J. Kerley - The Death File - A gripping serial killer thriller with a shocking twist

“Here’s the truth, Adam,” Meridien said, keeping her voice calm. “I never spoke to your father about our sessions. Not a word. I told you about Doctor–Pati…”

“Doctor–patient p-privilege?” Kubiac sneered, his eyes pinpoints of fury. “DON’T LIE TO ME. I KNOW WHAT YOU DID!”

Meridien pointed to the door. “You have to leave, Adam. I’ll be happy to talk to you, but not when you’re angry.”

“WE’RE DONE! I want EVERYTHING BACK!” Kubiac shrieked. “Everything I T-TOLD YOU!” He was flying out of control and making little sense; Meridien had seen it a dozen times before.

“Your records are confidential, Adam. Safe.”

“I WANT MY RECORDS, B-BITCH! GO G-G-GET THEM!”

“I don’t keep records here, Adam. Part of my precautions.”

“I know where you store them,” Kubiac grinned. “I can get them if I want.” He jiggled his fingers in the air as if on a keyboard.

Meridien shook her head. “No way, Adam. The only person who can access your records is me.”

Without a sound the woman crossed the room and tapped the back of Meridien’s head. “They’re still in here, Adam,” she said. “Your records.”

Meridien spun and slapped the hand away.

“Get the hell out of my house.”

The woman pirouetted like a ballerina, striding to the door without a backward glance. When Kubiac followed, Meridien let out a breath. Whatever the reason for the bizarre visit, her visitors were leaving.

The pair stepped into the night. When the car screeched away, Meridien checked the gate system and saw that everything seemed normal. She must have forgotten to set the …

Wait. The gate, like the alarm system, was computer operated. Adam Kubiac was a computer genius. Meridien hurriedly chain-locked the door, set the deadbolt and paced for twenty minutes thinking about the discordant information swirling in her head. Something was terribly wrong … or not. True, she had actually seen the will leaving Adam one dollar – the father showing it to her, telling her it was a way to force his son into line. “ To make Adam behave like an adult ,” Elijah Kubiac had said. But he’d also intimated that the will was false, a dummy, a ploy for him to use only as a last resort.

My god … had that been the actual will? Had Eli Kubiac left his only child one solitary dollar? Or …

Jesus, what a quandary. Where to start?

She poured another glass of wine and returned to her office, pen in one hand, phone in the other, dialing a friend she hadn’t seen in far too long.

“Leslie!” Dr Angela Bowers said. “So good to hear from you.”

“I’m not calling you too late, am I, Ange? I just remembered that it’s three hours later in Miami.”

“You’re fine. My first class tomorrow isn’t until eleven so I’m binge-watching old Seinfelds . What’s up?”

“I just had a disturbing contact with a patient. Or former patient, I guess.”

“One of your brilliant young minds?”

“At the age of sixteen he devised a computer algorithm that sped up server traffic by a few nanoseconds. It seems that’s a lot in the computer world. It made him a $100,000. He was about to start his first year at Caltech.”

“Whoa. Not bad.”

“His college career lasted two months. He quit, citing boredom. It’s how we met: a week later his father all but dragged the kid to my office, the father referring to his son as failure and screw-up during the registration process. At one point he slapped the back of his kid’s head.”

“Jesus! The father’s story?” Bowers asked.

“Wealthy, the self-made kind. Made twenty-something million selling cars.”

“No way.”

“He owned five dealerships in LA, one in San Diego, two in Scottsdale. He retired to Scottsdale when the son was twelve. The father was a mess, a heavy drinker who went through a series of women, kept some in a condo in Sedona, bringing others home for drugs and sex while his son was in the house, that type of thing.”

“Not a candidate for father of the year.”

“I actually think the man loved his son – he was, after all, of his flesh – but was horribly misguided and heavy-handed in his efforts to gain control … that’s where things get murky.”

“You said was. Is the father deceased?”

“Two weeks ago,” Meridien sighed. “Something strange happened tonight, Ange. I’d like to run my thoughts by you. And do you still work with that medical ethicist?”

“John Warbley? Sure, his office is one floor down.”

“Could you get his input on this ASAP? I could really use some guidance here …”

The conversation ended minutes later. Meridien typed up the notes from Kubiac’s visit, summarized her conversation with Bowers and dialed her cloud account, inputting her password, surprised by the response on her screen.

Account in use. Please try later.

What did that mean? Rolling her eyes – she’d been sending her files to the account for four years without a hitch – Meridien quit the program, waited six minutes and tried again. The files went through like always. Worn from her day – the last two hours of it at least – Meridien finished her wine, undressed, and went to bed.

* * *

Teet … teet … teet …

It was 3.43 in the morning. Meridien knew because her clock was on the table beside the bed. Something had awakened her, but what?

Teet … teet …

There, a small sound from downstairs. It sounded like the timer on the stove.

Teet …

Somehow she’d set the timer … but how? The last time she’d been near the stove was yesterday morning.

Teet … teet …

Meridien pulled on her robe and followed the sound to the kitchen. She punched the timer off, confused. How had she set it?

A sound at her back. Meridien spun to see a shaven-headed man standing in the doorway, Hispanic, his neck and face coated with tattoos, his eyes as lifeless as chunks of coal. For some reason he wore clear plastic overalls and blue paper booties.

“What are you doing here?” Meridien whispered, her heart trapped in her throat.

The man produced a gleaming knife held in latex-gloved fingers.

“Earning a living, chica . Nothing personal.”

The white and blue City of Phoenix PD cruiser blew south on Highway 10 at 80 mph, the flashing lights and piercing siren pushing traffic aside like a dog scattering chickens from a path, until a semi-truck moved aside to reveal an ancient gray van wobbling down the center lane at 30 mph, its roof piled high with a couch, three chairs, a kitchen table and, improbably – or perhaps exactly right – a kitchen sink, all lashed together by clothesline with various lamps and doodads crammed into the mix. The back doors of the van held a large hand-painted picture of Christ.

“JESUS!” deputy investigator Tasha Novarro screamed, cranking the wheel and sending the cruiser into a tire-screeching sideways skid, the rear of the vehicle aiming dead-center at Jesus’s bearded chin until Novarro goosed the gas and yanked the wheel hard right, the cruiser’s tires catching concrete as it straightened out and passed the van on the driver’s side, Novarro’s adrenalin-charged mind photographing the driver: Hispanic, wizened though likely in his forties, a woman beside him in the van, two infants on her lap.

The pair had looked at Novarro with surprise: Qué estás haciendo aquí? – What are you doing here?

Novarro exhaled a breath and stared into the rear-view. A tough life , she thought. Traveling with the crops. Moving north with the harvest, stoop labor, picking beans or grapes or tomatoes or perching on a flimsy ladder to pluck oranges or grapefruit from the tops of trees. Not much had changed since Steinbeck. She shook her head in sadness, sighed and blasted down the exit to Baseline Road, tacking her way south, Phoenix’s South Mountain Park off her left shoulder, the craggy peaks rippling in the morning heat.