Those were the last words Donnie Frazier heard. I pulled the trigger, and a hole opened up between his eyes. I shot him seven more times and then put four more rounds into Beane to make sure he was dead. The Beretta locked open on the slide, indicating the gun was empty. I stuck the pistol in my waist and walked out the door. I walked quickly to my car but didn’t run. I got in, fired up the Monte Carlo, and headed out of town toward Tennessee, the same way I’d come in.
An hour and a half later, I pulled into a mostly deserted rest stop off the interstate, near Charleston, West Virginia. I walked into the restroom, took a look in the mirror, and realized I had small dots of blood spatter on my gloves, glasses, and forehead. I was sure it was on my jacket and fake beard, too, but it wasn’t noticeable. I found myself reluctant to wash it off.
Having Frazier’s and Beane’s blood all over me gave me a visceral feeling of power. It felt like war paint, and I wanted to wear it for all the world to see.
PART I
CHAPTER 1
Six weeks earlier
My name is Darren Street, and as I settled into the seat the doctor had pointed out, I felt a sense of dread come over me. I suddenly wanted to get up and run out the door, like a child who is afraid of being given a shot. The doctor hadn’t done anything to frighten me, at least not intentionally. In fact, she’d been quite pleasant.
Laura Benton was a board-certified psychiatrist who ran a boutique practice from her home in the posh Bluegrass neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee. She charged $200 an hour, cash only, and was supposedly quite good at what she did. The appointment had been arranged through my girlfriend, Grace Alexander. Grace knew Dr. Benton because both of them volunteered at the Second Harvest Food Bank. I’d been falsely convicted of a murder and imprisoned for two years—one year in a federal maximum security penitentiary—and I’d had some problems adjusting to being free. So Grace had thought some psychiatric assistance might be in order. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but I knew I was struggling. Grace had offered to pay for the first session, so I’d finally given in and agreed to go.
Dr. Benton appeared to be around forty, a few years older than I was. She wasn’t an ugly woman by any means, but she wasn’t particularly attractive, either. She had brown hair and eyes and a studious, prudish look about her. Her sky-blue blouse was buttoned to her throat, and her loose-fitting black skirt fell below her knees. Her calves were pale and without definition.
We were in an airy, open room with a high ceiling, plenty of windows that looked out over the manicured lawn outside, and several pieces of overstuffed furniture. She settled into her seat across from me with a yellow lined notepad in her right hand and a pen in her left.
“You’re a southpaw,” I said, just to break the proverbial ice.
“Beg your pardon?”
“Wrong-hander. Lefty.”
“Are you nervous, Darren?” she said.
“Sorry. Yeah, I guess I’m a little nervous.”
“Why do you think you’re nervous?”
“Because you’re a stranger and you’re going to ask me questions about things I probably don’t want to talk about.”
“I’m here to help you. Do you believe that?”
“I suppose I do,” I said.
“Good, then how about we start by you telling me what you believe is your most serious difficulty right now. Grace has told me quite a bit about you, so I feel as though I know you pretty well, but I’d like to hear what you think might be bothering you.”
“I can’t sleep,” I said.
“Do you mean you can’t go to sleep, or you wake up easily?”
“Both. I can’t go to sleep because I don’t really want to go to sleep. I don’t want to go to sleep because I know what will be waiting for me over there. When I manage to get to sleep, what I dreaded is always there, and I wake up quickly.”
“So you have nightmares.”
“Constantly.”
“And these nightmares, do they seem real, or are they dreamlike?”
“They seem real. It’s like all my senses are intact. I can see and hear and smell and feel the things that are happening.”
“What kinds of things do you dream about?”
“I dream about being chased by the police. I dream about being beaten by prison guards. I dream about being handcuffed and shackled on a bus for months at a time. I dream about being strip-searched. I dream about being stabbed.”
“So all those things happened to you when you were in prison?”
I nodded. “I wasn’t chased by the police. They just walked into a restaurant and arrested me and then helped frame me for a murder I didn’t commit. But all the other things happened to me.”
“And I understand you’re a lawyer, correct?”
“Yes. Criminal defense. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
“So you continue to visit jails and go to courtrooms and do all the various things associated with practicing criminal defense law. You see men and women in restraints every day, deal with police officers and prosecutors and judges, and you deal with guards at the jails you visit.”
“I do.”
“Do you fight a lot of battles for your clients?”
“Every day. That’s pretty much all a criminal defense lawyer does. We fight and argue and scrap, trying to make sure the government plays by its own rules.”
“Those things probably aren’t good for you, Darren.”
“They’re all part of it. I have to make a living. I did four years in college, three more years in law school, and then another seven building my practice before everything came crashing down on me. I went to prison for two years, was finally exonerated, and fought to get my license back. I’ve been going hard for a year now and am starting to reap some benefits, at least financially, from my efforts. I can’t just walk away.”
“Would you rather die?” she said.
“Come again? I don’t think I understand.”
“If you keep going the way you are, if you keep exposing yourself to these stressors, these triggers, it will eventually cause you some serious health issues. It’s already affecting you mentally and emotionally, and to be honest, you’re in a dangerous area mentally.”
She wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. The anxiety I felt all the time, the grinding of my teeth, the violent dreams, and the occasional thought of taking my own life in order to be free of the terrifying nightmares were all things I knew were dangerous.
“I know I’m in a dangerous area mentally,” I said. “That’s why I’m here.”
“You could be in danger of losing all faith in the principles that have guided you to this point in your life. Do you know what a nihilist is, Darren?”
Did she think I’d become a nihilist? I didn’t. I still had my mother, my son, and Grace. I loved them and felt close to them. I needed them. Nihilists didn’t need anyone. They didn’t care about anyone or anything.
“If I’m not mistaken, a nihilist is someone who thinks life has no real meaning.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m not a nihilist. I have feelings. I have people I love. I look forward to the future.”