Agent Ariel Juarez tacked the last DMV photo onto the board. She stood back in her loafers and looked at all the evidence. Over thirty photos. Some were living victims, others newly deceased, then there were the bones—almost gift wrapped. The ease of it.

Her mind instantly went back to the dumping ground. Luckily, Beasley’s men hadn’t dug a mass grave. Though the area had teemed with forensic anthropologists who’d spent all night collecting skeletal pieces and decaying matter to fit almost ready-made puzzles, this was the extent of the now deceased Beasley’s offerings. The remainder of her job would be difficult.

Ariel’s eyes stopped on a profile photo of the affluent Whitley Rodgers—post mortem. The picture was taken less than a year ago. Whitley’s pearly-white teeth were set in a captivating smile. The whites in her pale-blue eyes was so vastly different from the deceased woman—Sugarland.

Sugarland was plagued with infections. Her body hadn’t accepted the change in lifestyle. Officer Wulf and Jones’ story of Sugarland didn’t fit with Whitley’s profile. The twang in her tone, the manner in which she’d fought for Beasley—all of it was foreign. If DNA hadn’t determined Whitley Rodgers and Sugarland were indeed the same, Ariel wouldn’t have believed it.

But facts were facts.

Whitley Rodgers was an alumna of Harvard Law, attending with her then husband. Whitley had been the brains of Senator Rodgers taking office. Yet, Whitley had become Sugarland. They said she’d been plagued by rage, delirium, and aggression for Beasley. Whitley had technically died in a house fire just shy of a year ago. Her husband had escaped with second-degree burns. Senator Rodgers’ popularity had increased after his heroic speech about attempting to save his wife during the fire. Hmmm.

Ariel looked at African American Tiana Clement, who was known in these parts as a new stripper named Diamond. Tiana’s abduction was the reason for FBI interference with the state police’s investigation. Ariel had been head-agent-in-charge of Tiana’s ransom a few months ago. She’d disappeared at her extravagant “sweet eighteen”—for the well-to-do, every year was marked by an extravagant party. The autopsy placed Tiana’s death at about thirty-six hours ago. The ballistics report indicated a forty-five gun with a hydro-shock bullet was the cause.

Though she didn’t have as rough a transition as Whitley, Tiana had also been reared in an affluent family. Tiana Clement was “princess” of the bayou. Her Creole family had clout. That didn’t help them get their daughter back when she had been kidnapped for millions. Juarez had turned the investigation toward the father’s direction after receiving the call from the Arizona police.

During the ransom, Juarez had a gut feeling that Tiana’s father was involved. It was revealed that Clement had opened a new life insurance policy just months before his child’s abduction. Ariel reviewed the notes of accusations of child sexual abuse. The newspapers and townspeople were divided in their hatred or pity for Mr. Clement and his family.

“It’s creepy, isn’t it?” Agent Robertson asked as he sipped a mug of coffee. Their initial visit to retrieve Tiana Clement had erupted with more signs of kidnappings. Juarez and Robertson were given ultimate lead, with a force of agents under their wings. It had been a long week. He sat the mug on the tabletop and stuffed his hands in his suit pants pockets. She knew where his eyes were before he even plucked the five-by-seven DMV photo of Julio Perez from the board.

“I’m still wrapping my head around Perez’s situation.”

“By the way, our local authority liaison, who’s on his way to provide the news of the death to Perez’s wife, remembers Mrs. Perez. She came into the police station years ago. The cop said she was so young—a child herself, pregnant and married—when Julio started working for the Overtime Trucking Company. The officer who filed the missing persons report just knew the big guy had run off with another woman.”

Robertson compared Julio Perez’s photo to Hurricane’s photo. The same height and brown complexion, but Julio had a slightly thinner build. The autopsy report indicated that the scars and wounds on his body spanned from fourteen years to present. His brain was abnormally smaller.

This is where Ariel’s religious views parted with the law. She’d never been one to allow her personal beliefs to control her intuition or how she proceeded with an assignment. Brainwashing? This is just out of my realm of understanding, but these women wouldn’t give up their lives for Beasley. Not without coercion.

