Let it go, Courtney, Hunter pleaded in his head.
Taylor didn’t. ‘You are delusional,’ she replied without thinking.
Her response only amused Lucien more.
‘I don’t think that I’m the one who’s delusional here, Agent Taylor. You see? It’s very easy for anyone to say that he or she will never cross a certain line, when that line is never presented to them.’
Lucien allowed his words to float in the air, giving Taylor a moment to digest them before moving on.
‘If one day they come face to face with such a line, they’ll sing a very different tune. Trust me on this, Agent Taylor. It was one of my experiments — presenting that line to someone who swore she could never take a life.’ Lucien looked at his nails as if considering if they needed trimming or not. ‘And, boy, did she cross it.’
Taylor choked on her own breath.
Hunter stared at him in disbelief.
‘Are you saying that you forced someone to commit murder as an experiment? To prove a point?’ Taylor asked.
Hunter had no doubt that Lucien was very capable of such an act. He was very capable of much more. But Hunter had heard enough, and despite Taylor being the lead agent in this investigation, he lifted a stop hand at her and took over.
‘The location, Lucien. Where in New Haven are those bodies?’
Lucien scratched his beard again while studying Hunter.
‘Of course I’ll tell you, Robert. I promised I would, didn’t I? But I’ve been telling you things for far too long now, and it’s my turn to ask a question again. That was the deal.’
Hunter could feel that coming. ‘Tell us where the bodies are first, then, while the FBI verifies the site, you can ask your question.’
Lucien agreed with an eye movement. ‘I can see your logic, but I’m sure that the FBI is already verifying the four names I’ve just given you.’ He looked up at the CCTV camera on the corner of the ceiling inside his cell and smiled at it. ‘Which means that I’ve already given you something to keep you busy. So now it’s my turn.’
Lucien gathered himself before staring deep into Hunter’s eyes.
‘Tell me about Jessica, Robert.’
Sixty-Eight
Back in the holding cells’ control room, once Director Kennedy heard the four names Lucien had given Hunter and Taylor, he immediately got on the phone to one of his research teams.
‘I need proof that these people are real,’ he said to the lead agent. ‘Social security numbers, driving licenses, whatever.’ He dictated the first three names with the respective ages and home towns, just as Lucien had mentioned. ‘The fourth person — Leslie Jenkins — is from Toronto in Canada. She was an international student at Yale, probably in the early 90s. Check with Yale, and if need be check with the Canadian Embassy in Washington. I also need to know if these people have been reported missing. Get back to me ASAP.’ He quickly put the phone down.
Kennedy remembered once having a conversation with a military weapons expert who had joined the FBI. They had discussed LIN grenades and charges. The weapons expert had showed him actual footage of what happens to a human body when it’s exposed to a blast of supercooled liquid nitrogen. Kennedy had probably seen more dead bodies and attended more violent crime scenes than most people in the entire FBI, but he’d never seen anything quite like that footage.
Kennedy was ready to contact the FBI field office in New Haven, Connecticut, and ask them to dispatch a team to whatever set of directions Lucien was about to give them, when Lucien changed the game and asked Hunter about Jessica.
‘Who’s Jessica?’ Doctor Lambert asked, looking at Kennedy.
Kennedy gave him a delicate headshake. ‘I have no idea.’
Sixty-Nine
While Lucien’s question resonated against the walls, Hunter felt the air being sucked out of his lungs as if somebody had just hit him in the stomach with a baseball bat. He looked at Lucien with narrow eyes, half doubting his ears.
Taylor couldn’t help but let her gaze wander over toward Hunter.
‘I’m sorry?’ Hunter said. No amount of poker face could mask his surprise.
‘Jessica Petersen,’ Lucien repeated, clearly enjoying Hunter’s reaction. The name traveled through the air slowly, like smoke. ‘Tell me about Jessica Petersen, Robert. Who was she?’
Hunter couldn’t tear his eyes away from Lucien, his brain trying hard to understand what was happening.
Police or medical records, he concluded. That’s the only possible way. Somehow Lucien gained access to either police or medical records, or both. Hunter then remembered the feeling he had when Lucien kept on asking him about his mother. Hunter felt as if Lucien already knew all the answers, and he would have, if he’d gotten his hands on police or medical records. The medical examiner’s report would’ve stated that Hunter’s mother had died of a pain-killers’ overdose, and put the time of death sometime in the middle of the night. Finding out that Hunter’s father worked nights, and therefore wasn’t at home, wouldn’t have been very difficult. The only other person in that household at that time was a seven-year-old Robert Hunter. Lucien would’ve had no problem putting together most of what had really happened that night. He just needed Hunter to fill in the gaps.
‘Who was she?’ Lucien asked again, coolly.
Hunter blinked the blur of confusion away. ‘Someone I knew years ago,’ he finally replied in the same tone.
‘C’mon, Robert,’ Lucien shot back. ‘I know you can do better than that. And you know you can’t lie to me.’
Their stares battled for a moment.
‘She’s someone I used to date when I was young,’ Hunter said.
‘How young?’
‘Very. I met her just after I finished my PhD.’
Lucien sat back on his bed and stretched his legs in front of him, getting as comfortable as he could. ‘How long did you date her for?’
‘Two years.’
‘Were you in love?’ Lucien asked, tilting his head slightly to one side.
Hunter hesitated. ‘Lucien, what does this have to do with—’
‘Just answer the question, Robert.’ Lucien cut him short. ‘I can ask whatever I like, relevant or not, that was the deal, and right now I would like you to tell me more about Jessica Petersen. Were you in love with her?’
Taylor shifted on her chair.
Hunter’s nod was subtle. ‘Yes, I was in love with Jessica.’
‘Did you make plans to marry her?’
Silence.
Lucien’s eyebrows arched, indicating that he was waiting for an answer.
‘Yes,’ Hunter said. ‘We were engaged.’
For the briefest of moments Taylor heard Hunter’s voice croak.
‘Oh, that’s interesting,’ Lucien commented. ‘So what went wrong? I know that you aren’t married or divorced. So, what happened? How come you never married the woman you were in love with? Did she leave you for someone else?’
Hunter gambled. ‘Yes, she found someone else. Someone better.’
Lucien shook his head and noisily sucked his teeth with every head movement. ‘Are you sure you want to test me again, Robert? Are you sure you want to lie to me? Because that’s what you’re doing right now.’ Lucien’s look and voice became hard as steel. ‘And I really don’t like that.’
Taylor kept a steady face, but her eyes looked lost.
‘You know what?’ Hunter said, lifting both of his hands up. ‘I’m not talking about this.’