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“You know Al,” Gabriel groans, “I’m going to be less annoying than whatever agent they shuffle in here next. You’re on borrowed time. Now that it’s made national headlines they’ll be back here and down your throat wanting to know who you spoke with. We both know you didn’t break out of here, kill that Estrada girl, and slink back into your room all in one night.”
My jaw ticks. I never knew Gabriel until recently. I’ve had the displeasure of seeing him every few days since the Estrada murder last winter. His visits have been constant since mid-December and every once in a while I’m graced with a visit by someone else. Agent Jensen is popular, and Sterling will come by if he absolutely has to but he seems distracted most days. Even Agent Tyler visits on occasion, and I love seeing her now that she is in state according to Gabriel. That was a fun little nugget of information that accidentally got dropped during one of our many conversations. “Don’t call me Al. I thought your brilliant agency determined that the murder was unrelated to me.”
“Unrelated not uninspired,” he corrects, narrowing his eyes. “You speak to college students, therapists, you get plenty of visitors-”
“I don’t take visitors,” I tell him lightly, feeling my eye twitch. We’ve gone over this so many times in the past few weeks I don’t know why he’s bothering once again. “I don’t take visitors, except the kind agents who demand my attention.”
I’ve never taken visitors by choice. Not when my brother came back to Florida to try and help me out, not when my foster parents pretended to give a damn when I transferred to the Supermax. Only two names have a permanent place on my visitor list after fifteen years, and it’s just wishful thinking hoping either one of them will come see me.
Gabriel chuckles. “Yeah, I see that. Your visitor log always says rejected. You refuse to speak to your superfans. Fame is that bad for you? It’s morbid but the Slayers is actually kind of a cute nickname for mega fans, don’t you think?”
“I didn’t do this for fame,” I snap, but I realize it’s a mistake right away. His eyes brighten, and he leans across the table. I don’t even have to mention my disdain for that garish group the Slayers now that I’ve let that little comment slip free.
“Then whydidyou do it?”
Ah, the question with no answer. There are so many theories out there I’ve lost count, and I’ve never confirmed or denied anything about my motive for killing fifteen women. I’m sure my file at the FBI is a fun one to read, but I have no interest in allowing the truth to slip free.
Waving a hand, I gesture to the door. “I’m finished talking, take me back. I’ll wait for my next hour in the break room.”
Break room.What a wild idea. Eight years here and it still feels surreal. I don’t quite understand why I was removed from the Supermax, the details were always foggy.
I’m not going to dig into it. Digging just causes more problems, and I prefer CGP over any Supermax or high security prison.
Gabriel presses his lips together, his hands tightening against the top of the table. Once again I’m proving to be completely useless to him when it comes to understanding my psychosis, and Gabriel isn’t even a student. I’ve seen dozens of students since my transfer here. “You can talk things out with me or other agents will be arriving if no one is caught in connection to the case. I’m trying to do you a favor here, Alastair. You won’t get such nice treatment from anyone else.”
I scoff. It doesn’t matter what I give him. There’s always someone else looking for an excuse to talk to me. “Let the agents come, Gabriel. They need answers. The police department shouldn’t have covered anything up-”
Kyle slams a hand down on the desk, making the water bottle they handed me shake on the tabletop. “No lies, boy.”
For reasons unknown to me he acts like he has a personal vendetta against me all of the time. I snort, hiding the internal cringe.Boymakes me think of other moments in time I’d rather just forget. “Boy. Seriously? I’m thirty-two.”
Almost thirty-three, but who’s counting in here?
Gabriel leans across the table, and I can almost see the vein in his forehead throbbing with frustration. “I heard a rumor they are sending down the full squad. You really want to have this same conversation with Gideon in person?”
My brows lift. “They’re going to send Sterling down here for one murder, Gabe?”
“For a copycat,” he corrects, brows pinching together in frustration, although he ignores the nickname that I know he despises. I’ve seen this fucker way too many times so now I’m just playing, trying to get under his skin so he’ll leave. “The specifics from your case are almost perfectly replicated in this new murder, almost down to the last detail. Copycats typically have their own tells.”
I spread my hands wide. “Can’t be the same person as last time, now can it? I’ve been a resident for ten years, and in the Supermax for five. I’ll be serving out my time until I die with the backlog on death row. Even if you exonerated me for a death or two, I’ve got fifteen life convictions sitting on my shoulders. The penitentiary is my past, present, and future.”
“They’re going to come for you,” Gabriel advises, sitting back in his chair at the same time that Kyle grunts, and I purposefully don’t look his way. Ever since Kyle transferred here a couple months ago from someplace in the midwest he’s been a giant pain in my ass. “And they aren’t going to play fair.”
“Let them come,” I say with a sigh, crossing my arms. “There’s no way out of it. You heard the news there, Gabe. I’m at fault,again. It might not be my hand that delivered the blow, but they’ll paint it as my idea. Edwin Gideon always did have it out for me, why should his son be any different?”
The two men exchange one final glance, and it’s then that I spot Fake Porscha again. Leaning against the wall, mocking me. Even though I know she isn’t real, her suffocating presence is. She’s always in the back of my head, watching, mocking,judging.
She’s the one person who will never truly go away.
Chapter 1
One month later
“Name.”
“Jo Ajello.”
Sterling pauses, clenching the pen in his hand, and looks up at me through full, thick lashes. “That’s not what it says on your birth certificate.”