She yawned. After Mary Jane, Wulf, and Jones’ perspectives and comparable stories, they’d interviewed countless numbers of Beasley's employees. Half indicated brainwashing, and the other half weren’t all there mentally. Julio Perez didn’t have a rap sheet. His DMV record was spotless, a clean background entirely. Sometime within the fourteen years, he’d disappeared only to return as an animal—Hurricane. Mallory Portman-Grienke, aka Mary Jane, said he had a canine mentality.

She looked away from Robertson and toward the board. The remainder of the strippers at The Petting Zoo, those alive and those whose bodies hadn’t been fully decomposed, had all been linked to important and/or affluent persons, either abducted or missing. There were more skeletal remains to assess. Ariel banked on her intuition. The people closest to these women had sentenced them to life in another mindset and in the hands of a monster. Instead of the usual statistic of the murderer being related to the victim, these women had been brainwashed.

Juarez could only assume this was a case of moral sins. A wife of the only doctor in a small town, who’d long ago remarried. A daughter of another rich man had been kidnapped.

But Ariel knew that this was just the tip of the iceberg. An intelligent, money-hungry man like Grienke had an entire organization that she had yet to unearth.

Through all her relationship-mapping of each dead woman, she’d found one woman who didn’t fit in the neat puzzle piece. The forensic pathologist determined the woman’s death was around five months ago. DNA records indicated a female Ukranian woman. A quick background search showed she had come to America to attend a prestigious university and was on her last year in the engineering program.

With a deep sigh and no leads on how the Ukranian had ended up in Arizona, Juarez turned her sights to Bonnie Timms. With dirty-blond hair and innocent eyes, hers was the only other body who had been identified but had yet to be associated with Beasley. Bonnie’s age further separated her from the rest of the deceased victims—a death of approximately a month ago, give or take a few days based on the climate of her grave.

Ariel’s own mother had given money—hand-over-fist—to the thirteen-year-old Bonnie’s evangelistic father over the years. Her mom had asked repeatedly about the kidnapping on many occasions, even though it hadn’t been assigned to Juarez. Bonnie’s abduction had stayed within the state of Texas. Ariel just thought the young girl’s father was a sham. He put to shame real Christians.

“We have a job to do,” Juarez sighed, looking at a sea of faces.

“Once I let my brain wrap around the fact that serial killer Jakob Woods, aka ‘Jake,’ has a heart, I’ll be sure to help you.” Robertson gave a soft chuckle.

“I’m not sure that I follow.” Juarez’s face tilted slightly. She stared intently as he plucked the eight-by-ten of Jake, seemingly lost in the photo.

“I saw him.” Robertson was unable to break eye contact with the photo.

“You saw Jakob Woods—excuse me, Jake, as our Mrs. Mallory Grienke, aka Mary Jane Doe, likes to call him—and you didn’t try to take him down?” she scoffed, finding it rather ridiculous. “This man killed forty-five men, women, and children, and you laid eyes on him?”

“Fifty-four,” Robertson said, still staring at the photo. “His file indicates that he killed fifty-four people. Jakob Woods grew up in a militia household, half Afghan and Somali. His Muslim father smuggled their family into the country when he was still an infant, but that didn’t stop the psychopath from developing a taste for blood, as did his parents. Though, unlike his family, he didn’t have an interest in religious radicalism. Trust me, I read the ‘Jakob Woods’ manual as a rookie. His file was as large as a college textbook. I was young, ambitious, and disgusted, seeing what he’d done to one family. Well, he hasn’t been active in the last seven or eight years.”

“C’mon, Robertson.” Ariel Juarez perched herself on the tabletop and retied her hair into a severe bun. “You couldn’t have seen him.”

“The moment we arrived on the scene, I noticed him.” Robertson grabbed a tuft of his hair in shock. “Woods hasn’t been active in years and-and the man I saw, well, he looked different. He had on a uniform like the rest of the state police. His eyes weren’t so empty. Not in the way Jakob Woods would be, that’s for sure.”

Ariel’s bottom lip dropped. “You’ve got to be kidding me?”

“I wish I was kidding you. I can’t fathom how much of a rookie mistake I just made, it’s like fucking partying with Bundy, Dahmer, and Wuornos and not being aware.” He gasped. Robertson leaned against the table, finally setting the photo down. “Woods went to a cruiser, the one Mary Jane was in, and gave her a blanket.”

