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He spends time looking over each image, probably trying to decide what’s out of place. Jensen crowds my other side, and I cross my arms and flex my fingers repeatedly as I wait for them to back away from the wall.
It’s Jensen that breaks the silence, and I get the feeling this is a habit of his. “No new dead bodies? I expected it to be more gruesome in here.”
“Can’t say I’ve seen any new dead bodies recently,” I reply, grinning. He must recognize a few of the victims if he’s working this copycat case, but he doesn’t say anything.
I haven’t seen any new victims of violent crimes in years except for Estrada, and I don’t know what Candace looked like in death since these fine men of the FBI here refused to show me pictures. Estrada isn’t someone that I drew either, because her case has nothing to do with me. She isn’t one of mine.
Even so, the brutality of Estrada’s death would be a fine addition to my wall of horrors. Instead, I lick my lips, eyeing the two of them before settling on Sterling. “See something you recognize up there?”
“We know which ones are victims,” Sterling snaps, and I swear there’s an air of superiority around him when he says it. I’ve had this room torn apart and analyzed enough times to know that doesn’t mean much. They see the faces, not the clues. I tilt my head and look between them, waiting for something more.
Someday, someone’s going to put it together. But I’m losing faith that it’s going to be the Feds.
When it’s clear that I’m not going to say anything more, Sterling sighs. “Okay, be difficult if you must. We’ll be back again soon.”
As they leave, Sterling casts his gaze to the wall once more. I don’t know what he thinks he sees, but no one’s ever picked up on anything I’ve hinted at. Sure, now I’m being accused of somehow assisting with a kill while I’m inside this penitentiary, but that isn’t what he appears to be dissecting. His focus flies all over the wall, and suddenly I’m concerned he’ll suggest to the staff to trash everything. That kind of disrespectdoesmake me a little bit stabby.
They leave a moment later without another glance, and once they are out of sight I turn fully back to the wall again. Still no Fake Porscha, so the psychotic side of my mind must be taking a break. I can almost think clearly, letting my gaze flutter across each image as I look for answers that Sterling apparently saw.
I know those images front to back, and I know their secrets too. If Sterling is following the same path as his father it’s doubtful he’s going to see the signs that something is off, even here laid out on my walls. Edwin always did have his eyes lasered on a prize, and that prize was arresting a serial killer and putting him on Death Row. So far as I know it solidified his place in the FBI.
When I turn back there’s a guard standing by my door, and I know they expect me to stay put until the guests leave. The only real difference between the penitentiary here and rotting in the Supermax is the ability to see people, but I’ve avoided most of my callers because seeing fans of my murders really isn’t something I’m interested in doing. I’m not entirely sure seeing people for fun, or being forced to see people like the professors and the nominated grad student is worth dealing with the penitentiary over the Supermax. It’s not as though returning to my roots helped at all.
There’s a familiar buzz, which means that my unwanted guests have left the floor. My free hour comes up after breakfast followed by the mandated therapy session that never does me any good and finally a bit of outside time. Another monotonous day looms before me now that Sterling and Jensen are gone.
Blowing out a breath, I turn and strip. We only get an hour from the wake up call to eat and be ready for the day. After that I’ll be locked into my regularly scheduled appointments until lunch, and I doubt there’s a single person here who’s going to cut me some slack because an Agent showed up at the ass crack of dawn to ruin my day.
Once I’m dressed and have a second to run some water through my hair, I wrap on the cell bars and the disgruntled guard lets me out. Decker isn’t the worst guard to deal with, he’s just grumpy all the time. I pop my neck from side to side as he slides the cuffs around my wrists and leads me to the elevator. I cannot walk out of the cell on this floor without cuffs, and transport between levels involves an armed guard and handcuffs. At least Decker is silent as we hop into the lift and go down to the shared cafeteria, unlocking my handcuffs once we’re there so I can go pick at the food for something tolerable to eat.
Now that I’m downstairs Decker leaves me alone, wandering off to do whatever his next task is. I pick an apple and avoid sitting at the tables, feeling the familiar burn of eyes on me as I turn and head for the shared common room, a space for people to sit and converse during our limited free time outside the cells. I take a seat in a chair towards the back of the room and peer out the barred window for a moment.
If there’s a fresh kill in Citrus Grove, I want all the updates. She didn’t die by my hand, but I liked Candace well enough. I can’t quiet the buzz in my mind though as I take a seat at the back of a mostly empty room.
I saw her almost daily for several weeks. I feel like I understood how Candace Swan lived, at least when she was here. Now, I want to know how she died.
Chapter 5
He's fucking infuriating.
“Constantine under your skin already?” Agent Tyler Harrison jokes, grinning at me as we walk into the apartment building. There’s a guy with a set of keys waiting for us, and a few tenants peek out their doors.
I roll my eyes at Tyler and nod to the guy. “Special Agent Sterling Gideon. This is Agent Harrison. Are you the maintenance supervisor Ben?”
Ben swallows and nods. Soto used the address to get us a number for the building, and routed to the landlord who grumpily told us the maintenance supervisor would be on site to let us into Swan’s apartment. Apparently murder isn’t a good enough reason to get people out of bed to open a door, but at least Ben here is available to do the job.
He pivots on his heel, shoulders scrunched to his ears. “This way.”
We follow behind him, and Tyler nods to a few of the people peeking out. “Step back please. We need to keep the area clear.”
Behind us I can hear one of the local officers talking to someone. They are here for crowd control while we look, and if I remember anything about my hometown it’s that people like to snoop. If they haven’t heard about Swan’s death yet they’ll be gossiping about this before noon.
“Her apartment is on the second floor,” Ben explains, glancing at us as we climb the steps. His eyes keep darting to Tyler and then away, and that’s pretty usual when we’re out and about. Tyler is beautiful, with flawless mahogany skin and dark black curls that she keeps tied back from her face half the time. She’s tall too, making her impossible to ignore. That commanding presence works in her favor when men just can’t stop staring.
Tyler’s the only female agent who traveled to Florida with me. She’s commuted back and forth until this last week, and is now permanently staying in town with the rest of us for the foreseeable future while we work the case. Finley Soto, the technical analyst, stayed behind back at our Quantico office to keep working on anything we send her way. She’s computer savvy and prefers being behind a screen.
We each slide on a pair of gloves as Ben pauses in front of a door, and someone further down the hall cracks their door open. I watch as an officer breezes past us, squaring her shoulders as Ben pushes the door open.
“Ma’am! Ma’am, please step back into your apartment…”