It was nearly midnight, and Hathorne was resting on the narrow bed in his locked room. The lights were out, and a thin sheet covered him. Silence blanketed the facility. He could crack the window above his desk in the corner and sometimes hear owls in the surrounding woods. He had to admit, SLPC was a pleasure dome compared to his previous accommodations.
His heart burned with hatred anyway. He didn’t belong here. He had “done his time,” to use that vulgar expression describing the odious power of the government. He had been caught, and he had paid for it. Maybe not as robustly as he deserved, because the government only knew about, much less proved, a fraction of the crimes he had committed. Regardless, why did the government get to say what were crimes and what weren’t, anyway? He had needs. Children filled them, and he healed them in exchange. That was all over now. An actual child’s touch was beyond his ability to secure. There were photos, though, and videos and stories. He had tapped into them from prison, gotten caught for it, and paid for those sins also.
And then it arrived: a short, neutrally toned letter from the Office of the Attorney General informing him of his status, now as a “respondent.” After all of it—the trial, the sentencing, the years of drudgery and misery in upstate prisons—now they wanted to keep him confined even longer. And how? With some constitutionally twisted, punishment-in-disguise “public safety” law that only meant he would be demonized further, dragged through the machinations of the court system for a second time, and then confined to a locked hospital. Possibly forever.
Hathorne had fired off lawsuits against everyone involved, of course. His legal and investigatory team was handsomely paid and ready to work tirelessly for him. The case for proving he had a “mental abnormality” was strong, but it could be beaten. He was ready to stalk and sue everyone attempting to keep him confined. For a while, things looked as if they were turning in his favor. Ultimately, though, there was one man at the center of the effort who had made it stick. One man who had dredged up the old victims and set them up to testify so compellingly. One man who had arranged the cadre of doctors declaring him a danger with their interminable psychobabble. He was about to be released—the law had no choice—but then along came this one man and his pathetic crusade. One man, Hathorne was convinced, had snatched freedom from him. One undeserving, unhinged, stinking, sweaty drunkard of a state lawyer—Joe DeSantos. Now it was Hathorne’s turn. He was going to put an end to Joe DeSantos, and so far the man was making it laughably easy for him.
The process had already begun, and he was continuing it tonight. Using his thumbs deftly, he typed out a message to one of his contacts. This contact was particularly valuable, and Hathorne had to handle him with skill and care.
Have you spoken with him yet?
While he waited for a reply, he turned his head toward the sliver of yellow light coming in through the door gap. A hospital attendant made regular rounds on his floor, but Hathorne knew when, even if they changed up the schedule, and he could hear the footfalls, in any event. There was no one around. He turned back to the dim white screen.
A single word moved across it.
Yes.
How does he seem?
Spooked. Good enough for you?
Hathorne grinned. Yes, that was very good indeed.
They were not using the iPod’s built-in text program. Instead, to communicate with this contact, Hathorne had created something far simpler but equally effective. It was beyond “old school,” as people said nowadays. In creating it, Hathorne had mimicked programs from the early days of computing itself. The program was his own creation, just a simple messaging application. There were no screen names, even, just eerie green text on a black square. His contact had been given an old laptop computer with the same program. Hathorne had loaded the program on to the laptop right there in the psych center and then arranged for the laptop to be smuggled out.
This contact, Hathorne knew, was not computer savvy. He knew only enough to leave the computer on during certain times, usually around midnight, and then wait. When Hathorne chose to reach out, the program would open and produce a simple ding to alert the user. They would communicate until Hathorne decided the session was over, and then the program would disappear.
The contact had no idea who Hathorne was, other than a person who, for a few small favors, would significantly enrich him when the favors were done. Hathorne knew the contact’s name but never used it. In fact, to keep his mind ordered, he even banished it from his own thoughts as much as possible. He referred to this contact, in his thoughts and in his exchanges, only as Reaper.