He was surprised by giggles and his two daughters sing-songing together, “Hello, Papa!”
“Hello, my little dumplings. I thought it was your mother calling.”
“She’s right here. We wanted to surprise you.”
“And what a great surprise it is.” Ott’s three-year-old, Tatyana, and five-year-old, Lilly, were his absolute prizes. He worked hard so that they would never know hard times. And he was raising them to be polite and respectful. Thankfully their mother, Lena, had few of the arrogant habits most American women did.
Lena was Polish and had proven to be a good wife and a great mother. She was simple and sweet, very meek. They’d met online, and Ott quickly knew she was the woman for him. He even spoke a fair amount of Polish. They used it as a code to talk privately around the girls.
He chatted with his daughters, who told him about their homeschool lessons, the books they were reading (or pretending to read), and how they’d raced their mother and won.
Ott never would’ve imagined he could feel as much love as he did for these girls. He wondered if either of his parents had felt anything for him approaching the love he had for his daughters. He doubted it—his father had barely acknowledged him, except to make mean jokes, and his mother had just seemed exhausted all the time. When she died, Ott had felt relief for her, that she could finally rest. Since then, he’d probably spoken no more than thirty words total to his father.
Lena got on the line, and his mood shifted. His wife tended to bring up less enjoyable topics, problems that needed solutions. She said, “We need to enroll the girls in a dance class. And the dog has a cough again.”
Ott hid a groan as he hurried his wife off the phone. “I’m sorry, dear, I have to get back to work.”
She said she understood and told him she couldn’t wait to see him. He smiled after hanging up, thinking about his two separate—and very different—lives. Over the past year, it had become clear that he needed both to survive, though it was a daily challenge to keep them from crashing into each other.
Ott loved his wife and girls, but he couldn’t deny himself the pleasure he got from killing. The feeling could make his head spin, and he had an increasingly difficult time containing his urges. He felt the sensation in his entire body, like wave after wave of excitement. A release. A renewal. He wouldn’t describe it as sexual in nature—it was more primal and satisfying.
Usually the victims were obvious to him. It had to do with their attitudes. That was his catalyst, his reason to act: he could not abide women with insolent, demeaning attitudes. He no longer put up with arrogance and ridicule from women. Nor could he understand why American women thought they were smarter, prettier, and more important than anyone else in the world. There was something about their egotistical speech patterns that shocked his nervous system.
His work dictated the pace he kept in his avocation. Since he only took victims outside his home area, occasionally choosing his next victim from an office where he had done contract work, the length of his business trips determined how patient he could be.
He did his best to be patient, let some time lapse. Usually. But sometimes the urge hit him so strongly that he couldn’t wait.
He’d been in New York for only about a month now and had already succumbed to the temptation of three perfect victims. It was more than he usually allowed himself, but then again, in a city as big as New York, he was almost surprised the media had even connected them. Not that he was concerned. At each crime scene, he’d been careful not to leave any evidence that could be linked to him, and careful about security cameras.
Today would be his last day in this office. He’d figured out a way to reroute the company’s computer network to integrate more easily with the software he was installing. He never bothered to explain his work to the clients, just to his boss back at Computelex headquarters in Omaha. HQ was the only one he needed to impress.
Ott moved from his desk to work at a control box in a tiny room at one end of the floor. He had been in there before and realized that from that vantage, he could hear everything in the manager’s office, the copy room, and the break room, which all surrounded the control box.
As he worked, he overheard two women talking. It took him a moment to realize they were standing in the break room. He recognized one of the voices as belonging to an intern, a smart girl from somewhere north of the city.
He was about to go back to his desk when he heard the intern say, “How much longer is that telephone tech going to be here?”
The other woman said, “I think he’s supposed to finish up today.”
“I’m so glad I’m studying communications in college. I’d hate to do such lonely, anonymous work. It doesn’t suit me.”
Ott stood still for a moment. Silent. Furious. Who the hell is this arrogant bitch to think she is better than me? In fact, he was widely recognized in the industry as one of only six or seven techs in the whole country who could do what he did. And he got paid well for it too. More than this bitch intern would ever make in communications or whatever useless degree she was getting.
His hand started to tremble with anger. Then he smiled with a new sense of purpose.
He always felt energized the moment he found a new victim.
Chapter 5
It wasn’t quite nightfall by the time I got home to my family. I’ve spent my career trying to keep my family life as separate from my work life as possible. If I’m thinking about some gruesome crime I’m investigating, I’m not focusing on the kids the way I need to be, and it’s important to focus exclusively on the children for a fair amount of time each day.
But today was one of those days that wore me down. The unidentified killer who’d violently murdered these women had gotten into my head. It was hard to stop thinking about the case, even as I was welcomed home by three beautiful, happy young girls.
Though frankly I’d expected more than 30 percent of my kids to greet me at the door.
That’s right, I have ten children. Six girls and four boys. All adopted. Each with his or her own unique personality and challenges. And I wouldn’t trade a single one of them for anything in the world, though as anyone with a lot of kids will tell you, it takes an enormous amount of energy.
My twins, Bridget and Fiona, were always good for a double hug, and my youngest, Chrissy, still insisted on a giant hug and a quick lift and whirl around the room. It’s possible she didn’t insist as much as she used to. But I still did it anyway, every day.
I wandered farther into the apartment and found my fiancée, Mary Catherine, sitting at a small writing desk in our bedroom, working on some wedding details. We were getting married in a matter of weeks, and the quick look she gave me revealed that she was feeling rather overwhelmed.
“I need some fresh air,” Mary Catherine said. “Get changed, real quick. You promised we’d ride our new bikes at least three times a week. Let’s go.”
I knew not to argue. Also, it’s bad policy to ignore commitments. And I never break a promise. It took me only a minute to slip out of my work clothes and into sweatpants and a Manhattan College T-shirt. Underneath the school’s logo it said, PHILOSOPHY, IT’S SO MUCH MORE THAN A MAJOR. The kids had gotten me the shirt as a joke gift for my birthday since that had been my major in college. I loved it. The joke was on them. Philosophy was a lot more than just a major.