Simple, serious and businesslike.
And that, she realized when she sat between Tawney and Mantz on the plane, had been the importance. What she wore, how she presented herself indicated tone.
Perry thought he was in charge, she reasoned. Though he currently resided in a maximum-security prison, he’d made a strong bid for alpha position.
He had something they wanted, something they needed, so that gave him power—power she intended to countermand.
The clothes would help remind her—and him—at the end of the day, she’d be the one walking out, going back to her life, to freedom.
He’d be the one going back to a cell.
Nothing he had to trade changed that. And that, she reminded herself, was her power. That was her control.
“I want to go over some of the procedure with you.” Tawney shifted toward her. “You’ll go through security, and there’ll be some paperwork.”
She knew by the way he studied her face he wondered if her nerve would falter. “There always is.”
“We’ll be escorted to an interview room rather than the visitation area. Perry will already be there. He’ll be secured with wrist and ankle shackles, Fee. You will never, not for one second, be alone with him. He won’t be able to touch you.”
“I’m not afraid of him.” That, at least, was true. “I’m not afraid of that. I’m afraid all this might be for nothing. He’ll get what he wants, get his rocks off on that, and not tell you anything that can help. I hate giving him the satisfaction of being in the same room with me, looking at me. But at the same time I’m getting the satisfaction of doing the same. And knowing I’ll walk away, go home—and he won’t.”
“Good. You keep that in your head. Keep it front and center, and know that if you want to break it off, at any time, it’s over. It’s your call, Fee. All the way.”
He patted her hand as they shimmied through some choppy air.
“He’s refused to have his lawyer there, he made a point of it. He thinks he’s in charge, in control.”
“Yes, I was just thinking about exactly that. Let him believe whatever he wants. Let him get a good long look at me.” Her voice hardened, edged with challenge. The turbulence, she thought, was all outside.
“He’s not going to see someone who’s afraid or subservient. And later today, I’ll be playing with my dogs. I’ll eat pizza and have some wine, and tonight, I’ll be sleeping with the man I love. He’ll go back to his cell. I don’t give a damn what he thinks, as long as he tells you what you need to know.”
“Don’t give him anything he can use against you,” Mantz added. “No names, no locations, no routines. As much as you can, keep your reactions steady. He’ll play you if he can, either to scare you or make you angry—anything to get under your skin. We’ll be in the room the entire time, and so will a guard. The entire session will be monitored.”
She let their reassurances, their instructions slide over her. No one, not even Tawney, could know what she felt. No one, she thought, could know that in some dark, closed part of herself she reveled in the idea of seeing him again, of seeing him restrained, as she’d once been. When she faced him again, she’d do it for herself, for Greg, for every woman whose life he’d taken.
He couldn’t know he’d given that dark, closed part of herself a reason to celebrate.
How could he, when she hadn’t known it herself ?
She considered it all a journey. The early morning ferry, the plane, the drive. Every leg brought her the comfort that she’d traveled farther and farther from home. That Perry would never know or see what she knew and saw every single day.
Southeastern Washington wasn’t just a trip away, but almost another world. These weren’t the fields and hills of home, the villages busy with tourists and familiar faces, the sounds and the sea. These weren’t her streams and woods and deep green shadows.
The red brick and thick stone of the penitentiary struck her as formidable and intimidating. The square, squat, unadorned block of the Intensive Management Unit that housed him added stark and cold. And that dark place inside her hoped his life had been, would continue to be, equally stark, equally cold.
Every length of iron, every foot of steel added to her comfort, and her secret celebration.
He believed he’d caused her pain and distress by bargaining for this meeting, she thought, but he’d done her an enormous favor.
Every time she thought of Perry now, she’d think of the walls, the bars, the guards, the guns.
She submitted to the security, the search, the paperwork, and thought Perry would never know that by forcing her to open this door he would help her, finally, to close it—lock off even that tiny chink she’d never been able to shut out.
When she walked into the room where he waited, she was ready.
It pleased her she’d worn that deliberate touch of bold color, that she’d worked her hair into a complicated braid and had been meticulous with her makeup. Because she knew he studied her when she came in, knew he took in those details.
Eight years since he’d locked her in the trunk of his car. Seven since she’d sat in the witness chair facing him. They’d both know the woman who faced him now wasn’t the same person.
“Fiona, it’s been a very long time. You’ve bloomed. Your new life obviously agrees with you.”
“I can’t say the same for you and yours.”
He smiled at her. “I’ve managed to find a tolerable routine. I have to tell you, up until this moment, I doubted you’d come. How was your trip?”
Wants to run the show, take the lead, she concluded. Requires a small correction. “Did you ask me to come here for small talk?”
“I rarely have visitors. My sister—you remember her from the trial, I’m sure. And, of course, in recent days our favorite special agent and his attractive new partner. Conversation is a treat.”
“If you think I’m here to offer you a treat, you’re mistaken. But... the trip was uneventful. It’s a beautiful spring day. I’m looking forward to enjoying more of it when I leave. I’ll enjoy it particularly knowing when I leave you’ll be going back into—what do they call it?—segregation.”
“I see you’ve developed a mean streak. A shame.” He offered her a sorrowful look, adult to child. “You were such a sweet, unaffected young woman.”
“You didn’t know me then. You don’t know me now.”
“Don’t I? You retreated to your island—condolences, by the way, on the death of your father. I often think people who choose to live on islands consider the water surrounding them a kind of moat. A deterrent to the outside world. There you have your dogs and your training classes. Training is an interesting endeavor, isn’t it? A kind of molding of others into your likeness.”
“That would be your take.” Lead him, she told herself. Lull him. “I see it as a method of helping individuals reach their potential, in my particular area of interest and expertise.”
“Reaching potential, yes. On that we agree.”
“Is that what you saw in Francis Eckle? His potential?”
“Now, now.” He sat back, chuckled. “Don’t segue so ham-handedly when we’re having such a nice time.”
“I thought you’d want to talk to me about him, since you set him on me. Of course, he’s made a mess of it. He’s diminished your legacy... George.”
“Now you’re trying to both flatter and annoy me. Did the agents prep you? Tell you what to say, how to say it? Are you a good little puppet, Fiona?”
“I’m not here to flatter or annoy you.” Her voice stayed flat, her eyes steady. “I’ve got no interest in doing either. And no one tells me what to say—or what to do or when to do it. Unlike your situation. Are you a good little puppet in your cage, George?”
“Feisty!”
He laughed out loud, but it wasn’t only humor that sparkled in his eyes. She’d hit a switch, she knew, and turned on the heat.
“I’ve always admired that about you, Fiona. That classic, and clichéd, redhead’s spunk. But as I recall you weren’t so feisty after your lover and his faithful dog took bullets.”