The Therapist

Chapter 1

The country was shocked about what had happened at Penn State and Syracuse. Ryan figured that was the tip of the iceberg.

Ryan Johnson had worked nine years at a Center for Juvenile Sex Offenders. He had testified before a Senate Committee about the ineffectiveness of treatment and was appalled at the lenient sentences handed down by a justice system that just didn’t get it.

When Johnson is contacted by an anonymous source that offers him the chance to balance the scales of justice, he can’t say no. But as he descends deeper into a shadow world of power and control, he realizes events have taken on a life of their own and the endgame is out of his control.

Chapter 1

The man hurried to the car. Before opening the door, he glanced around the parking area. There were still a few scattered cars belonging to workers closing up the stores. Most of the inside lights had been shut off. Where he had parked was darker. A few cars passed on the street, but his movements had gone unnoticed.

He’d parked in an area of the lot he knew was poorly lit. The windows on his car were tinted, allowing him to view others without being viewed himself. He inserted the key in the door lock. He never used the unlock button on his keypad. Didn’t want the lights to flash and attract attention. To ensure this, he’d turned off the dome light. Reassured that no one had noticed his movements, he opened the door and slid in behind the steering wheel.

He had an odd feeling as he put the key into the ignition. Something was out of place. He thought about stepping out and checking the area again, but his eyes were drawn to the dashboard. There was a newspaper clipping taped to it. It was hard to see without light. He reached over and pulled it off. His face jumped out at him.

The headlines read, “Man Gets Six Months for Molesting Seven-Year-Old Boy”. ‘Bastards’, he thought, how in the hell did that get in here! He was pissed. He thought to himself; I did their treatment program and got out early on good behavior. Treatment was a joke; act reticent and follow the prison rules.

He laughed they told him what they wanted him to say, he just repeated it. Check-in with yourself frequently. What am I feeling? Is this what I’m really feeling? Christ, if I told them what I was really feeling, they would never let me out. Besides, they might not say it, but he knew his victims liked it.

A shiver ran up his spine. He wasn’t alone. He looked in the rearview mirror. A knot formed in his gut and it felt like a razor had been drawn across his groin. There was death in the eyes that stared back at him. There was a slight hint of a smile. Not hate, not anything, only death.

In a brief second, the man and the memory flashed across his mind. He’d seen him in the movie theater a few days ago. Toy Story Three was playing. There were lots of children with their parents. The children were running around.

He knew it was hard for the parents to keep track. He did, though. He knew which one went to the bathroom the most. He remembered now. This guy was looking at him from across the aisle. Thought he might be competition. I had my hand in my pocket, wasn’t really paying attention.

He couldn’t move. It was like a nightmare. Say something in your defense. He felt pressure behind his seat. Then it was like a balloon popped in his chest. He tried to breathe, was gasping for breath. The guy just sat there looking at him. He thought of the little boy who went to the bathroom all the time.

Ryan Johnson wiped the rapier blade on the seat as he removed it. He opened the door and closed it quietly, placing the rapier in its small scabbard attached to the inside of his pants. The parking lot was empty except for a few cars. These predators made it easy. They lived by secrecy, and he’d turned it against them. Sliding the tight black gloves from his hand, he slid one into each of his front pockets.

Ryan had seen the fear in Grabben’s eyes as he realized he was going to die. Grabben had placed him. Ryan was glad. He wanted him to know why he was dying. He wanted him to take it with him to where he was going.

It was two blocks from the bus stop. He walked across the exit lane, up an embankment, and onto the street. The bus would take him to South Mountain Plaza, where he would pick up his truck. He walked at a brisk pace, pushing his pulse rate higher. The exercise was his release when he felt the world was caving in on him. He got a rush from it. After a long run or a workout with the weights, he felt rejuvenated. He could be calm and deal with whatever came his way.

A laugh rose from his chest, surprising him. He’d certainly dealt with a lot of things through the years. The divorce he had just gone through had been one. He hated all the silly details of it. The marriage had been over for years. He just wanted the divorce completed.

The thing he hated most was watching what it did to his children. Julie, thirteen, had seen it coming. She knew one day her parents would divorce. Tim was different. He was ten then. He just wanted his Mom and Dad to be together. He didn’t care if they fought. To be together in the same house meant he was safe and cared for.

When they told the kids they were getting divorced, Julie said nothing. She just left the room. Tim lay there quiet. He said nothing. Then the tears ran down his face and his chest heaved.

It broke his heart watching him. He would have done anything to take the pain away and make it right. But he couldn’t. He just held him close and told him everything would be okay.

He told him that his mother and father would always be there for him. They would always love him. After a while, the sobs subsided. But they would come again over the course of the next year as the divorce went forward. When his mother left the house, when it was just his dad, him, and his sister that first Christmas and when the animosity kicked in and his mother and father started fighting through lawyers over little things.

Two years had passed since then, and things were getting better. The divorce was final and some sense of normality had returned to their lives. Julie and Tim seemed to adjust.

