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It was well past dusk when they finally started to interrogate Jack. Turk hadn’t injured him seriously, but he had a good hold of Jack’s shoulder, and the hospital had to disinfect and bandage some deep punctures. Faith worried a little about that. The FBI had once had to settle a lawsuit after Faith sicced Turk on a suspect who turned out to be innocent. It was possible that Jack wouldn’t press charges, but she didn’t want to bank on that.

Then again, this was what came with the job. She had chosen to involve herself in this case knowing the risks. She couldn’t waste any more time worrying about herself.

Jack was morose when the three of them walked into the interrogation room. He glared at them, but there was more defeat in his eyes than anger. “You guys gonna tell me what I did yet?”

“Well, we have you for battery on a LEO for bear spraying the dog,” Slade said. “So there’s that for sure.”

“What was I supposed to do? Let him bite me?”

“You were supposed to answer the door when we identified ourselves as law enforcement,” Faith said.

“Oh yeah,” Jack said. “Nothing I look forward to more than a chat with uniforms.”

“As long as you tell the truth, you have nothing to worry about.”

“I tell the truth when I talk, but I don’t know you. Why would I talk to you?”

“Special Agent Faith Bold,” Faith said, taking a seat in front of him. “Now you know me. That means you’ll tell me the truth now, right?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Jack insisted. “Damn it, I was just in my own home filling out an application for another service dog. I don’t want to replace Shooter, but…” He tried to run his hands through his hair, but the shackles prevented him. “I can’t do this alone. The nightmares…”

He shivered. Faith felt a touch of sympathy for him. She suffered from nightmares herself. Oddly enough, none of her nightmares were about her combat experience, but she understood how difficult it was for many warfighters. Those memories lingered.

Still, that wasn’t an excuse to murder a vet, even if she had made a grave mistake like Dr. Patel. “I’ll be honest with you, Jack. You’re going to be honest with me, so I’ll return the favor. We’re investigating you for the murders of Dr. Rachel Summers and Dr. Lisa Patel.”

Jack started. “Patel’s dead?”

“Yes. She was killed last night.”

Jack tried to pump his fist but was once more prevented by the shackles. “Yes! Fuck that bitch!”

Faith and Slade shared a look. “Real broken up about the vicious murder of an innocent person, huh,” Slade commented.

“Oh, go to Hell. She wasn’t innocent. She killed my dog.”

“Yes, we heard there was an unfortunate incident when your previous therapy dog was in surgery,” Faith said.

“His name was Shooter, and he was my best friend. My only friend.”

He looked at Turk and smiled wistfully. Turk cocked his head at the odd expression. Most people he’d bitten didn’t look at him like that. “He a good dog?” Jack asked Faith.

“He is. A great dog.”

Jack nodded. “Then you know. You know what you’d want for anyone who hurt him.”

“Yes,” Faith agreed. “I would. And as long as we’re being honest with each other, I’ll admit that I wouldn’t mind doing it myself if I had to.”

“I see where you’re going with that,” Jack said, “but I didn’t kill anyone.”

"We'll see about that," Slade said. "See, the thing that makes it hard for me is that you were trespassed from the business after two violent encounters with security. During those encounters, you made criminal threats to Dr. Lisa Patel. Then you came back anyway and made threatening comments to Dr. Patel again. I looked up your records. You were arrested and ordered to complete a diversion program, or you would be sentenced for those charges. Did you complete that program?"

Jack’s shoulders slumped. “No.”

"I'm so glad you answered that honestly," Slade replied. "Because I already knew you didn't. That's good because that makes me want to trust you. Trust me when I say it’s a good thing if I trust you.”

Jack sniffed but didn’t reply otherwise.

“What exactly were the threats you made, Jack?” Faith asked.

Jack paled slightly. “Just… you know, ordinary stuff.”

“Threatening to kill someone isn’t ordinary,” Faith replied. “Are you telling me you didn’t threaten to kill her?”

He sighed. “Yes, I did, but… I didn’t mean it.”

“Really? If I was face to face with the person who killed my dog, I’d mean it when I said I wanted to kill them.”

In fact, Faith had seen Turk hurt before. Dr. West had hurt Turk and once nearly killed him. Had Faith not already been incapacitated, she would absolutely have killed West.

“Yeah, I wanted to kill her, but I wouldn’t have done it,” Jack insisted.

“That’s a bit of a thin excuse for us, Jack,” Faith said softly.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” he said glumly. “I didn’t kill her.”

“You still haven’t told us exactly what you said to her,” Slade pressed.

Faith turned to the detective to see a hard expression. He must have known the answer to that question too.

