Never Together Nor Apart

[Chapter 46]

Emily's POV:

"Why don't we just start with the simplest explanation? They're lying," Morgan suggests.

"Well, there are easier lies to tell to cover for murder. Why tell the same one, especially when it doesn't make sense?" I ask.

"Could it be a group delusion?" Alex wonders.

"Their similar age range all points in that direction, 33 to 34 years old, but the geographic diversity kid of rules that out," Reid explains.

"Yeah. Larry Merrin's from Topeka. Christine McNeil is from Roswell, Georgia. Daniel Karras is from Derry, Maine. All different economic levels, social circles, obviously different racial backgrounds," Garcia spits out.

"So if he's an unsub, he's not killing, but creating killers. Murder my proxy, if you will," Rossi infers.

"It's gotta be drugs. Larry Merrin's story just sounds like a bad trip," Morgan states.

"Ehh, according to the police reports, all three fox screens came up negative," Garcia counters.

"Well, they only screen for known compounds. This could be a cocktail we've never seen before," I reply.

"Every drug affects every person differently, yet somehow this unsub is able to make just drug affect three completely dissimilar people in exactly the same way," Reid says amazed.

"Well maybe they're not dissimilar. Maybe the drugs are just the tipping point, and these three share some sort of pre-existing mental condition he knows he can tap into to induce them to kill. We find that, we find him," Aaron say confidently.

*time skip*

"Did she feel a lot of pain? Did I kill her quickly?" Daniel asks with a saddened look.

"Mr. Karras, we want to get to the bottom of this too, so we'd like to take you through a cognitive interview," Morgan tells him.

"What's the point?" He asks monotoned.

"It could help you remember details you couldn't remember before, and those details could help us understand what happened. So please, close your eyes... and put yourself back in your home a week ago. You got home from work early, right?" I begin the interview.

"Right," he responds.

"How did you feel when you walked through the door?" I ask.

"Happy," he replies, "she wasn't home, my mom, and then I remembered she said that she was going to the movies with some friends. I thought my beer tasted funny and then I realized it wasn't my beer, that it was a smell that was coming from somewhere else," he begins to walk us through.

"What was the smell?" I whisper.

"Sage," he answers.

Morgan and I exchange a look before he speaks.

"You're sure about that?" Morgan looks spectacle

"Yeah. Yeah, because once I placed it, I was out," he confirms.

"How long were you out?" I question.

"I don't know, all I know is when I came to, it was dark and I couldn't move. I was tied down. I heard growling, then saw the shadowy talons on the door. It did sexual things to me," he pauses as a tear slips down his cheek, "uh, I got— I got free and then I, um... and then I hid somewhere in the house, and, uh... next thing I remember, I was standing over my mom's body... and the cops were cuffing me," he says through his cries, "I—maybe—maybe you know, maybe the—the rape, you know, uh maybe I snapped, you know? You know what I mean? Maybe I snapped and, uh, I lashed out at the first person that I saw," he begins wiping at his face.

"Mr. Karras—," Morgan gets cut off.

"Listen to me 'cause this is the only way that it makes sense," he insists.

"At your lawyer's insistence, the Maine Police ran a rape kit on you. There was no evidence of assault, sexual or otherwise," Morgan explains.

"Ok, well, run another tape kit," he replies.

"No rope burns on your arms or legs. No evidence of a break-in at all," I say calmly.

"What are you guys trying to tell me? That this didn't happen to me? 'Cause it did!" He raises his voice, "there are others," he says after a moment.

"Excuse me?" I say confused.

"My lawyer said that there were others that this happened to," he states again.

"That's right," Morgan confirms.

"Well, can I talk to them?" He seems eager.

"No," Morgan states.

"Why not?" He wonders aloud.

*time skip*

"The plastic tested positive for Sevoflurane and Scopolamine, both powerful disassociatives. The first is used to put you into a waking dream. Dentists often use it during oral surgery. The second, in high doses, makes you completely suggestible," Reid gives us a run down on each drug.

"And the unsub uses the first to make the victims hallucinate their worst fear," Alex chimes in.

"Then he uses the second to make them attack that fear when it's really the person next to them. They don't realize that they're actually killing someone that they love," Morgan adds.

"And once they do, their lives are ruined forever. Even if they plead insanity, we've got three victims who ain't never goin' back to Mayberry," Rossi sighs.

"Let's go back to the part about hallucinating you worst fear. Emily what's your earliest fear from childhood?" Aaron puts me on the spot.

"Being separated from my parents," I think back to when I was just five years old.

"Dave?" He asks Rossi.

"Lon Chaney, "Phantom of the Opera," she takes if that mask, forget about it," he makes a face.

"Alex?" Aaron turns to her.

"Some bully that I had growing up," she admits.

"And yet each of these victims saw the exactly the same thing," Aaron makes his point.

"The initial police reports only called it a dark figure, but our interviews revealed shared details—a shadow monster with talons for hands," Reid recaps.

"And that level of specificity says it's not just a childhood nightmare, it's something they actually experienced, though they were too young to understand what it was," Aaron continues.

"But they were from different states," I say.

"No, they were adopted in different states. Maybe at some point they shared the same home," Alex corrects.

"So the unsub has them recall that memory from childhood to make then kill as adults. How do we prove it?" Morgan wonders.

Aaron walks away just as Morgan finishes the question.

*time skip*

I watch as Daniel draws the image he saw, something Aaron put us up to. He finishes with a lanky looking black monster, the shoulders are wide, big talon hands. Anyone in their right mind would be terrified of the thing. Including the children who it affected.

You guys definitely know what the case is now. Anyways when I'm writing this I'm pretty sure only chapter 43 is posted, that or 44. Either way I hope you're enjoying!

1137 words