Page 61 of Coming Home

It was a thing of beauty by the time Gerard finished.

At seven the next morning, he once again called emergency services, hysteria rising in his voice, making his words almost unintelligible. The 911 operator quickly dispatched a team to their house, and his father’s body was found in the bathtub, wrists slit, the knife and empty bottle of his wife’s Ambien on the floor near the tub on the tiled floor.

Social Services came for Gerard, and he explained how he was about to leave for college in four days. His news surprised them, seeing the skinny, slight teenager who looked much younger than his fifteen years. He had researched legal emancipation and had thought about filing for it, though that would no longer be necessary. After spending a few nights with a foster family in Burbank, he was released from the state’s custody and allowed to Uber to Pasadena. Cal Tech’s offer had included tuition, room, and board, and he took advantage of all three that first year, trying to blend into college life as best as a gawky, geeky fifteen-year-old could.

By his second year, he had leased an apartment online with the first of many aliases and moved in. The apartment manager either turned a blind eye or didn’t bother to keep up with the tenants living in each apartment, as long as payment came in each month. He made certain it did so, and Anthony graduated from Cal Tech with both his bachelor's and master’s degrees and all the tools he needed to succeed both professionally and personally.

He lined up the first of many excellent jobs, but he postponed the start date of his initial employment by a month. They wanted him badly enough to wait the extra few weeks. Work could wait—because he had found Anita McGreer and wanted to speak to her.

He had no idea what he would say to her. She had left so long ago that he only had a vague image of her. His dad had burned every photograph of her after she had run away. She had never contacted her family. No card, letter, or phone call ever came. Gerard supposed he was merely curious about her. He certainly felt no connection to her. She had spent little time with him before she left the McGreer household.

Anita was a waitress in a second-rate diner in Bakersfield, struggling to make ends meet. She had arrests for drug possession and prostitution but now seemed to be clean. He actually had plenty of money and could easily give her some, making her life easier. He just didn’t know if he wanted to do that.

Going to the diner where she worked, he watched her over a couple of hours, seeing how hard she toiled at the dead-end job. She waited on him, and he never spoke more than a few words to her, not wishing to reveal his identity to her in a public setting. She was in her early thirties and looked a good twenty years older, stick-thin and with greasy hair. He didn’t quite feel sorry for her. He had learned that he didn’t seem to feel the same emotions that others did. Research had revealed to him that he was a psychopath, hitting markers which included possessing no pity or remorse and experiencing no fear.

He already knew her address from his online explorations into her life and followed her home at a discreet distance when she left the diner after her shift ended.

She unlocked the door and was entering her efficiency when he called her name. Anita had turned, fear in her eyes at a stranger being this close to her in the wee hours of the morning.

“I’m your brother,” he had told her, and then corrected himself. “No, your son. Gerard.”

He didn’t know what he had expected her reaction to be, but she flinched—and then revulsion filled her face.

She had surprised him, shoving him hard, telling him to get away from her. That she still had nightmares. That she wanted nothing to do with him because he was a reminder of the worst years of her life. How she had been molested over and over, finally becoming pregnant and forced to give birth to her own father’s child.

Anita accused Gerard of being just as evil as their father had been and that she wanted nothing to do with him. She hurried inside and started to slam the door in his face when he threw a hard punch that connected with her throat. She crumpled, falling to her knees, her hands flying to her throat as she tried to gasp for air. He stepped around her, dragging her body back into the room, and closed the door. Watching her, it was apparent he had broken her windpipe. Watching her die brought him even more pleasure than having killed the monster they both called their dad.

He didn’t know if he had expected redemption, but he surely hadn’t wanted her rejection. In that moment, a deep hatred took hold of him—and the seed planted would grow with each subsequent death. The death of women who resembled Anita. His mother.

Anthony shook his head hard, withdrawing from the memories of a decade ago. He had fed the beast within him, committing regular rapes and murders of women who looked like his mother. Anthony realized she had rejected him from the beginning. That no bond had existed between them. She had merely been the vessel he had grown in, the one who had birthed him, giving him life. He liked to think of himself as the Angel of Release, granting his chosen ones a release from this life and all its ugliness.

Putting aside his camera, he went back to his mental To-Do List. If anything, he was a man—and murderer—who liked to be prepared. Though his latest kill had been meticulous, planned better than any previous ones, he knew there was always the tiniest possibility he might slip up as he had before. Because of that, he wanted to have Jackson Martin’s phone number in his contact list. It had surprised him a bit how his attorney had been a bit off-putting when he had tried to line up Martin in case of any future charges. Martin had said it would depend upon the caseload he and his partner had at the time. Gerard supposed they weren’t necessarily in the repeat representation business. Still, Jackson Martin was a brilliant attorney, one who had shredded prosecution witnesses on the stand. His closing argument was masterful, and Gerard knew if he were ever charged with a crime again, Martin was the only one who could represent him.

He opened his tablet to search for Martin’s information so he could enter in it into his new cell phone. He didn’t bother wasting his time learning numbers. He had no friends, so very few people were listed in his contacts. Googling Watterscheim & Martin, he was surprised what came up instead.

Watterscheim & Flannigan.

Intrigued, Anthony clicked on the legal site and went to the about tab, which listed both partners, Bill Watterscheim and Richard Flannigan, as well as various office staff, all of whom he recognized. No mention of Jackson Martin anywhere on the site.

He didn’t see the brilliant lawyer leaving the profession. Perhaps he had a falling out with Watterscheim and began his own firm. Gerard scoured the Internet but only found two Jackson Martins who were attorneys in California. One was located in Chula Vista and practiced family law. The second had law offices in Sacramento and specialized in divorces.

Where the hell had his Jackson Martin gone? And why?

This was damned inconvenient. Not that he was going to be caught again anytime soon, but Gerard had a burning urge to locate the man who had kept him from prison. Well, the attorney accounted for ninety percent of the case’s outcome. The terror pregnant Juror Number Four must have experienced seeing her dead cat also played a factor. He had met a junkie when he’d first been arrested. They had shared jail space at county lock-up. In their conversations, it came out that the man enjoyed torture. A lot. Anthony had thought he could use the felon and had contacted him through a clever system he had designed involving disappearing texts. He’d also sent Juror Number Four messages using it.

The junkie had leaped at maiming the cat. Anthony made certain a payment of five hundred dollars was sent to him before and again after his work with the juror’s pet. The drugged-out felon was the only link between Anthony and the cat. He had planned to eliminate him once he won his release and found it wasn’t necessary.

The man had OD’d the day the verdict came in, most likely using some of his new cash to score the heroin that killed him.

Idly, he wondered if Juror Number Four had approached Jackson Martin. If she had, nothing would have changed. Gerard couldn’t be retried on the charges, thanks to double jeopardy. But if she had shared with Martin what had happened to her beloved cat and the text message which no longer existed, had that scared off his attorney?

He always thought Martin knew he was guilty. As a professional, he had never asked his client about his innocence or guilt. He had done the job Anthony—actually, Gerard—had paid him to do. It bothered him, though, that Jackson Martin was among the missing. That warranted a call to Watterscheim & Flannigan.

Using one of his many burners so there would be no way to trace the call back to him, he dialed the number.

“Law office.”

“Yes, this is Sam Johnson. I would like to book an appointment with Jackson Martin. He represented me a few years ago when I—”

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