They were normal kids who continued to do well in school. He was proud of how they had handled things. Children were resilient. That’s how they survived in this crazy world of adults. It was a world in which children had little control. He picked up the pace. Saw the bus stop ahead.

The bus door opened, and he dropped the fare in the till and took a seat. He watched the city of Manchester go by the window. Manchester was the hub of activity in this part of the state. It had a population of around twenty thousand. That was a good size for a small state in the Northeast. No other towns nearby came close.

Teenagers came here for the movies, adults for the restaurants, and a few clubs. Chittenden Village, a major ski resort in the East, was only a few miles away. It was really bustling in the winter; but, even in the summer, there were things to do, golf, gondola rides, mountain biking, zip lines, and the alpine slide.

A lot of the best-paying factory jobs were here too. The surrounding towns were mostly bedroom communities. People commuted from them to Manchester for work. The people living here were the middle class, working poor, and those who survived on the system. In the past decade, it seemed Manchester had become a corridor for drug dealers from Massachusetts and New York.

They reached Manchester from the New York Thruway or I-91 to I-89 from Massachusetts. There was a larger city in the state, but that was further north. It was likely they were there too, but Eddington was a city of around thirty-six thousand and it was probably a little less noticeable.

It also had a large state university there. It was much less likely that race would make you stand out as it did in Manchester, where the population was predominately white.

He saw a lot of dealing take place on the street. It seemed these guys didn’t even try to hide it, didn’t care they didn’t appear to be worried about getting caught.

Ryan would hear people talking, complaining that law enforcement wasn’t doing enough, that perhaps they were on the take and those that were caught weren’t punished, anyway. Manchester’s population was still pretty conservative compared with the rest of the state. Throughout the country, it was a state known for its liberalism.

It was the same with the sex offender he’d just eliminated. Treatment Centers and lenient sentences; that everybody deserves a second chance, but in this state, the liberal minds felt that third, fourth, and fifth chances should be accorded these pedophiles. Ryan no longer shared that sentiment. There was a time when he believed it. He believed in at least a second chance. The stark reality was more chances meant more victims. He’d had enough of that.

They’d find the man in a couple of hours when security checked the parking lot. They would identify him and run a check. On the sex offender registry, they’d find he was listed as low risk. Ryan knew there was no such thing. In the article he left on the dashboard, Grabben’s family said he was a good person who hurt no one. The boy was lying.

How many times had he heard that same story? Even when the victim was a relative, other family members would still defend the offender. He didn’t hate the guy he just exterminated, didn’t have any feelings for him at all. He didn’t let it become personal. He would hate them. Hate makes a person act irrationally. Then mistakes happened.

If he were caught, who would protect the children? That’s why he kept this impersonal. No feelings. Just do the job that needed to be done. If society and the criminal justice system did theirs, he wouldn’t have to. For Grabben, that seven-year-old boy had been victim number five.

How many he really had no one would ever know. The criminal justice system gave him six months. He was thirty-two years old. It was ingrained. He would never stop. Jesus! Sometimes, it seemed people were just stupid.

Even the headlines favored the offender. Convicted of molesting, rape sounds too harsh. The raw and damaged rectum of a seven-year-old boy was too graphic. The defendant wouldn’t get a fair trial. Can’t have people hear that.

Didn’t matter, the boy knew what happened to him. His was a life sentence. Grabben was released in three months because he went through treatment. He thought, “I wish the judge could have been with me three days ago in the theater. See him staring at the little kids with his hands in his pocket and the leer on his lips.” With those actions, Grabben had signed his death warrant.

What was he supposed to do? Let him rip apart another child’s life. Even if he were caught, a judge would just give him another five years. He would be back on the street at thirty-seven and screwing up more lives.

The lady across the aisle was watching him. He wondered if he’d been talking out loud. He knew he did that sometimes when he got too engrossed in his thoughts. He let himself laugh a little and then asked, “Was I talking out loud?”

She smiled. “No. Your face was really working though, lots of expressions.” “Yes. Well, I’m a teacher and I often talk out lesson plans in my head. It helps me to get them in order.” “Where do you teach,” she asked?

“In Barton, I’ve been there for three years.” The bus was pulling into his stop at the Plaza. “Hope I didn’t startle you with all my facial expressions.” She laughed. “No, you were entertaining.” “Have a nice evening,” Ryan said. “You too,” she responded.

He stepped off the bus and walked back up the street two blocks to where his truck was parked. It was in a lot shared by Dunkin Donuts and a bowling alley. Many people were coming and going. No one would notice how long a truck set there. He’d been gone less than an hour and a half. He pulled out his cell phone and checked the time. It was nine fifty-five. He liked his truck. It was a 2010 Ford F-150. He bought it around a year ago. It was a good purchase. He really enjoyed driving it.

He decided he would go through the drive-thru and order a cup of coffee. It was a thirty-minute ride over the highway. He loved coffee. It was his one vice.