Fear Collector by Gregg Olsen

Author:Gregg Olsen [Olsen, Gregg]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Thrillers, Retail, cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9780786020461
Google: jFDM-16Rhj0C
Amazon: 0786020466
Barnesnoble: 0786020466
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2012-12-24T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 25

Sometimes memories are manufactured. Sometimes it isn’t intentional. Grace knew that from cases she worked for the Tacoma Police Department. Manufactured memories were different from so-called repressed memories. Grace’s own life history had one. She had been only a small child when it happened, but it had been told to her so many times, it seemed real. Vivid. True. On June 8, 1977. Sissy O’Hare had braided her daughter’s damp hair the night before so she could have “wavy hair.” She dressed in her prettiest pink top with brand-new cropped blue jeans. It was a special day, the beginning of summer vacation. Sunlight poured through the open curtains and a robin pecked at its reflection on the glass, an occurrence that had brought more interest than annoyance to the O’Hares.

When the phone rang, Sissy set down the hairbrush and went to answer. Instantly, her cheerful demeanor fell like a stone tossed into a very still pond.

“He what?” She looked over at Grace, then turned away toward the window and the robin. The rest of the words came from her amid gasps, in a rapid-fire fashion that pelted the glass windowpane.

“No,” she said.

And then: “What time?”

“Did he hurt anyone?”

“Where did he go?”

“Why is this happening?”

“Why does God hate all of us?”

By then her mother was crying. Sissy let the phone fall into the cradle of the receiver. Her tears were twin streams, just moving down her cheeks and dropping onto the floor.

“Mommy,” Grace said, rushing to comfort her. “Daddy?”

Conner was away on a business trip.

“No. Worse than that, baby. Something terrible has happened.”

“Mommy?”

Sissy steadied herself, her hands finding the back of a dining chair. She bent close to her daughter and held her, and then pressed her lips to her ear.

“Do not be afraid,” she whispered. “Ted escaped.”

Later the “memory” would become more complete as the bits and pieces of Ted Bundy’s story emerged and filled her memory bank. Ted’s incarceration had been short-lived. He was transferred from Garfield County Jail in Glenwood Springs, an hour away to the Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen, Colorado, for a preliminary hearing. Ted was full-on Ted then—the Ted he wanted the world to see. He was acting as his own lawyer and in doing so was granted special—and, ultimately, foolish—privileges. He was able to shed the shackles and handcuffs that prisoners wore—items he said that were not only prejudicial, but made it impossible for him to maneuver around the second-floor law library. Moments later, the Pacific Northwest’s least favorite son jumped from the window, landing on the ground and disappearing into the mundane spring day.

Later when she played the exchange between her and her mother, Grace escalated her vocabulary to concepts beyond her age.

“They’ll catch him, right?” she asked when her mother told her what happened.

Sissy had pulled herself together and looked into her daughter’s brown eyes and nodded.

“Yes. I think so. The police know that they can’t let him be free. No one is safe. They told me they have already set up roadblocks all around Aspen.

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