“Tell you what.” He wagged the Glock in little circles. “Let’s get you ready for the broadcast first. Then I’ll show you what happened to Tyler Bell. How’s that for cooperating fully with the police?”
“Sandy” was standing next to him now. He kissed her, making a show of it, and gave her the gun. Then he transferred the camera to her as well. Now what?
“Smile,” she said, “or whatever. Just be natural. Be yourselves.”
She bent her knees for a steadier shot and zoomed out until the image on the laptop included Sampson, Bree, and me.
“Okay, I’m set here. Whenever you’re ready, we can begin. We’re going live now. We’re rolling,” she said. “And . . . action.”
Chapter 118
ANTHONY DEMAO—that was the only name I had for him—slowly walked around behind me, which was not exactly where I wanted him to be.
“Out of sight, out of mind?” he asked, and laughed. “Or maybe not, Doc.”
Suddenly, the rope dug into my wrists as he tightened it, then knotted it off. Next he anchored it to an eye hook or grommet, something in the floor that I couldn’t see. The contraption kept me from standing, though, or even sitting up straight. That’s why Sampson’s frame was so hunched over, I realized.
And it was all playing out in real time on the laptop across from me. I wondered how many people were watching this right now, and I hoped Nana and the kids weren’t among them.
When he’d finished with me and then Bree, he retrieved his gun from Sandy and took his place at the center of the floor. He tucked the Glock in the rear of his waistband, then went into a half squat, hands clasped behind him like they were tied the same as ours. What the hell was he doing now?
His face screwed into a terrible grimace. Then he sobbed loudly. He continued to sob. He was acting, I realized with a start. Playing another part. Who was he this time?
He was definitely playing someone other than himself. Pretending to sob, to be sad. “Why are you doing this to me? I don’t understand. Please, just let me get up. I won’t run away, I promise. Please, man, I’m begging you. I’m begging you!”
Suddenly the gun came out from behind Anthony’s back, and he pointed it at his own head. Now he spoke as DCAK: “You want to stay alive, Mr. Bell, you just keep on talking for me. Let me hear you say ‘A, E, I, O, U.’ ”
“A, E, I, O, U,” he blubbered, in what I assumed was a pretty good imitation of Tyler Bell.
“You closed Bell’s bank account yourself, right?” Bree asked before I got the chance.
“And played Tyler Bell at the grocery store before that,” I added. That explained the milk and other duplicate food we’d found in the refrigerator back at the cabin.
Anthony stood up straight again and turned side to side, showing off the beard, the nose, the heavy brow. “Pretty good makeup job, right? Took the molds right off Tyler Bell’s face.”
“Jesus Christ.” Bree sounded more disgusted than anything. “You almost make me ashamed to be human.”
“Wait, I’ve got another one for you. This is good shit. Check it out, Detectives.”
He grew still for a moment. His face morphed into anguish, but someone else’s, not Bell’s.
The posture turned crooked, the energy was less frenetic, and the voice—the one he’d used in our sessions—was deeper, southern, with a different timbre than the others.
“Oh, Jesus, I killed my best friend. Matthew, man, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. What am I gonna do now?” His speech slowed as he went on, and the accent broadened until it had become a caricature of itself. “I ain’t nothin’ but a poor sumbitch of a vet with a shrink that don’t know Gulf War syndrome from German fuckin’ measles.”
His eyes fell coldly on me.
“I got it all on tape, Dr. Cross. Every one of our sessions on audio, with me right there under your nose. I took some pictures too.” He looked over at Sandy. “You and her. When Sandy tongue kissed you in front of your office and said she wished you’d met under different circumstances.”
“I’ll tell you a secret.” Sandy replayed the moment between her and me from outside my office. “I wish I’d met you somewhere else.”
I remembered the kiss and how Sandy had motioned me over to the curb, apparently setting up a photo op for Anthony.
“Okay,” I said. “Now how about why?”
“How about because no one else can do what we can do? No one! Or how about because we worked almost ten years in the theater and barely made enough money to pay the rent. Or ’cause we saw the shine you have, or used to have, and wanted some for ourselves.”
He stopped and stared at me for several beats. “Is that what you want to hear, Dr. Cross? Does that help you put us into some little box that you can understand a little better?”