The look in both of their eyes indicated that they needed to speak with Mary Jane STAT.

“Robertson, Juarez,” Officer Samuel stated as his head popped into the room. He was a new black guy to the team, but had a wealth of accolades. “Lemuel Fetters, Lyle’s brother, came in. He just told me something that I think you both are gonna want to hear.”

Robertson and Juarez looked at each other. “Which room is he in?”

“Three. The cameras are a go.”

“All right,” Robertson said. “Get ahold of Mrs. Grienke and Officer Wulf. We need them here for more questioning.”

Samuel nodded.

“And can one of you, for the love of God, get into Grienke’s computer system?” she sighed, glancing at the computer team, all MIT grads and fresh-faced. Ariel gritted her teeth, she needed the bastard to survive. Grienke was in a coma after all his surgeries.

Robertson added, “Juarez, once we crack his firewalls, we’ll have concrete evidence instead of hearsay.”

“Yeah, well the ‘hearsay,’ in this instance, is very cohesive.” Ariel huffed at how statistically impossible it was. As the two partners walked, she joked, “Robertson, you’re the good guy today, or I will tell everybody that you laid eyes on one of the world’s most-wanted men and let him walk.”

Robertson released a deep sigh and opened the door to the room. He stepped in after she did. Ariel took the lead and made introductions.

“Lemuel Fetters, we’ve been told that you have a story for us.”

“Do I? That's the understatement of the century. I’ma tell you a story my brother told me. I thought Lyle was crazy, but seems he can’t be if Hurricane could go and rip Beasley up like I heard he’d done.”

“And what story is that?” Juarez asked.

“Beasley and some guy named Peter–whatever, they brainwashed women. I was gon’ buy my mom some of Peter’s face cream one Christmas on account that Lyle said it had to work, since these broads had gone all loyal to Beasley and all, but the shit was too damn expensive.”

“Tell me more about the brainwashing.” Robertson steered the conversation back.

“Started about fifteen years ago. Lyle would tell me every time some chick went missing. Not just any runaway or good-for-nothing women, but these were powerhouses. A woman from one of those cold countries, who’d invented this gadget about a half year ago, she went missing a month before the gadget started showin’ up on commercials. Guess what? Her college roommate patented the idea. I thought Lyle was lying, but after I seen a commercial for the doohickey, I’m like maybe Lyle is on to something.”

“Do you know the woman’s name?” Juarez asked. Could he be referring to the Ukranian grad student that was found at the dumping site? She was still wearing a sweater from a prestigious university.

“She had a hard name to pronounce. Ya—Yoolo . . .”

Yoloslav? Juarez crossed her fingers and kept quiet. She didn’t want to make Lemuel susceptible to interviewing biases by stating the name.

“Yoslo somethin’! I don’t know. Anyway, every time Lyle tells me stories, he comes home with cash for days, while he brags about other important women and daughters of sick fucks who owned this, that, and the other shit. The last girl they got, Mary Jane . . . he didn’t know how, but she was related to Peter. That brainiac who grew up here and hit the ground running after high school often came home, ever so often. Peter and Beasley were never friends growing up, but let Beasley tell you, the man made him richer than all his females. Lyle says Peter rarely dropped in, just to teach Lyle how to use some doohickey and boss Beasley around. But a while ago, Peter came around crying like a bitch.”

Robertson interjected, “Tell us more about this return.”

“Lyle said, Peter wasn’t his usual flashy self. Just cryin’, saying he just couldn’t kill this girl. Peter wanted to save her from some sort of cage, then take her home as his wife.”

“Was it his wife, Mallory Grienke?”

“I don’t know, but he said he loved her. He just wanted them to start fresh. Lyle said, he wanted her to stop cuttin’ up.”

“Can you give us an estimate of when this happened? A week, a couple of months?”

“I don’t know.” Lemuel paused to drink down his glass of water. “Maybe he brought her about a month ago. The girls stay in a room for a while, Lyle said, before they change.”

“Do you know how Lyle changed them?”

