Not Like This (An Ilse Beck FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 4)

CHAPTER ONE Ilse stepped into the small gray building, leaving the dark skies and green trees behind her. The structure itself seemed a blemish on the otherwise bucolic landscape. She entered from the cool morning air into a stuffy, poorly air-conditioned entrance. The door behind her buzzed as it shut, and the two police officers standing by the row of metal detectors gestured for her to place her belongings in a gray Tupperware. Gray skies. Gray building. Gray Tupperware. As if everything were conspiring to sap the color out of life itself. Ilse's fingers trembled as she removed her wallet and the keys for the rental she'd taken from the airport. One of the guards said something she barely registered, and she stammered a quick startled reply in German. She could understand her childhood language perfectly well. Once upon a time, she'd been little Hilda Mueller, after all. But for the last decade and a half she'd lived Stateside, in Seattle, so her German was rusty. Ilse shivered, her stomach twisting with fear, her one hand tapping against her opposite wrist, a constant reminder of the words tattooed like a wristband around her flesh. Take captive every thought. But now as she stepped through the metal detector and emerged on the other side to retrieve her wallet, she wasn't sure this was possible. Her mind was going haywire, her heart hammering a million miles a minute. Her newly issued FBI credential, as an official consultant and rookie agent had gotten her this far. But now it would take willpower and guts to move even an inch further. She shivered, still tapping against her wrist with the tattoo. A sallow-faced man behind a bulletproof glass enclosure gestured for her to approach from the metal detectors. Rows of doors situated the hallway behind his cubicle. "Agent Beck?" The officer said, peering up from a request sheet on his counter. Ilse's throat felt like sandpaper as she approached, and she nodded hurriedly. "Yes, that's me." "Punctual," the guard said, glancing towards the clock over a coffee maker on his side of the glass partition. Exactly 8:15. Not a minute too early or too late. Ilse prided herself on promptness. Now, she tugged at the sleeves to her sweater. She preferred flip-flops and sweatpants to suits or sneakers but had compromised for some tennis shoes and black pants that were somewhere between casual and business. A normal suit would only have left her feeling vulnerable. Especially in here. "Who are you here to see?" Ilse hesitated. It had been so long since she'd spoken his name out loud to another person. As a child, she'd only ever thought of him as father. Torturer. The monster upstairs. So many of her memories were broken or ruined or held at bay by the fog of time. Now, though, she drew from within herself. She had come here for this reason. To see him. To confront him. To find out why he was sending those postcards. She was tired of the taunting, tired of hiding. Someone else had been upstairs. Someone she barely remembered. Most of all, Ilse was here for answers. Her voice rasped, but in one try she managed to blurt out the horrible name. "Gerald Mueller," she said with finality. At this, the guard looked sharply up, staring at her through the glass. She stared back, feeling a chill prickle along her spine. "Mueller?" said the guard. "I'm afraid he's not taking visitors. Maximum-security." In response, Ilse pulled out her newly issued badge and slid it under the small slot in the glass. The guard barely glanced at her identification. He waved towards it dismissively. "That's not the point," he said. "No one visits Mueller. He's been here more than a decade. Doesn't get visitors." Ilse didn't shrug, didn't move. She just felt cold and sad and sorry. "As it is, I need to speak with him." The guard at last glanced towards her ID, sighed, and shrugged. "If you say so," he said. "BKA already approve this...,” he gave a little fluttering wave towards her and her badge as if indicating everything in her vicinity. “But like I said, maximum-security. He doesn't have access to the visitor's room. You're going to have to see him in his cell.” Ilse felt a bolt of anxiety, but she covered with a nod and said, "Whatever I have to do. Where do I go?" In answer, the guard buzzed the door on the side of his cubicle, and a small metal gate began to open. He gestured towards another guard standing halfway down the hall. The man approached hurriedly, frowning. In German, speaking rapidly so it was more difficult to keep track, the guard rattled off, "Visitor for Mueller. BKA called ahead. Preapproved." Both guards shared curious but significant looks through the glass, with no small amount of raised eyebrows and sidelong, askance glances. But then, one at a time, they shrugged, and Ilse followed this second man back into the hall, through the sliding metal gate. Their footsteps clapped against the polished floor, each sound an eerie, echoing one in the neat, well-scrubbed halls, with blank, bare concrete walls painted in splashes of white. They passed down the hall, towards another, also blocked by a metal door. Another click, a longer buzz. And the door slid open. The guard ahead of her didn't glance back, still marching forward in his neat, pressed uniform. Ilse followed along in her tennis shoes, slacks and sweater, still feeling chilly in the heart of the old prison in Germany. It had been years. More than twenty years since she'd seen the man. They had moved him around a couple of prisons, before finally settling here. As she moved, she could feel her heart pound. There was something about a prison, though, that didn't scare her as it often did others. She liked solitude. Liked the silence. Four walls and a bed. There was something about the order, the regimented life, even the protection of prison that made her... wistful. Beneath her breath as she marched, she repeated her memory trick, trying to soothe herself. She had something of an encyclopedic knowledge of serial killers, victims, and their mental ailments. She'd been forced to study it for her dissertation. Now, as she marched along the seemingly endless corridor, she continued to repeat, “Schizotypal personality disorder. Borderline personality disorder. Psychotic disorder. Dahmer. Blonde hair. Ninety-four. Seventeen victims. May twenty-first.” No visitors allowed. She wondered if this was a gift or punishment. Ilse liked her clients; she liked helping them. But if she had her way, she would prefer to retire in a cabin, away from civilization, hidden from sight. She had never dated, not once. Why would she ever want to invite someone into the chaos that was her life? The guard stopped suddenly, a few paces ahead of her. There was another long beeping sound and then a click. It took Ilse a moment to realize she was flanked on either side by thick, metal doors. These weren't doors with bars, however. Rather, it was as if someone had soldered metal trays to a concrete wall. The prisoners couldn't see out, but neither could she see in. "Five minutes," the guard said, glancing at Ilse, and then he pulled on a metal handle. A slot opened in the door at eye height. Below the slot, a metal tray, where food could slide through. With the slot open, now, it also gave a glimpse into the small cell beyond, likely for the guards making rounds. Now, the guard left the slot open and then stepped away. Ilse's heart thundered. She swallowed once and glanced at the nameplate by the door, with a thin piece of paper taped over the sliding piece of steel. Her father had been here so long, he even had a cell named for him. Gerald Mueller. She remembered him from her youth. Choir boy pretty with a wide face, blonde hair, and an easy smile hiding the maliciousness beneath. At the time, the neighbors hadn't suspected a thing. A good man, a churchgoing man, according to most of them. None of the neighbors had suspected the real Gerald Mueller and what happened in his house at the end of the dirt road. For a moment, her hands trembling against her side, Ilse almost turned and sprinted down the hall. Did she really want to be here? After all of this. Perhaps she was kicking over a hornet's nest that was best left unmolested... But no. She'd come this far. "Hey, Mueller," snapped the guard, rapping his hand against the metal door. "Dr. Beck here to see you." For a moment, there was no motion, no sound at all. And then she spotted movement. The slot in the door gave her a view of the back wall, the metal sink, a metal toilet bolted to the concrete, and a cot. A simple, pitiful bedroom. A man suddenly emerged, slipping off the bed. He wore a gray bathrobe. Gray. Gray. Gray. The man inside the cell also wore glasses. The frames looked like they were made of rubber. He blinked behind his glasses, and as Ilse stared, she could feel a lump form in her throat. Their eyes met. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but it wasn't this.