“I’m not going to hurt Dean,” I said vehemently.
Lia let out a bark of laughter. “It’s sweet that you believe that, but of course you are.” She slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor. “Briggs made me listen to an audio recording of Redding’s interviews when I was fourteen.” She pulled her legs tight to her chest. “I’d been here a year at that point, and Dean didn’t want me within a ten-foot pole of anything having to do with his father. But I was like you. I thought it might help, but it didn’t help, Cassie.” Each time she said help, her expression grew closer to a snarl. “Those interviews are the Daniel Redding show. He’s a liar. One of the best I’ve ever heard. He makes you think he’s lying when he’s telling the truth, and then he’ll say things that can’t possibly be true.…” Lia shook her head, like she could rid herself of the memory with the motion. “Reading anything Daniel Redding has to say is going to mess with your head, Cassie, and knowing that you’ve read it is going to mess with Dean’s.”
She was right. Dean wouldn’t want me reading this. His father had described him as a little boy who’d been born smiling, instantly lovable, effortlessly putting other people at ease, but the Dean I knew always had his guard up.
Especially with me.
“Tell me I’m wrong, Cassie, and I’ll make you a pretty apology. Tell me that Daniel Redding hasn’t already gotten under your skin.”
I knew better than to lie to Lia. There was something inside me, the part of me that saw people as puzzles to be solved, that wanted answers, that needed to make things—awful things, horrible things, like what had happened to my mother, like what Daniel Redding had done to those women—make sense.
“Dean wouldn’t want me doing this,” I conceded, catching my bottom lip in between my teeth, before plowing on. “That doesn’t mean he’s right.”
My first week in the program, Dean had tried to send me running. He’d told me that profiling killers would ruin me. He’d also told me that by the time Agent Briggs had started coming to him for help on cases, there was nothing left to ruin.
If our situations had been reversed, if I’d been the one drowning in all of this, Dean wouldn’t have backed off.
“I slept in Michael’s room last night.” Lia waited for those words to register before giving me a Cheshire cat grin. “I wanted a strip poker rematch, and Monsieur Townsend was oh-so-happy to oblige.”
I felt like she’d stabbed an icicle straight through my chest. I went very still, trying not to feel anything at all.
Lia reached over and snatched the binder off my lap. She snorted. “Honestly, Cassie, you’re too easy. If and when I choose to spend the night with Michael again, you’ll know it, because the next morning, you’ll be invisible, and Michael won’t be looking at anything but me. In the meantime…” Lia snapped the binder shut. “You’re welcome, because this is officially the second time in the past five minutes that I’ve saved you from going someplace you really don’t want to go.” Her eyes bore into mine. “You don’t want to crawl into Daniel Redding’s mind, Cassie.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder. “If you make me go for intervention number three, I’ll be forced to get creative.”
With those rather concerning words, she left the room—taking the binder and everything it contained with her.
Can she do that? I sat there, staring after her. Eventually, I snapped out of it and told myself that she was right, that I didn’t need to know the details of Dean’s father’s case to be there for Dean now, but even knowing that, even believing it, I couldn’t stop wondering about the parts of the interview I hadn’t gotten the chance to read.
What did you teach your son? Agent Briggs had asked.
I’d never even seen a picture of Dean’s father, but I could imagine the smile spreading over his face when he’d replied. Why don’t you ask your wife?
Dean skipped dinner. Judd fixed a plate for him and put it in the refrigerator. I wondered if Judd was used to Dean disappearing for hours on end. Maybe, when Dean had first come here, that had been a normal thing. I found myself thinking more and more about that Dean—the twelve-year-old whose father had been arrested for serial murder.
You knew what he was doing. I slipped into Dean’s perspective without even meaning to. You couldn’t stop it.