“Late tonight.”
“Let’s meet tomorrow morning, you can give us everything you have. You’ve been busy on your vacation.”
Lucy had led him to believe that she was on vacation visiting her family when this all came up. She didn’t want to lie any more than she had to. “I took time off specifically to work with this reporter—she did most of the background work.”
“You forget, Agent Kincaid, I’ve worked with you before. I’ll call the Denver office and we’ll coordinate. See you tomorrow.”
An hour later, Lucy was back in the car with Max. The reporter glared at her. “You damn well better give me something if you’re going to bench me.”
“I checked our flight—it’s delayed ninety minutes.”
“You know what I mean.”
Lucy did. “I’m sorry, but I had to tread carefully in there. Dot my i’s, cross my t’s. I’m not leaving you out of the loop—I didn’t tell them anything you don’t already know.”
The driver started for the airport. Max was still irritated. “I’m used to getting the shaft from cops.”
“I’m sorry you think that’s what I did.”
Max was silent, perhaps thinking the cold shoulder would affect Lucy, but it didn’t. The peace was … refreshing. And gave Lucy time to think and process everything she learned.
After twenty minutes, Lucy said, “You wanted to know what made me tick.”
Lucy didn’t know what she expected of Max—maybe to justify the notes she’d taken and left on her desk? Apologize? But she did neither. All she said was, “Yes, I do.”
“You want the truth, Max. I understand that drive. I really do. I’m always seeking the truth—but more than that, I’m looking for answers. I’m driven by a much darker force than truth. I need justice. I need to know that killers will be caught, that they will be punished. That they’ll be in prison or in a grave.”
“That doesn’t tell me why.”
“But it is the truth. Is the why of the truth more important than the truth itself?”
“It’s part of the whole.”
“Perhaps.”
She didn’t expand. She could tell that Max wanted to know more—it would bug her because she couldn’t put Lucy in a predefined box.
Max didn’t need to know. She wanted to, but she didn’t need to, and Lucy wasn’t going to become one of Max’s projects.
Lucy said, “What is more important to you—that Karen’s killer is brought to justice, or that you find out why he killed her in the first place?”
Max opened her mouth, then closed it. Lucy didn’t smile, though she wanted to because she realized something about Max that Max thought she hid from everyone.
She cared more about justice than she did about exposing the truth.
“I want him in prison,” Max said.
“So justice.”
“But in putting him in prison, I’ll find out why.”
“You know why. I read your book, Dr. Ullman had a profile of the killer—that he was a sexual sadist. She’d been heavily drugged—that according to the toxicology report on the blood found at the scene. He had her somewhere for up to thirty-six hours before he killed her. Do you have to know why he held her in captivity? Why he drugged her? Why he most likely raped her repeatedly? Is that important? Because I can tell you right now, there are millions of sick people just like him, whether they kill or not. People are tools to them. Is he any different than a pervert who has sex with children? Like Paul Borell, who raped and murdered Matthew Collins? We can put a label on it—sexual deviancy, pedophiles, sadists, psychopaths—but it all comes down to one lone truth: that their needs, however sick and twisted they are, are supreme. That no one has the right to deny them their satisfaction.
“Danielle Sharpe has a dark need to make other people suffer because she suffered. She has separated herself from the act of murder. I guarantee you that the man who killed Karen has done the same thing. Karen’s death served the larger purpose, he can move on. He doesn’t care about the pain he caused because he doesn’t feel pain. Danielle doesn’t want to feel pain, but it’s all she can feel. She believes that if she gives the pain to others—her ex-husband, other broken families—that it’ll somehow make her feel better. For a while, it works. But the pain returns and she has to make people suffer again. And we—you and I—are going to stop her.”
Chapter Thirty
MONDAY
Max never had trouble falling asleep at night, but no matter what time she woke up, even if it was three in the morning, she couldn’t go back to sleep. She’d stopped trying to force herself, which usually resulted in a headache and daylong irritability.
Monday morning she slid out of bed just after four in the morning. Three hours of sleep. She was going to need extra makeup to hide the dark circles.
There was one benefit to waking early, and that was no one was trying to reach her. She made a cup of coffee and filled up the Jacuzzi bathtub. She turned on the jets and relaxed in the hot water. The tension left over from yesterday disappeared. One of her ex-boyfriends had suggested she work out in the morning when she couldn’t sleep, but nothing was better than a hot bath, morning or night, to clear her mind.
Thirty minutes later, she took a shower, washed her hair, and then spent a good hour getting ready for the day. She could get ready faster, but why rush? Lucy wasn’t meeting her until ten. By seven she was ready and decided to go downstairs for breakfast instead of calling room service.
She’d just ordered and was enjoying orange juice and coffee while reading a book—one that she’d started on the plane ride to Scottsdale a week ago, but hadn’t picked up since—when her cell phone vibrated. So the day begins, she thought as she closed the book. She assumed it was Ben, but it wasn’t.
“Nick,” she said when she answered.
“You’re still alive,” he said.
“I’m sure you would have heard it on the news if I wasn’t.”
“I left a couple of messages.”
He sounded an odd cross between upset and irritated.
“Busy case.” Her food arrived and she wished she could eat without the stress of this conversation.
Since when did talking to Nick become stressful? You always looked forward to his calls.
“When will you be done?”
“I’m going to cover the Caldwell trial in Arizona. It starts next week.”
“And then?”
“And then … I don’t know.”
“I’d like to see you. Even if you just fly in for a day … I miss you, Max.”
He sounded sincere. He was sincere, at that moment. Max knew they had a certain chemistry that worked.
“I miss you, that’s why I keep myself so busy.”
He laughed. “You wouldn’t know how to relax, sweetheart. Tell me you’ll be here for the weekend after the trial and I’ll take it off. Switch shifts with someone if I have to. You and me. I think we need a little time alone.”
“I agree.” And she did … on the one hand. When she and Nick were alone and didn’t talk about his life, everything was good.