Page 8 of Unhinged Cain

It had become something of an obsession to catch this Chameleon, the guy was most certainly unhinged and twisted, and I feared there were more bodies we hadn’t found and more yet to come.

The classroom was full when I arrived, and as always, my eyes found my daughter in the middle of the room. I’d pushed Kirby to get into the FBI program and even gave her a glowing endorsement. They needed more women in the FBI, and I was positive that my daughter needed direction in her life. This job filled both needs.

“Alright, class, today we are going to look at Dr. Harold Shipman.”

KIRBY

I sat off to the side of the large classroom, and still, my mother found me and smiled at me, making me want to sink down into my seat and hide. Didn’t she understand that everyone already thought I didn’t deserve to be here? Everyone else had to apply and be vetted. I was granted a free access pass because of my mother’s credentials. I had no idea how they knew. It wasn’t like I ever said anything about who my mom was, but the boys to my left and the girl to my right glared in my direction as my mother nodded at me.

The class my mother taught was interesting, not that I’d ever admit that to her. It would be all the ammunition she needed to keep me in this place until I made Special, Special rank, or something. As the lights flicked on at the end of the seminar, I tried to escape with the crowd, but that was pointless. My mother spotted me and called out my name loud enough that even the dead would have heard her.

“Kirby, can you come here for a moment, please?”

I groaned internally but slowly moved toward her as she packed up the papers strewn across the teacher’s desk. As we waited for the rest of the students to clear, I looked around the room. The space really needed an upgrade. Even a paint job would be a good idea. The problem was if I had the choice, I’d paint the walls something bright and colorful or maybe something that would freak everyone out for fun. I could picture a slew of flowers or maybe crazy-looking clowns. That would fuck with everyone’s minds, and I smirked at the thought. Really anything would be better than 70s orange.

The door to the hall closed, and my mother snapped the clasp shut on her briefcase before looking at me.

“We need to talk.”

I internally groaned.

Those four little words were the most dreaded in any relationship dynamic. ‘We need to talk’ was the equivalent of ‘I’m punching you in the face with my words before I fuck you up the ass without lube and with something you won’t like.’

“We cannot have a repeat of your behavior from the last session. Unlike the first twelve weeks of your training, these next sixteen weeks must be taken seriously. That means no tardiness, and you need to keep your grades up,” she said. “Do you have any idea what it took for me to get you in here? What strings I had to pull, and what promises I had to commit to in order to make this a reality for you?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. I’d heard this speech before, and it always ended with whatever my mother wanted for me was right and whatever I wanted or said was wrong. It didn’t matter that I had no interest in becoming an FBI agent, nor did I want to live with her and her cheating ass when she and father divorced. Yet, I was forced to do that as well, and now I barely saw my father and was shoved into a career I had zero interest in doing.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

“What do you want me to say, Mom? I didn’t want to become some special secret agent in the first place. This is all your idea. I’m only here because you didn’t like my choices and forced me to attend.”

My mother leaned against the desk and stared at me with the same look I was sure she used in her interrogation of killers.

“Really, Kirby? Okay, then tell me, what did you want to do? You’re twenty-three now, and the bachelor of science degree you insisted on completing was doing nothing for you. You had top grades, yet you worked at a Denny’s making peanuts. You have thousands of dollars of school debt that your father and I have been paying for, but you seemed perfectly happy to sit back and enjoy the lifestyle we’ve provided without you contributing a dime.”

My Mother pointed around the room.

“This is what is going to give you a career. It will pay the bills, and it may not seem like it yet, but it will be a rewarding job rather than where you were headed.”

I looked down at my shoes and sighed. “Nothing about this place feels right for me. I wanted to be an artist. I’ve always loved to paint.”

“Great answer, Kirby. A worthless, dead-end career.”

My mother grabbed her briefcase off the desk and paused as she went to walk past. “Here’s the deal. You can either start taking classes seriously or drop out, but I will not pay for school anymore, and you’ll have to find a real job and start adulting, as you call it. That means you’ll pay all your bills, including food and extras like getting your hair done, and you need to move out of the dorm. I’ll give you three months to find a place to live other than with me. If you want to be treated like an adult, act like one. If you want to paint, do what other people do and make it a hobby.”

There was no point in saying anything back. Most of it was accurate, and shamefully I couldn’t deny that my parents still paid for all my expenses since I was forced to quit my waitressing job. I watched my mother leave, but I stayed in the quiet class space enjoying the silence.

For reasons beyond me, all I could picture was the man at the side of the road. How could a single glimpse leave such a lasting impression? My eyes looked over the notes my mother had scribbled on the whiteboard and wondered if the two-hundred-plus victims of Dr. Harold Shipman had known what he was when they met him but ignored the signs.

Sighing, I wandered toward the door and flicked the light off as I went. The halls only had a smattering of people in them, and my low black pumps echoed as I walked. This was the other thing I hated about the idea of becoming an FBI agent. We all looked like a bunch of navy-colored robots swarming the halls. It was drab, it was monotonous, and it was so not me.

It was dark and raining as I got to the doors that led to the parking lot, and as luck would have it, I hadn’t brought a jacket with me. I stood under the overhang of the building and stared at my car sitting across the street in the parking lot. I needed to get groceries or, at the very least, hit up a drive-thru since my fridge and cupboards were empty, but as the rain continued to hammer the ground, I was tempted to skip food and head straight to the dorms.

Great, just great.

Sucking it up, I ran down the few steps and across the parking lot only to get my feet soaked and water splashed all over my new pants. I hated to admit that I thought this place was creepy as hell at night, but it had this weird vibe. Maybe it was all the killer talk they played over and over or just the trees that shaded the parking lot from the road, making it feel boxed in. Either way, when I reached the car, it felt like eyes from every direction were trained on me, making me twitchy.

I fumbled with my keys, and the stupid fob fell from my hands in my haste to push the unlock button. Swearing, I bent to pick it up.