Psycho by Onley James

“Did you say all of your brothers are psychopaths?”

They were back in Lucas’s bed after a brief shower. August lay on his back, sheets wrapped around his legs. Lucas laid across the bed, his head resting on August’s stomach while he contented himself with trailing his fingers around Lucas’s hairline.

“No, I intimated that they are. Which would infuriate my brother, Atticus, who thinks you’re just out to prove we’re all killers so you can take us out in some epic sting operation.”

Lucas rolled towards him. “I’ve known you two days, hardly enough time to set up surveillance or any kinds of bugs, especially since I’m no longer an FBI agent. I’m a former FBI agent who had a mental breakdown and accused his co-worker of being a serial killer.”

That’s right. The man who had hurt Lucas so bad he woke up screaming every night. “We’re going to have to talk about that.”

“First, I think I deserve to know what you meant by being the weirdest psychopath in a family of psychopaths.”

August sighed, trailing his knuckles along Lucas’s cheek. “I’ll tell you everything. But if you betray me, there’s going to be a lot of blood on your hands.”

Lucas sat up, looking August in the eye. “Are you threatening to kill me?”

August swayed into his space, catching his mouth in a kiss that lingered. “No. I’m threatening to kill them. You’re mine, whether you know it yet or not. But if you tell the world who we are…what we do…you’ll ruin years of my father’s hard work and my brothers will want your head. Don’t make me kill my family to protect you.”

“I’ve heard of love at first sight, but this is a little intense.”

August kissed him once more. “I don’t love you. I can’t. You know that. You’re choosing to ignore years of training because you haven’t felt anything in so long and whatever this is between us is better than feeling numb. I imagine, a year ago, things between us would have been much more…complicated.”

“Which one of us is the profiler?” Lucas asked, a sadness seeping into his tone.

“I’m not profiling you. But I see you. Hell, since I saw you walk across the quad, all I see is you. And I know that’s a lot. Noah said it’s a lot for people who aren’t like us.”

“Is Noah one of your brothers?”

“No, he’s my brother’s boyfriend. He and my father are the outliers. The two sane men in a sea of psychopaths. Noah loves my brother even though my brother can’t love him. But Noah had nobody, nothing, and my brother’s protection and possessiveness were enough for him, even knowing my brother couldn’t love him. Whatever they have is all consuming. I want that, too, with you. But you’re not Noah and I’m not Adam.”

“No, I’m not. I have no idea what this is. Maybe I am playing with fire just to feel something. Does that change anything? You still kill people and I’m still crazy. I’m not going to tell your secret. Like you said, nobody would believe me anyway. But you need to understand, being with me comes with its own hazards. Kohn will come for me. He’s just playing with me.”

Something exploded behind August’s ribs, a white hot rage that licked through his veins at the thought of anybody attempting to harm Lucas.

He pressed his forehead to August’s. “It’s not worth losing your mind over. He’s coming for me either way.”

“Start at the beginning,” August said, his voice a low rumble.

Lucas sighed, then returned to using August’s belly as a pillow. “I met him four years ago. Special Agent Laurence Kohn.”

August brought his knee up until his heel was flat on the mattress, and Lucas’s fingers began to trail along the underside of his thigh, like he was trying to soothe August’s fury. “Was he a partner or something?”

Lucas shook his head. “He was a field agent. I was a criminal psychologist. We only crossed paths because I happened to be in New Mexico giving a talk on profiling. An officer with the tribal police reached out to me about a case they had, and asked if he could pick my brain about it.”

“Did that happen a lot?”

Lucas shrugged. “I have a reputation within the bureau. There were rumors about me touching evidence, wanting to see crime scenes. Shit grunts like me didn’t do. Because of this, people tend to seek me out. This man was no exception.”

“How did Kohn factor in?”

“He was the FBI liaison between the tribal police and the FBI, working on a string of missing persons cases on the reservation. I didn’t want to step on his toes, but Kohn seemed happy to have the help.”

Lucas snorted after that statement, his disgust with himself apparent. He blamed himself as the architect for his own misery. He was so sensitive, so soft. It made August feel…protective. Vengeful. He hadn’t even heard the whole story and he was ready to show this man his own liver. Lucas was his. August would protect what was his.

“Don’t indigenous women go missing at an alarming rate?” August asked, determined to focus on letting Lucas tell his story.

“Yes. But these women disappeared in rather rapid succession and were all of similar age. It was possible they were trafficked. That also happens with many indigenous women, but the officer in charge of the case, a man named Dan Adakai, was certain there was more to it.

“Unlike most people who hear the rumors about me, Adakai took it seriously. But there was nothing for me to hold or touch. At least nothing associated with the disappearance. I got some impressions from clothing they owned, but nothing related to who took them. They didn’t know where they went missing, so there was no way of knowing where they’d find something I could pull information from. I did my work the old fashioned way, but without a body, it was hard to provide much help.”

