Page 158 of Long Way Down

A shrill, ragged, primal scream of anguish, so loud and startling that Melissa lost her grip, a moment.

“Da–”

Dana shoved her, hard, right in the chest, and she tripped over her own feet and landed on her ass.

Toly barked something she couldn’t make out above the shrieking.

Mouth open, that horrible, seemingly endless sound still pouring out of her, Dana snatched her gun off the coffee table and fired two quick rounds right at Bradley.

The crack of the shots silenced her scream, finally, and Melissa heard the thump and wheeze of the bullets impacting his body, ripping through flesh.

Blood spray. Flying sheetrock.

The echoes were still ringing as Bradley stumbled forward and fell, face-down on the rug. His shoulders gave a big heave, and he exhaled in a noisy groan, and then lay still. Dead.

Twenty-Eight

The prisoner had been moved to solitary, and so visitation was different, this time. Once she’d surrendered her weapon and emptied her pockets to go through the metal detector, Melissa was escorted by two guards, one in front, one behind, down a series of cold, sterile hallways, through a series of heavy, grated metal doors whose bolts clanged home once they’d passed through. She was led, finally, to a small room with thick glass along one wall. More guards were stationed at the door, inside and out, and seated in its center, cuffed to a bolted-down table, sat David Osborn, wearing a faintly bemused expression.

“Good afternoon, Detective Dixon. It is, Dixon, right?” A single groove of doubt appeared between drawn-together brows, his eyes soft behind the lenses of his glasses. “Did I remember that correctly?”

“Yeah.” She sat down in the chair across from him, and laid the folder she carried on the table before her. “It’s Dixon.”

His head inclined a fraction, interest sparking in his gaze. “Melissa, I think. Melissa Dixon.”

“You have a good memory.” Her voice was one of careful practice – and of resolution. She had found, over the years, that it was the unknown that left her fearful and unsteady; which put a lump in her throat and a hitch in her breath. Now, with his hands bound to the table, and a fresh bruise blooming dark as a plum on Osborn’s cheek, everything was known. No more surprises remained, and her mission here was simply to pull tight the knots he’d already threaded.

“That’s good,” she continued, and opened the folder, and started lining up headshots from within, a neat row along the edge of the folder, facing him, too far for his cuffed hands to reach. “You’ll be able to remember all the details of your scheme.”

His gaze flicked down, touching each photo as she placed it: Tobias Santini, Doug Waxman, Benjamin Crider, Spencer Bradley.

At the last, he clucked. “Poor Spencer. It’s terrible what happened to him.” He lifted his head, expression one of deepest sympathy. “His girlfriend, right? She was–”

“One of your victims.” She laid out Dana’s headshot. “Dana Brown. The nursing student, remember? Of course you do,” she said, when he started to respond, tongue poised at the edge of his lip, “we’ve already established that you have a good memory. What I want to know is: why her? Why did you instruct your attorney to pretend to be Benjamin Crider” – she tapped Crider’s photo – “in order to cozy up to one of your victims?”

He blinked at her, frown slowly tipping down the corners of his mouth. “I didn’t ‘order’ Spence to do anything. You met him: he’s – well,was– a neurotic guy. Always fussing with something. He didn’t take well to instruction.”

“Now’s not the time to get cute, Osborn. You know what I’m asking: why did you do this? All of this?” She gestured to the photos. “I get that it’s boring in here, but whythis?”

His head tilted another fraction. “Oh. You thinkIorchestrated everything.”

“I think you instructed your lawyer to seek out disturbed, vulnerable men so he could encourage them to act out the violent rape fantasies that you no longer can. That’s what I think – and that’s what Bradley’s death, and the testimony of those in custody is going to prove. That’s why you’re in solitary, and why you’re sporting a nasty new mark on your face. Was that another inmate? Or one of your guards?

“I’m here because, believe it or not, life could get a whole lot less comfortable for you in here. That all depends on your cooperation. So walk me through it.” She spread her hands on either side of the photo array. “Enlighten me.”

He studied her a moment, head tipping back so that she couldn’t see his eyes, only the bright gleam of the overhead lights on his glasses. A crawling sensation up the back of her neck proved that, surprise or no surprise, fear could still slip beneath her skin, here.

Finally, his lips pursed, and he said, “You’re not going to like it.”

“I alreadyhateit. You can’t sink any lower in my estimation.”

Flicker of a grin. “It’s not aboutme, sweetheart.”

Goosebumps prickled beneath her sleeves.

“You think I’m awful, and that’s fair, that’s fine. But I’m already locked up.” He lifted his hands so the cuffs clunked lightly against the ring through which they were threaded. “Realizing I’m even nastier than you thought wouldn’t bother you all that much.

“But I’m worried about how you’ll handle the truth.”