“I have no doubts about that. Let’s try not to kill him, if he’s not the guy.”
“And if he is?” Baptiste asked.
I smiled. “Then, let me have time with him.”
“Will we need Charlie to come clean?”
“No.” I shook my head. “It shouldn’t be that messy. One guy. One body to dispose. I wouldn’t be worth my money if I needed help with everything.”
“Okay. I’ll hold on calling Charlie.” Baptiste handed me the thick file. “Here’s some light reading for the evening.”
“Thank you.” I pointed in the back. “Take Zola’s room for tonight. Get some sleep. I’ll stand watch for a few hours and then we’ll switch.”
Baptiste didn’t move. “You know, we have other ways to find and kill this stalker.”
I thought back to Baptiste’s methods for finding Nakita’s killers. I stirred with unease. “Let’s leave your voodoo ceremonies out of it for now.”
“Let me know. Human sacrifices are hard to come by in New York and the voodoo underground here is expensive—”
“We’re good. I’m not sacrificing people to figure out Zola’s stalker. I’ll find his ass the old-fashioned way.”
“By killing every man around her?”
“That sounds like at least an option B or C.”
Smirking, he left. “See you later.”
Baptiste never said goodbye or goodnight. It was too final for him. Instead, he kept it at see ya later or until next time.
I opened up the file and studied Baptiste’s assessment of each person. As usual, Baptiste had been precise and efficient. He could know everything about a person in just a few days of watching them.
He’d been here for barely twenty-four hours and already had a thick file, divided in four sections. One was on Trigger. The other three sections discussed Alexander, Takako, and CiCi. After a good hour of reading over all his notes, I jotted down a few summary points in my leather journal.
I was looking for red flags, indicators that matched a typical stalker.
There were several. Most stalkers had narcissistic parents—uncaring and lacking empathy. Most of the time, one of the parents were abusive. A narcissistic parent only did what served their own emotional needs. They made up realities and had preconceived and outlandish ideas of who the kids should be. And when the kid didn’t meet those expectations, the parent hurt them, either physically, sexually, emotionally, or mentally.
My own mother’s face flashed in my head.
She fit the narcissistic description along with falling under several other mental illnesses—borderline personality and so on. Had Mrs. Ellen not taken me away, I could’ve been a stalker or some other sociopath.
By six, I’d already had a sick fascination with blood and death. I’d dreamed about hurting my mother, cutting her face and watching the blood trickle away. It could’ve been a defense mechanism due to all the things she’d been doing to me. Or it was a sign of how broken I’d already been at such a young age.
Once Mrs. Ellen took me away, she’d had me talk to a therapist.
Dr. Stein taught me about narcissism and other mental illnesses. She tried her best to show me that it wasn’t all my fault. Sometimes, I even believed her. She gave Mrs. Ellen strict instructions to cut all contact between my mother and me. That was the other thing that had saved my life.
The narcissist parent only worsened with age. And they damaged the kid more in his or her adult years. If the kid left them, the narcissist parent hounded them to come back. They made them feel guilty, only for the kid to return and be hurt again. So, the kid would leave, and the cycle would continue.
This sort of parent stalked and abused, guilted and shamed. And they did so with no remorse. And the kid never really knows what the problem is, just that something is wrong with them, not their Dad or Mom. And the cycle continued.
Dr. Stein gave me advice when I turned eighteen and considered visiting my mother in jail.
“You shouldn’t have any contact with her,” she said on our last visit.
“Okay.”
“If she does find you, change your phone number.”
I nodded.
“Having a narcissist parent can be emotionally damaging to a child.”
I gave her a nervous smile. “I’ve gathered that.”
She held her hands in her lap. “But Hunter…there is still hope.”
“Is there?”
“Find support groups.”
“I’ll be fighting for this country. I won’t have time for that.”
“The Army will have a chaplain or psychiatrist for you.”
“I’ll consider it.” I knew I wouldn’t. I’d only gone to see Dr. Stein because of Mrs. Ellen. And although the doctor helped, I still hated talking about my childhood. As soon as I entered boot camp, I planned on pushing the whole situation out of my head.
Dr. Stein hadn’t finished. She grabbed my attention. “Hunter, keep in mind that no matter what you were taught, she can’t love you because she doesn’t even know how to love herself.”