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That went against his strategy for avoiding detection. Planning had been his greatest strength.
He’d planned each murder carefully. He knew where patients would be while at their most vulnerable. He used this information that was given to him as a healthcare provider, and then twisted it against them in brutal fashion.
Valerie Law had thrown a spanner in the works of all that. Her snooping had forced his hand to change his approach. And he had been so close to selling the janitor, Saldana, as the killer.
Swapping out his medication with a placebo and using his therapy sessions to push him into erratic, violent behavior had almost worked.
Saldana really did have violent tendencies and a paper-thin hold on reality, all the doctor had had to do was light the paper and push him toward accepting Gillian Pugh’s delusions as his own. He made a great suspect, and his arrest would have bought Whitmore time to kill more people.
One thing the doctor hadn’t wanted was to be attacked. But that had led to an improvisation of sorts. Saldana really did attack him. Whitmore had just been able to further use all of that to his advantage.
With the “killer” caught, things would have been much simpler.
But why, Valerie? Why did you have to figure it out?
Doctor Whitmore knew the folder she had with her was his personnel file. It was unmistakable. He also knew that most of the information in the personnel file had been redacted at his own request through the Board.
The doctor hadn’t wanted anyone to know that he had a long history of psychiatric issues growing up. That he had been committed to an institute in his teenage years. That he had then, supposedly, experienced a revelation and treatment. And then he dedicated himself to becoming a top psychiatrist himself, all to help others.
But that was all a ruse.
All he ever wanted was toruinthe psychiatric profession. He would make them pay. Make them pay for all the countless hours and days he spent locked away as a child in various psychiatric treatment facilities.
Make them pay for taking him away from his mother. A woman who died before he was finally released back into the community.
The best way to hurt the doctors was to take away their patients. To ruin their profession.
But that long-term plan, one decades in the making, was now under threat. Because of Agent Law. He knew she suspected that he was the killer. He was now forced to dispose of her once and for all.
He still wondered howexactlyshe had figured it out. But the answer to that would hopefully never come.
The cocktail of medications he had injected into her neck were always on hand. He kept a syringe in his pocket, should he ever have needed to incapacitate someone. Patient or victim.
The doctor pulled Valerie’s unconscious body along the floor, dragging her first into a storage closet. But as he looked at her closed eyes on the floor, he knew the closet was no good. He had to store her somewhere no one would look. Least of all Charlie, Will, or any other law enforcement officers who decided to show their face.
But where?
Then he remembered.
He had seen the men who had been installing the new security system near where he was now a few weeks ago, pulling one of the panels off the wall, revealing a large space behind.
The doctor had inquired about that space, and one of the engineers told him it was an old alcove once used for heating pipes that were now redundant and had since been removed.
Perfect, he thought.
Sticking his head out through the doorway of the closet, he listened to make sure he was still alone. He listened carefully, but there was no sound of life, only the almost imperceptible buzz from the lighting above, in the ceiling of the hallway.
But that quiet would not remain for long. He had heard Valerie contacting Charlie by phone. He would come looking for her, like the loyal dog he was.
Doctor Whitmore knew he had to store Valerie somewhere and then think of a more permanent solution.
The doctor pulled at Valerie’s arms, dragging her once more into the hallway and around a corner. He thought for a moment that she groaned, but he was sure that the dose would keep her unconscious for at least a couple more hours.
If he could have, he would have strangled her, but there was no time for that. And if he used his hands, that would be evidence against him.
No, he had to think of a better idea.
Turning around another corner, Dr. Whitmore pulled Valerie along until he reached a section of the wall that looked familiar. He ran his hands over the metal of a large heating vent, and then pulled at it.