How’d he—
“There’s a reason I’m the special skills consultant. Lock him down and leave.” Xander examined the blond beast dressed in jailhouse tangerine. Yep. Blond beast was the best description. A thick scruff of matted beard shadowed the guy’s face, and his hair fell in thick wheat-colored hanks over his forehead and into his eyes, obscuring the details of his features. But there was no hiding the indifference to sin shining bright in the guy’s eyes. Simon Smith, a.k.a. the Prairie Murderer, looked more rabid animal than Homo sapiens.
After the officer left the room, Xander inhaled a lungful of pungent air tainted with body odor and the moist, greasy scent of unwashed hair. This was going to be one of those breathe-through-the-mouth situations.
Simon Smith’s apathetic gaze roamed over Xander’s scars. He got what he deserved. Marked for life. Punished for life. Everyone will know about him. He’s no threat. His body betrayed nothing of his thoughts. He didn’t move a muscle, didn’t even blink.
“Who you talking about?” Xander asked.
You’ve been marked. You are no threat.
Xander’s heart jackknifed inside his chest. Queen’s words echoed through his brain—Mark of the Beast. The wording seemed too close to be random. But coincidences did occasionally happen.
“You think I’m no threat? Because of my scars? My scars are what make me a threat.” Actually, the lightning strike had caused his supercharged hearing. The scars were just the lightning’s version of saying, “I was here.”
Your scars are your punishment.
O-k-ay. They were having a one-sided conversation—Xander’s side—and this guy acted as if that were completely normal. Someone had stepped over the loony line. The guy had to be off his psych meds. Xander would bet if they searched, they’d find a history of Simon Smith being in and out of the nuthouse. Better alert Crazyland—one of their residents had escaped.
Another coincidence: Queen was just as fruitcake nutty.
Xander picked up his pen lying across the legal pad and wrote in big, bold letters: YOU’RE MENTAL. When he looked up, Simon’s gaze was still fixated on Xander’s face. He held the paper up covering his scars, forcing Simon Smith to see his words.
I’m not crazy. I’m the only one who knows what’s really going on.
“Yeah? I don’t think you do know what’s going on.”
“Is this a joke?” The words came from the other side of the two-way mirror. “Your guy is talking to his damned self.”
Should have known there’d be an interruption. Xander turned in his seat to face the mirror. “No talking, or I’m walking. And you can waste hundreds of man-hours trying to get the answers I can provide in five minutes. Choice is yours.”
“How can he hear—” A scuffling sound on the other side of the mirror, then the sound of something that sounded suspiciously like a body thudding into the wall. “I was just asking—” A door in the observation room opened and then closed, and Xander heard the guy panting in the hallway like a greyhound after a race.
“All clear. No more interruptions,” Kent said from the other side of the mirror.
“Thanks, man.” As soon as the words left Xander’s mouth, he realized they’d probably just had the friendliest exchange of their lives. He turned back to Simon Smith. “How do you know Queen?”
“She the one I took down?” Simon’s voice sounded as rough as his appearance. His beard was such a thick mat that Xander couldn’t see the guy’s lips moving. It was like conversing with a mangy mannequin. She was a brunette. Wasn’t such a pretty doe when I got done with her.
“You took down”—the guy spoke as if the woman he killed was a game animal to be shot and field dressed and hung on the wall—“Courtney Miller. I’m not asking about her. I’m asking about Queen. How do you know her?”
“She a brunette?” All the brunettes act like they’re queens. They’re all bad. I can’t tolerate their sound.
It was off the Queen topic, but Xander couldn’t stop the question from popping out of his mouth. “What do you mean ‘their sound’?”
The guy remained life-sized-dummy still, but Xander heard his heart rate speed up and the intake of his breathing go quick and shallow. So Simon Smith didn’t worry about being caught or accused; he worried about the way a brunette sounded?
Their high-pitch sound makes me hard. They do it to torture me. But I’m not letting them get away with it anymore. I’m going to take them all down.
Xander scribbled on his notepad the essence of what the guy just thought, then sat back in his seat. When he had said Queen’s name, the guy’s mind would’ve automatically locked on to something concerning her if he’d actually known the woman.
There was one more route to explore.
“You know anything about two women being held hostage in a trailer?”
“They brunettes?” I hope they—
“You know anyone named Isleen Walker?” At least Isleen wasn’t a brunette.