“Because there was no MO?” August asked.

Lucas nodded. “I apologized and offered to help if any new information came up.”

August combed his fingers through Lucas’s messy blond tresses. “I’m assuming you found more to go on?”

Lucas’s gaze grew unfocused. “Within a week, we had a body.”

August frowned. “The timing seems suspect.”

“Very. Almost like they were…throwing us a bone, daring us to come after them. I asked my boss for permission to return to New Mexico as a consultant. They reluctantly agreed and only because the tribal police and Kohn requested me.”

“Kohn requested you?”

Lucas snorted again. “Yeah.”

August could see why Lucas was so furious. The actual killer inviting him in, testing him, playing with him…still playing with him. It would be such a violation of trust for somebody like him.

“What did the body tell you?” August asked, trying to pull Lucas from his shame spiral.

“The victim was fifteen-year-old Malia Etsitty. She was the first to go missing. Her body was fresh, so she’d only recently been killed. She’d been raped and tortured over a prolonged period of time. Her breasts and genitals had been mutilated anti-mortem, which meant we were dealing with an organized non-social lust killer, who likely moved about the world undetected. He’d posed the body, left it where it could be easily found.”

“Showing off,” August said.

Lucas nodded. “He was proud of his work and needed us to know he was out there. Despite the clear mutilation, he’d washed her before he’d staged her. In some cases, that might appear like remorse or like somebody who knew the victim, but in this case, it seemed almost like a forensic countermeasure.”

August agreed. “What kind of impressions did you get when you touched her?”

Lucas closed his eyes. “Horrible things. I’ve taught myself to block out the pain and the suffering. I had to in order to survive. I have to do that so I can focus on the anomalies. The things that shouldn’t be there.”

“Shouldn’t be there?” August echoed.

Lucas opened his eyes, looking at August. “Yes. What’s different about him than other lust killers, what is out of place? Doesn’t fit? Doesn’t belong?”

“What did you see?”

“A rectangular room without windows. If I had to hazard a guess, I would have said a box truck or a type of shed or private storage unit, maybe even a small shipping container. Somewhere he wouldn’t be disturbed.”

“Makes sense.”

“It was designed with torture in mind. This killer took his time. This was like his dream home. A place where he could live out any and every sick depraved fantasy he might have.”

“Did you find what didn’t belong?” August asked.

“Maybe. I couldn’t see the killer’s face because he wore a mask, which struck me as odd. Why wear a mask if you intend to kill your victim? You aren’t worrying about them identifying you.”

“Maybe he hadn’t intended to kill her? Maybe he just took it too far?”

“I considered that, but lust killers, especially organized non-social types, achieve their sexual gratification in not only torturing but murdering these women. It’s a culmination of weeks or months of fantasizing. The kill is the release they need, the mutilation is the foreplay. So, the mask was a red flag.”

August nodded. “He was hiding his identity from somebody, but not the victim.”

“Exactly,” Lucas confirmed.

“Was that the only thing that stood out to you?”

“There was one other thing, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a clue. Possibly just a preference.”

“What was it?”

“A red light.”

“A red light?”

“Yes, all of the lighting was clinical but rudimentary, like somebody had rigged up lights in a place that shouldn’t have any. But there was this red glow that sort of panned around the room, almost like a lighthouse beam.”

“That’s…odd.”

“Yes.”

“How did you figure out it was Kohn?” August asked.

“I didn’t.” He instantly corrected himself. “I mean, I obviously did but not by using any training. I gave our profile of the killer to the New Mexico bureau and the tribal police and went back to Virginia. A few months later, Kohn showed up at Quantico for a week-long training and sought me out. Which, in retrospect, was bizarre but, at the time, didn’t seem all that weird. He was friendly, called me Mulder, teased me about being able to see things.”

“Flirting with you?” August couldn’t hide that the thought irked him.

Lucas gave a humorless laugh. “Yeah, that should have been my first clue that something was up.”

August’s mouth was a hard line. “Why’s that?”

“He didn’t ping my gaydar at all. Not even as a closet case.”

“He was trying to get close to you. See what you knew.”

“Yes. And I never saw it coming.”

“Why would you?” August asked. “An FBI agent tasked with solving the murder he executed. It seems pretty outlandish outside of a psychological thriller.”

“Outlandish like a family of crime-fighting psychopathic billionaires?” Lucas asked, lips twitching.

“Technically, my father is a billionaire. I make a professor’s salary.”

“No, I make a professor’s salary. You make a tenured ivy league professor’s salary, which I’ve been told is quite nice.”

August smiled. “I do just fine. And my father is very generous with his children. Now, finish telling me your story.”