“No, well, some little pill then a computer thingamajig finishes them off. Clears their system, he says. Beta brain blockers and some other big words. Anyhow, this is the story. A few weeks ago, he was making his rounds, giving them their pills. Mary Jane was in one room and a young girl in the other, a young one. I mean, too young.”

“Do you know her name?” Ariel held in her concern. Thirteen-year-old Bonnie? “Age? What did she look like?”

“Don’t know. But when I say young, she was too damn young to be sent to The Petting Zoo. Lyle went to see the girl first. He said somehow the young’n was loose from her chains when he opened the door. She ran past him. Jake had just come by—oh, funny story.”

Lemuel clapped his thighs.

“Lyle said Jake used to be some type of badass. Beasley and everyone but him knows his head has been screwed with. Lyle said when they got Jake, he was meaner than a rattlesnake! Lyle wet his pants a couple times he went to give Jake the medicine. Now, they say Jake’s still crazy, but the computer thingy got him straightened out. So he just ain’t crazy enough to cross anyone. And when I tell you crazy, I mean, Beasley bragged about being worshiped by a criminal—and I mean a fucking war criminal.”

Ariel Juarez gulped softly, so Jake really was Jakob Woods.

“So, anyhow, the little girl…oh, I remember more about her. She was some big-time minister’s kid. They said she’d pray all the time. That’s all I know. When Lyle told me the pastor could afford to drop the little filly off with no remorse, it was beyond me. And I just wouldn’t believe no church folk got dinero like that!”

Bingo! This must be Bonnie Timms’ story. Ariel gulped. She just needed evidence to back-up Lemuel’s statement. “Tell me more.”

“So, Jake saw the kid but he didn’t know ’bout the brainwashing. He doesn’t usually see the girls until they go to The Petting Zoo. He has this one-track mind. When they get there, somehow he knows not to kill ’em. And he hadn’t seen her ’round town either.” Lemuel shrugged.

Ariel Juarez held in her emotions. Bonnie Timms’ body wasn’t as old as many of the other skeletal remains. The body had begun to decompose and with the heat of each day, the putrefaction process had sped up. However, the coroner’s report indicated that she had a fractured skull, bleeding in the ears and eye sockets. She silently listened, waiting for his story to either match with the coroner’s report or not.

“That child ran for her life, leaving Lyle in the dust. She was running down the stairs of Beasley’s mansion. Jake had just come in, and he heard a bunch of commotion—”

“From the girl?”

“No, the movie.”

“What movie?”

“Lyle was watching The Eradicator II. He’d said the movie just became clear enough to see on his Kodi Firestick. When Beasley was gone all day and the maids weren’t there, my brother would go for a swim and eat like a hog. Heck, one time he tried to have a house party, but people were too scared to come. Anyway, Lyle had on the entertainment system and it was loud as shit. He said it helped pump him up, making him not feel sorry before he went to give the girls their pills.”

On the TV screen, Special Agent Anya Randolph followed rogue agent Trent Winehouse onto the balcony of the beachfront hotel. Lyle rolled his eyes and took a swig of his beer. The romance parts were boring, but the remote control was on the coffee table next to his feet. Lyle glanced at his watch as Anya entered the hotel bedroom to ask Trent why he’d left her. Lyle had streamed the movie back to back. It was just that good. He thought about fast-forwarding it up to the next morning when the agents were blindsided by Trent’s crew, but he needed to give Bonnie her shot and that sexy new chick too. He smiled, getting up to the sound of Anya and Trent rolling on the bed.

He grabbed the medicine case next to the remote and went into the new girl’s room first. The room was quiet, aside from the loud surround sound of the television below.

He smiled at her. Her name was to be Mary Jane. She didn’t look like one. She lay on her bed, the only piece of furniture in the room. He shrugged. He couldn’t get a good look at her ample shape as she slept in a ball, meek and scared. When he grabbed her arm, she awoke. The chain on her left ankle chinked against the metal bedpost. Grienke’s girl didn’t put up much of a fight, just whimpered and cried and asked for Peter, over and over again.

He gave Mary Jane the cup and the pill. “You haven’t started forgetting yet, girl, so keep in mind I have a gun and take your medication.” He spoke harshly, although he wouldn’t dream of touching her. It would be the death of him.

