her for the rest of her life. The true extent of its consequences wouldn’t be known for many years. Neither would the lasting psychological effects.

There was a long, silent break.

‘How did you find me?’ Lucien finally asked.

‘Your notebooks,’ Hunter explained. ‘Your lifelong project. Your “gift” to us, as you put it. Or, better yet, your encyclopedia.’

Lucien looked at Hunter, curiously.

‘Yes,’ Hunter said, ‘I still remember the day you mentioned the idea to me back in Stanford.’

Lucien smiled. ‘You thought it was a crazy idea.’

Hunter nodded. ‘I still do.’

‘Well, the crazy idea became a reality, Robert. And the information inside those books will forever change the way the FBI, the NCAVC, the BAU, and every law-enforcement agency in this country, maybe in the world, look at violent and sadistic repeat offenders. It will make you understand things that up to know no one ever did, and otherwise the world never would. Intimate things and thoughts that have never been explained. Things that will exponentially better your chances of capturing those offenders. That’s my gift to you, and to this fucked-up world. My work and those books will be studied and referenced for generations to come.’ He shrugged. ‘So what if I took a few lives in the name of research? Knowledge comes at a price, Robert. Some much higher than others.’

Hunter nodded as his eyebrows arched. ‘All that knowledge about psychology and criminal behavior, and you failed to see your own psychosis. You’re not a researcher, Lucien, much less a scientist. You’re just another run-of-the-mill killer, who, to justify your actions and feed the sociopath inside you, deluded yourself into believing that what you were doing was for a noble cause. It’s pathetic, really, because it’s not even original. It’s been done so many times before.’

‘Nothing I’ve done has been done before, Robert,’ Lucien shot back.

Hunter shrugged carelessly. ‘I’m not your therapist, Lucien. I’m not here to help you and this isn’t a session, so you can carry on deluding yourself as much as you like. No one cares, but the good thing was that in your books, you were kind enough to note absolutely everything concerning your experiments — locations, methods used, victims’ names, and much more. I spent the night going through some of them.’

‘You read through fifty-three books in one night?’

‘No, but I managed to skim through eight of them. And that’s where I got lucky, and you didn’t.’

Lucien’s expression showed interest.

‘While skimming through one of them, I came across the name of one of your victims that I knew I’d heard somewhere before — Liam Shaw.’

Lucien’s eyes went cold.

‘It took me a little while to place it,’ Hunter said, ‘but I did eventually remember. That was the name you were using when you were first arrested in Wyoming.’

Lucien stayed quiet.

‘You were also kind enough to very thoroughly describe all your victims,’ Hunter continued. ‘And that was when I realized that Liam Shaw shared several physical characteristics with you — same height, same body type, same skin complexion, same facial shape, including the shapes of his eyes, nose and mouth. You were also of similar age.’

Still silence from Lucien.

‘Then I remembered something else you’d said in one of our interviews. You told Courtney that the reason you were caught wasn’t merited to the FBI. They weren’t investigating any of your murders, or any of the aliases you used.’

Lucien shifted on his chair.

‘Well, that got me thinking, so I went back and checked for all other male victims you described in the books. There weren’t that many, but all of them shared those same physical characteristics with you.’

Lucien scratched his chin.

Hunter tucked his hands inside his trouser pockets. ‘And that was why you picked them. Not because you wanted them to be part of your encyclopedia of torture and death, but because you were creating a list of identities you could steal at the drop of a dime.’

Lucien’s gaze moved back to the window and the darkness outside.

‘Some of your male victims were prostitutes,’ Hunter moved on. ‘Some were people who were down and out on their luck, but all of them had one major thing in common — they were all lone souls. People who were misunderstood and probably cast aside by their family and friends somewhere else. People who had left their lives behind to start something new in a new city. People with no attachments to anyone. The ones who’d never get reported as missing. The forgettables. The ones no one would miss.’

‘They’ve always made the best victims.’ Lucien still sounded unconcerned.

‘Because of their natural physical resemblance to you, taking their place was never a hard thing to do — a little makeup, some hair dye, maybe some contact lenses, a new accent, and, “Goodbye Lucien Folter, hello new identity.” In this case, Anthony Tailor-Cotton, from Halifax in Canada.’