Lucas sighed. “I always keep my shields up whenever we’re not on a case. Otherwise, I get bombarded with visions every time I so much as pick up a fork. People think it would be great to get a glimpse into people’s heads, but it’s not true. Kohn was no different. He flirted, texted, asked my opinion about the New Mexico case. When he asked me out, I refused. Dating while psychic has too many pitfalls.”

“Dating while psycho comes with similar issues,” August said, a teasing smile on his lips.

Lucas couldn’t help but laugh. “I imagine it does. Kohn was pestering me every day, so on his final night, I invited him out to dinner. It was awkward and sealed my belief that he was straight, but I thought maybe he was just…testing the waters, unsure of his sexuality.”

August threaded their fingers together and brought Lucas’s hand to his lips, kissing it, having no idea how to actually soothe Lucas. He was clearly embarrassed, though he had no reason to be.

“When I dropped him off at his hotel, he surprised me by leaning over and kissing me. I was so surprised, I didn’t have time to shield myself.”

“What did you see?”

“At first, the same thing I saw when I touched Malia. A boxy room, a flickering fluorescent light, that strange red glow. But then I saw other things. Kohn sliding on the mask in his bedroom, dropping a curved knife into a duffle bag.”

“What did you do?”

“I froze. At first, he thought I just wasn’t into him. Made a joke of it, apologized. I thought I’d escaped without him figuring it out. Even once I got home, I didn’t really think he was a murderer. We worked on the same case, and had the same knowledge. Maybe Kohn liked to put himself in the killer’s shoes. But that didn’t explain how his knowledge of that room looked exactly like mine. No matter how I explained it, he would never have been able to recreate it with that level of detail. You know?”

August nodded. “When did he figure it out?”

Lucas closed his eyes, his mouth a hard line. “I went to my Supervisory Special Agent. He heard me out, even showed some level of concern, right up until I had to tell him why I believed Kohn needed to be investigated. I tried to explain I’d seen him in a mask with a knife—I left out the part where I’d seen it psychically—but, eventually, I came clean and explained that I truly was clairvoyant, it wasn’t just a joke or some process I had. I was immediately placed on desk duty pending a psych eval.”

“What did they do about Kohn?”

“Nothing. While he was in Virginia, another body dropped in New Mexico and I looked like a lunatic.”

“But you didn’t let it go?”

“No. Though, sometimes, I wish I had.”

“You don’t mean that,” August said.

Lucas huffed out a sigh. “Of course, I don’t. Not that I’ve done any good. Those girls are still dead and more have gone missing and I have no way of knowing whether Kohn and his partner are still killing. Have they taken more girls? Are they still being hurt?”

“What happened after your psych eval?”

“They cleared me to return to work, but I was obsessed with proving Kohn was a killer. I took personal time, returned to New Mexico, followed him, looked for any indication on who his partner might be. He called my supervisor, accused me of stalking, and threatened to call the police. The more I tried to prove what I knew to be true, the crazier I looked. Hell, the crazier I became. Then he was waiting for me in my car one night. I thought he was going to kill me but, it turns out, he liked playing with me instead.”

“He was taunting you.”

“He told me he was going to keep raping and torturing girls, that I couldn’t do anything about it. Touched me and forced me to see…all of it. The things he did, the way he hurt them, everything. But worse than that…I felt it. I felt their pain and agony, heard when they begged, cried out, called for their family members. By the time I made it back inside to my office, I was gone. They put me on a seventy-two hour psych hold claiming I was clearly a danger to myself and others. I didn’t do myself any favors. I refused to stop rambling about what I’d seen.”

“I imagine that would have been horrific for you. But you did get out.”

“Kohn tried to kill me in there.”

“What?”

“He got another inmate to stab me with a piece of glass. Not that anybody believed me then either. Another inch and he would have gotten my heart. Instead, he severed a nerve in my shoulder, causing a permanent numbness in the tips of my fingers that put me on medical leave. Then they offered me a full-time teaching position in Quantico, saying I was good at what I did but they thought the stress of profiling had finally gotten to me.”

“But you left instead.”

“Yeah. I don’t want to work with people who think I’m insane or unstable. Even if I am.”

“Why do you think Kohn is still after you?”

Lucas met his gaze. “Because he moved here a couple of months after I did and women are already missing.”

“You’re certain it’s him?”

Lucas nodded, rubbing his eye with his free hand. “Not that I can prove it. I can’t even prove he’s responsible for the disappearances, but I know it’s him. He’s going to keep tormenting me until he gets bored and then he’s going to kill me. That’s what he said in the car. He said he thought this was almost as fun as torturing women.” Lucas sat up abruptly. “We should probably get some sleep. We both have classes in the morning.”

August studied his pinched features. “Okay, that’s enough for tonight, but this isn’t over. Kohn needs to be dealt with.”

Lucas dropped down beside him and curled against his side, tugging the blankets over them both.

“No pillow barrier tonight?”

Lucas kissed August’s furry chest. “No, not tonight.”