When finished, Lyle closed and locked the door. Cracking his knuckles, he headed to the next room. Little Bonnie always put up a fight. If only she’d fought her father off a few more times. If only she would have told on the pastor.

Just outside the door, he grabbed another pill. Bonnie had a few more days before her brain could be safely erased. Beasley planned to sell her for a ridiculous amount of money to a foreigner who wanted a child bride. With the syringe in one hand, he smiled at the sound of bullets blazing in the background. Yes, Anya had to be scampering off the bed and behind the side stand. He opened the door and fell back on his ass.

The chain and lock were on the bed. The blur that just rushed past him had to be little Bonnie.

“Fuck!” he screamed, knowing Jake should be here any moment to get Sugarland for her doctor’s appointment. She wasn’t transitioning well, although she’d been here for a long time.

“Bonnie, wait!” Lyle scrambled to his feet and ran the length of the mansion toward the stairs. Beasley would be pissed. If Jake was here, then any unknown person’s life would be in jeopardy. He hastened down the left side. “Jake!” he screamed, noticing Beasley’s reaper standing near the front door.

Jake’s eyes narrowed as Bonnie ran toward him, making a beeline for the door. Bonnie stopped in her tracks and was getting ready to turn around when Jake grabbed her about the waist.

“Leave me alone!” she screamed, chomping her teeth into his taut forearm.

Jake grabbed her head with one hand and slammed it against the Greek goddess statue. The sound of her skull cracking was deafening, even louder than the shots fired on The Eradicator II in the background.

“Lyle even had a few tears in his eyes when he told me about the lil’ girl.”

Robertson and Juarez gave a quick glance at each other. Lemuel’s story matched the coroner’s report for Bonnie Timms’ death due to blunt force trauma to the head.

“All right, you were saying there was something important that occurred on that day. Something happened to Jake?” Robertson asked. They still didn’t have much of a reason to connect the national terrorist, Jakob Woods, to Beasley and Grienke’s side business. Jake had been a mercenary until the cause that he fought for turned out to be a sham. Then he’d gone off, pillaging the countryside, killing all in his way. One day, he’d just stopped. The FBI agents on the case were stumped by the cold trail. With that erratic criminal profile in mind, Robertson mentioned the only possibility that would tie together all three men. “You said Jake had been previously brainwashed to do Beasley’s bidding?”

“Yes, he was.” Lemuel cracked a smile. “Like I said, Lyle had The Eradicator on, that action-love story. He said before Jake left for the evening, he seemed weird. Lyle heard him in the room with Sugarland. They were talking. Lyle said Sugarland had become childlike when they tried to brainwash her. That’s why they always kept her in such a nice little room. Jake was in the room with her, having tea, and chatting.” He laughed.

They stared.

“Y’all still don’t get it?” Lemuel asked.

“Explain please,” Robertson requested.

“All right. For the first time in his life, Jake didn’t do as Beasley had told him. After Jake got all Doctor Phil with Sugarland, Jake went back downstairs. He noticed the little girl and he cried—as if she was his own child—as if that crazy mofo hadn’t killed her. Jake picked up her lifeless body, took her outside, and dug a grave for her; even put a little stone at the head of it.”

“All right.” Juarez waved a hand. Yes, Lemuel’s story added up with the forensic pathologist’s report. Bonnie Timms’ body was the only one that hadn’t been buried in the graveyard behind The Petting Zoo.

“You guys are really missing the big picture here!” Lemuel exclaimed. “Lyle also said, a few days later when Jake went to The Petting Zoo, he met Mary Jane for the first time. MJ was there so Beasley could taunt the guys with a quick look before she made her stay at the home while she learned to be a good girl. As I said, she had a few weeks before her brain was finished changing. Oh, the two of you are no fun! Listen, I think she turned into that super-agent on The Eradicator. Bad bitch or not, I didn’t expect to see her ever again after disrespecting Beasley. Anyhow, Lyle told me that Beasley let Jake have her for the night. Jake fell in love! And Mary Jane turned into an action type chick like in the movie, and he was the costar.”

Juarez and Robertson exchanged looks. She folded her hands thinking about how Robertson had said that Jake risked being identified to bring Mary Jane a blanket at the crime scene. However, he was previously brainwashed to do everything Beasley told him.

