"You've probably heard about the three murders that have recently taken place in the area." A good agent never jumped in with the prime question. A good agent went for the slow build, getting the suspect to relax, gaining confidence-then hit him. She didn't have the luxury of that kind of strategy. Hitchcock could bolt at any second.
He laughed and shifted in his seat, getting more comfortable. "I've wanted to tell you something for a long time. Your friend, Fiona. She liked to portray herself as a goody-goody, somebody as pure as a nun, but let me tell you, she was no nun. But then maybe you knew that. Maybe you were whoring it up, too."
He was trying to throw her off, distract her from the real reason she'd come.
"Are you like your sister?" He reached over and put a hand on her bare knee. His fingers were rough and hot. "Do you get off on guys that've been in prison?"
A drop of sweat trickled down her forehead, catching on an eyebrow. It took an amazing amount of willpower to keep from pulling out her gun.
"Get your hand off me."
He removed it, but not before giving her knee a little caress. "Behavioral Science, right?"
How much had Gillian told him about her?
"That means you hunt down serial killers, right?" When she didn't answer, he repeated his question. "Right?"
"Yes."
"Child molesters? How about child molesters?"
"Those too."
"I have a theory about why people like you go into such disturbing fields," he said. "Want to hear it?"
She shrugged. "Sure."
"Because you're obsessed with death."
She wasn't going to let some killer psychoanalyze her. "If I'm obsessed, it's with finding the people who are causing death."
"No, you're obsessed with death itself. You have to see it, have to be around it."
"Is that the way you feel? Is that how you've come to this theory? Because you've killed?"
"I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about you. How old were you when you found your friend's dead body?"
He was talking about it so calmly, as if it were something he'd read about, not participated in.
She wanted to look away, but she forced herself to keep her eyes on him. "Seventeen."
"An impressionable age, wouldn't you say? A time when everything can turn upside down, when good can suddenly be bad, and bad good."
Not wanting to miss the opportunity to keep him going, she allowed herself to be pulled into the conversation. "Seventeen is the age you were when you killed Fiona Portman," she said.
"I think that once somebody sees death, feels death, sees death's emptiness, they want more. Suddenly life's biggest mystery is an even bigger mystery. And that mystery is something you were a part of and want to be a part of again."
Was this his twisted way of telling her he'd killed the three girls? Was it a sick plea for help? "Are you seeing a psychiatrist?" she asked, hoping she wouldn't lose him by introducing a new topic.
"Not since I got out of prison. I don't need one. Haven't you heard? I'm a new man."
"You should be under psychiatric care."
"I've had enough of shrinks."
"Do you have urges to see dead bodies?" she asked carefully.
"Right now I'm imagining what you'd look like dead."
"Is that a threat?"
"How many dead people have you seen in your life? Other than Fiona Portman? I'll bet you've seen a lot."
"Too many."
"How many?"
"Over a hundred."
"I'll bet you like that, don't you?"
"Of course not."
"Oh, come on. Why don't you admit that when you aren't around death, you aren't whole? You aren't complete?"
His intelligence and the skill with which he manipulated the conversation surprised her.
"Did you have anything to do with the recent murders?" Her stomach knotted at the question.
His attitude suddenly changed. "Fuck you." He was through with the game.
She'd been in a lot of dangerous situations in the course of her career, and had prided herself on remaining unflappable. This was different. After joining the FBI, she'd become tough and hard and fearless. But returning to your past had a way of screwing things up. Had a way of poking holes in that new person until pretty soon you were leaking like a sieve.
The old Mary was sitting on the seat next to Gavin Hitchcock. The old frightened, weak, young, vulnerable Mary.
"I've heard enough of your bullshit." Without another word, he got out and walked away, his shoulders hunched in his saggy, brown corduroy jacket.
Gavin Hitchcock sat down on the bus stop bench. He'd missed the 6:50, thanks to the woman pulling away from the curb and disappearing down University. He usually drove to work, but he'd run out of gas money and had been forced to take public transportation. Everything was fucked.
Mary Cantrell. He remembered her from the trial. Remembered her white face, her big eyes. Sitting there stone-faced, describing everything so graphically that a juror puked and another one fainted. He'd always figured it was the passionless eloquence of her testimony that won the jury over and lost him all sympathy.
He'd been intrigued with her just now because she was Gillian's sister. Otherwise he wouldn't have bothered talking to her, and he certainly wouldn't have gotten in her car.
His bus finally showed up. It pulled to the curb, and he got on.
It wasn't crowded. It was just him, a few homeless people, and the crazy lady who worked the night shift at a nursing home preparing food for the next day. She never quit talking. Now she was engaged in a onesided conversation with the bus driver, who'd driven the route long enough to know not to give her any encouragement by answering.
She finally gave up and moved to another seat, close to a homeless guy who was on his way to nowhere.
She was going on about the road construction, and how the buses were always behind, and how she had to leave home an hour early because yesterday she was late for work. Blah, blah, blah.
"Hey, lady," Gavin said, raising his voice to be heard above the shifting gears.
She looked at him, eyes alert and eager now that she had a participating audience.
"Why don't you shut the fuck up?"
She was instantly defensive. "Why don't you shut the fuck up?"
"Nobody wants to hear the shit that's pourin' from your mouth."
"I ain't got no shit in my mouth," she said, hands at her waist, head bobbing.
"Somebody should put you out of your misery."
She let out a short, one-syllable scream. Kind of like a single beep from a car alarm.
"What the hell's going on?" the driver asked, looking at Gavin in the rearview mirror.
"Oh, come on. Haven't you had the same thought? Listening to her blabbin' on and on and on. Haven't you at least wished she'd trip and hit her fucking head on the curb when she's getting off the bus? How 'bout you?" he asked, motioning to a man sitting huddled in the corner with a stack of old newspapers. "Haven't you wished somebody'd just make the bitch shut up?"
The little man shook his head.
The driver pulled to the side of the street. Gavin noted it wasn't a scheduled stop.
The doors opened. "Get out," the driver said.
"There you go, lady," Gavin said with satisfaction.
"I'm talking to you. Get out before I call the police."
The woman let out a high-pitched laugh and clapped her hands in a frenzy of excitement.
Gavin pushed himself up and lunged out the door.
He shouldn't have opened his mouth.
Another thought hit him: It would never have happened if the Cantrell woman hadn't antagonized him.
Behind him, the bus's hydraulics hissed as it pulled away.
His head was beginning to throb. He put a hand to his temple. He could feel the artery pulsing. With each pulse, his headache got worse.
Had to get home.
He staggered down the sidewalk, feeling the change coming, the darkness that would drag him down and smother him.