Page 1 of PSYCHOlogical

Prologue

Alate-model sedan came to a stop alongside the curb. The vehicle’s headlights went dark. The driver gazed through the side window, toward the two-story brick house that faced the Woodbridge, Virginia street. Illuminated by the porch light, the numbered brass plaque fixed beside the home’s front door was easy to read.

2400 Five Fathom Circle.

The car’s door swung open and a figure stepped into the dark. Pizza in hand, the driver sauntered up the concrete walk.

The occupant of the home pulled the draperies to the side and peered outside. Upon seeing the pizza box in the delivery person’s hand, his muscles relaxed. Simultaneously, he let out a sigh of relief.

The doorbell rang.

“I’m coming,” he said, his tone laced with frustration.

He opened the door. The shadowy figure’s face was obscured from view by the brim of a baseball cap pulled low on the brow.

The occupant reached for the wall-mounted porch light switch and flipped it, twice. To his surprise, the porch remained dark. It doesn’t matter, he told himself. Relax. It’s nothing but a pizza delivery.

He reached for his wallet.

As the homeowner thumbed through the bills in his wallet, the shadowy figure’s right arm extended from beneath a loose-fitting jacket, producing a semi-automatic Sig Sauer pistol fitted with a government-issue silencer.

The occupant of the home looked up, only to find the pistol’s barrel inches away from his face. He’d spent his entire career mentally preparing to die. Now that the time had come, he realized he wasn’t ready.

His eyes shot wide. “You?” he exclaimed, struggling to speak through his tightening throat. “It’s you?!”

The specially formulated 9mm hollow-point bullet crashed through the vertical plate of the occupant’s skull, an inch and a half above the bridge of his nose. After tearing through the soft tissue of his brain’s frontal lobe, the bullet splintered into multiple fragments before coming to a rest in the parietal and occipital lobes.

His fingers twitched. The wallet fell to his feet. His knees, no longer receiving a signal to stand, gave way to his body’s weight. Like a puppet with its strings severed, his body crumpled to the floor.

The killer slipped an object into the homeowner’s front pants pocket, then picked up the wallet and the twenty-dollar bill. Satisfied, at least for the moment, the shadowy figure turned toward the street.

Three down, three to go...

Chapter One

Briggs

Detective Boyle removed his sweat-stained cowboy hat and swept the palm of his free hand over the few strands of hair that spanned the width of his sun spotted scalp. He then released the hat and allowed it to sit loosely on top of his head.

Beneath an unbuttoned crumpled tweed jacket, a powder-blue button-down shirt was stretched tight over his distended belly. The thighs of his khaki-colored slacks were splotched with greasy fingerprints.

In a matter of minutes, the phone would ring. Immediately following that call, I’d be released. When Boyle realized I was walking out and there was nothing he could do to keep me, he’d grow angry. That anger would gnaw at him. It would likely cause him to question his own existence. Ultimately, it may force him to consider an early retirement.

I offered him an expressionless stare. Seemingly unaffected, he looked me over before giving the hat’s brim a sharp tug and walking out the door.

While Boyle did whatever detectives do when they left their suspects to dwell on the inevitable, I surveyed the ten by ten concrete room. The pale-yellow walls were supposed to comfort me; make me want to talk. I laughed to myself at the thought of it.

Adorned with nothing more than a steel table and two matching benches, the windowless interrogation room was as no-frills as it could be. I glanced at the camera fixed high on the adjacent wall and wondered who—if anyone—was watching. While I pondered the actions that brought me to being handcuffed to a table in Fuckwater, Texas, Boyle reentered the room.

He placed his thick-fingered hands on the edge of the table and flexed his aging biceps.

“I can’t find a damned thing about you in the system, so I’m guessin’ this is your first run-in with the law,” he said in a slow, southern drawl. “Let me explain how this works. I’m gonna ask questions, and you’re gonna answer ‘em. I need you to help me understand what happened. You slip her some dope of some kind? Gave her somethin’ that killed her, that’s for damned sure. Tell me how this all came to be, will ya?”

I hadn’t spoken to him yet, and I had no plans to start.

“You gonna talk, or just keep starin’ up there at that camera?” he asked.

I dropped my gaze until our eyes met.