She remembered Mary Jane’s story. Peter Grienke’s wife didn’t fit the profile for tactical abilities. How had she apprehended Officer Wulf’s gun? Lemuel’s farfetched story correlated with this.

If Jake heard the movie and the sociopath fell in love, and Mary Jane heard the movie and subconsciously learned defense skills—Juarez, really? She couldn’t believe this outlandish story, she thought, while kneading the tension in her shoulders. Everyone who’d mentioned Mary Jane’s fighting affirmed to her having no fear. She was a crack-shot with a gun. Had her brain internalized the female character in The Eradicator? Juarez hadn’t seen the movie, but she could pretty much guess the farfetched action.

“Okay, Mr. Fetters, did your brother ever seem brainwashed?” Juarez asked. “If Jake was brainwashed previously to become Beasley’s ‘human weapon’ and he was so susceptible to becoming brainwashed again, due to The Eradicator, like you indicated, did it ever appear that Lyle was brainwashed as well?”

“Hell, no.”

She had lower level agents working with the strippers at the club to identify any information, because although the FBI needed to keep this case under wraps there had to be a million bones in Beasley’s dumping ground. Bones belonging to dozens of women.

So far it was reported that all the women were highly loyal. Each one had a special agent assigned to her while undergoing medical examinations. In addition, the lower level henchmen Beasley hired didn’t seem to know anything. So right now, Ariel knew she and Robertson were grasping for straws.

“Okay, so you’re saying that Jake and Mary Jane were sustainable due to their brainwashing. Sugarland internalized the brainwashing and…Hurricane? Can you tell us his role in being brainwashed? I assume he stayed at Beasley’s mansion.”

“He spends most of his time locked up like Knight and King.” Lemuel chuckled. “Hurricane was Beasley’s favorite dog to torture. So, I reckon he was tortured while he was being brainwashed.”

Ariel nodded and allowed him to continue with his story. A lot of the stories he’d heard secondhand from his brother, Lyle, corroborated with the missing women found in the dumping ground. Once completed, she and Robertson stepped out of the interrogation room.

“Learn something new every time we walk into work, huh?” Juarez shook her head as they walked down the hall.

“Some days more than others.”

“So Beasley received some sort of kickback from Grienke for altering the minds of women, and I’m assuming Grienke was paid out the nose to get rid of certain people.”

“We’re in a shit storm,” Juarez said. “For now, we’ve placed Mrs. Portman-Grienke at the scene because her husband was too much of a pussy to clear her own brain with his own system. He just wanted to come and save the day.”

Robertson chuckled. “Yeah, I could see an asshole like him. Those grandiose delusions offer him a role as her savior. You’d think he’d lock her into a palace tower, a more romantic scene than Beasley’s cage. That warrant we had for his cell phone provided us with enough clues to add a shoddy fairytale ending to their story. He was on his way here to bring his confused, little wife home.”

Her steps faltered for a moment as she considered, “But he did try to feed her to the wolves—ahem, dogs.”

“C’mon, she probably pissed him off again. And the poor man snapped.”

The two agents stepped into a conference room next door to the interrogation room. Officer Samuel sat at a table, looking through the two-way mirror at a lone Lemuel. His dark eyes slowly turned away as if he was still attempting to absorb the man’s story.

Juarez said, “Samuel, what’s the ETA on Officer Wulf and Mallory Portman-Grienke’s arrival? I want them in different interrogation rooms like yesterday.”

Samuel stood up. “They haven’t answered their cell phones. I’ve already sent a team to Wulf’s address.”

Ariel Juarez huffed. She needed them to tell their stories again. After Lemuel Fetters’ statement, everything was beginning to add up. Yet more puzzle pieces were appearing.

Robertson rubbed his goatee. “Okay, so Lemuel Fetters has put the puzzle together in ways we haven’t even begun to.”

“Yes, he has.”

“We have a team devoted to searching for double-brain-scrambled Jake. I almost wish Fetters’ story was one hundred percent concrete, and we could turn Jake into the Pope. Seems like a more noble way to fuck with people’s heads, right?”

“That would be nice.” She nodded.