Dean nodded. “Trophies help them relive their kills. It’s how they sate their desire to kill in between victims.”
“Locke took a tube of lipstick from every woman she killed.” I couldn’t keep from saying those words out loud. Narcissistic. Controlled. It fit.
“My father was an organized killer.” There was an intensity to Dean when he spoke about his father. This was the second time he’d opened up to me, tit for tat. “He said that as a child, people knew there was something wrong with him, but for as long as I could remember, he was well-liked. He planned things meticulously. He never deviated from the script. He dominated the women he targeted. He controlled them.” Dean paused. “He’s never once showed remorse.”
I heard the front door open and shut. I thought it might be Michael, getting out of the house and away from us, but then I heard footsteps coming our way—two sets, one heavier than the other.
Sterling and Briggs were back.
They appeared in the doorway just as Dean closed the textbook on the table in front of us.
“Cassie, can we talk to Dean alone for a minute?” Agent Briggs straightened his tie. This particular gesture, from this particular man, set off alarm bells in my mind. The tie was something Briggs only wore when he was on duty. Straightening it was an affirmation of sorts. Whatever he wanted to talk to Dean about, it was just business.
I trusted Briggs less when business was involved.
“She can stay,” Dean told Briggs. His words fell on the room like a thunderclap. For as long as I’d known Dean, he’d been pushing me away. Alone was the name of his game.
I caught his eye. Are you sure? I asked him silently.
Dean ran the heels of his hands over the fronts of his jean-clad thighs. “Stay,” he told me. Dean wants me here. He turned back to Briggs. “What do you need?”
Agent Sterling stiffened, her lips pressed into a grim line.
“The person who killed Emerson Cole is obsessed with your father,” Briggs said, ignoring the expression on his ex-wife’s face. “There’s a very real chance the UNSUB has written to him.”
“And let me guess,” Dean interjected. “Dear old dad destroys the letters once he gets them. They’re all up here.” Dean tapped a finger to the side of his head.
“He’s agreed to assist us,” Briggs said. “But only on one condition.”
The tension was back in Dean’s shoulders, his neck. Every muscle in his body was strung tight.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Agent Sterling cut in.
“I know what the condition is.” Dean’s eyes burned with an emotion I couldn’t identify: not quite hatred, not quite fear. “My father won’t tell you anything. The only person he’ll talk to is me.”
YOU
Daniel Redding is one of the greats. Infamous. Ingenious. Immortal. You chose him for a reason. When a man like Redding speaks, people listen. When Redding wants someone dead, they die. He is everything you want to be. Powerful. Sure of himself. And always, always in control.
“You were sloppy. Stupid. Lucky.” You banish the voice and run your fingers along the edges of a photograph of Emerson Cole standing next to a tree. Proof that for a moment, you were powerful. Sure of yourself. In control.
Just. Like. Him.
Daniel Redding is not your hero. He’s your god. And if you keep going down this path, you will slowly remake yourself in his image. The rest of the world will be as insignificant and powerless as ants. The police. The FBI. You’ll crush them under steel-toed boots.
What will be will be—in time.
Stone walls. Barbed wire. My impression of the maximum security prison that housed Dean’s father was fleeting. Dean and I were ensconced in the backseat of an FBI-issued black SUV. Agent Briggs was driving. Agent Sterling sat shotgun. From my position directly behind her, I couldn’t see anything but her forearm, resting on the armrest. At first glance, she seemed relaxed, but the pads of her fingertips were pressed flat and digging into the leather.
Beside me, Dean stared fixedly out the window. I laid my hand on the seat between us, palm up. He tore his gaze from the window and looked over, not at me, but at my hand. He laid his hand palm-down on the seat, inches away from mine.
I slid my hand closer to his. His dark eyes closed, his eyelashes casting a series of tiny shadows onto his face. After a small eternity, his hand began to move. He rotated it slowly clockwise until the back of his hand was flat against the seat, mere centimeters from mine. I slid my hand into his. His palm was warm. After several seconds, his fingers curled upward, closing around mine.
Moral support. That was why I was there, along for the ride.