Jack tapped the table and stared at the detective. Anger replaced his anxiety, and his voice was steady when he said, “I told her that I would catch her alone one day, and that I would kill her and bury her with the animals she’s killed so their souls could torture hers for all of eternity. And you know what? I’m glad she’s dead. I hope those animals are torturing her. I hope Shooter spends all of time biting her bitch face off.”

Faith and Slade shared a look. Jack gestured at Turk and said, “Imagine if your dog died because a vet fucked up. Imagine you take him to someone you trust to take care of him, and when you arrive to pick him up, you find out that they killed him instead of taking care of him. How would you feel?”

"I understand how you feel, Jack. If that's the reason you killed them, then I get it."

“I didn’t kill her.” He frowned. “Wait, you said them? Oh, that’s right, there was that other vet too, the uh... what was her name?"

Faith frowned. “Dr. Rachel Summers.”

“Right. Yeah, I don’t know her. Didn’t know her. Did she work at the clinic too?”

Faith’s frown deepened. She had made a career out of reading criminals, and Jack looked very sincerely unaware of who Dr. Summers was. “No, she had a practice at Carmel-Westfield Animal Medical Center.”

“Huh. I don’t know where that is. You think the same person killed both people?”

“We know it,” Slade said.

He remained stern, but Faith could hear the uncertainty in his voice. He wasn’t sure that Jack was guilty anymore either.

She folded her arms and leaned forward. “Jack, can you account for your whereabouts last night?”

His eyes shifted to the left, a common physiological tell that a person was about to lie. “I was at work.”

“No, you weren’t.”

Jack stiffened and blinked. He watched Faith’s face shrewdly, then apparently decided she was bluffing. “Yes, I was.”

“Where do you work?”

He frowned. “Why does it matter?”

“So we can verify your alibi. If you can prove to us that you were at work when Dr. Patel was murdered, then you can’t be our killer, and we’ll release you.”

His frown deepened. "You know what? Fuck it. I hated the bitch. I wanted her dead. If I could have killed her, I would have. Shooter's gone. I have nightmares every goddamned night, and they're getting worse. You want to pin this on me? Sure. I killed her."

“You work for Red Racer Auto Body?” Slade asked.

Jack blinked, genuinely surprised. “How’d you figure that out?”

"You listed it as your place of employment when you brought Shooter to the emergency clinic. They gave it to us as part of your contact information. I'm going to call them Jack. If they tell me you weren't at work last night, then it's going to look very bad for you."

“Go ahead. I already told you you can pin it on me.”

Faith leaned back in her chair and pursed her lips. Jack was a good lead if Patel was the only victim, but he didn’t seem to know anything about Rachel Summers at all. He could be lying about that, but…

“Jack, if you’re the killer, then we’d appreciate a clear confession so we know to stop looking. If you’re not the killer, then I have something for you to consider. Dr. Rachel Summers, who you claimed not to know, had zero record of malpractice and not one complaint lodged against her in twelve years as a veterinary doctor. Not one. I understand being happy about Dr. Patel’s death after what happened with Shooter, but Dr. Summers wasn’t the same sort of vet. I assume Shooter went to the vet more than just the last time.”

He looked warily at Faith. “Yeah? So?”

“And I assume that other vets were able to help him? Keep him healthy, make him feel better when he was sick?”

“Yeah?”

“And those vets. Do they deserve to die? Do their patients deserve to be without good, kind doctors?”

Jack lowered his eyes. “No.”

“No, they don’t. Well, this killer isn’t only targeting bad vets. He’s killing good vets too. If that’s you, then you deserve to go to prison for punishing innocent people. If that’s not you, then please help us clear you so we can find the person who is killing good vets before they kill another good vet.”

Jack sighed. “I was at a treatment center.”

“A treatment center? What kind?”

“For PTSD. It’s… not a treatment center, I guess, just a mental health clinic that caters to people suffering from post-traumatic stress. I… I’ve been going there a few times a week. I was there last night, and I was there Sunday night. They had a birthday party for one of the other people in my group.”

Slade blinked. “Seriously? Can you verify that?”

Jack nodded. “Yeah, you can call Roger. He’s my battle buddy. We’re supposed to support our recovery together. You know, call each other if things get real bad.”

“Why the hell didn’t you just tell us that? Why make up some shit about being at work?”

Jack shifted. “I didn’t want to tell you that I was seeing a psychologist.”

Faith couldn’t help but feel a bit of sympathy. She wasn’t a big fan of psychologists either, considering that her favorite one turned out to be a serial killer.

“I get that,” she said, “but would you rather we believe you were a murderer?”

“I don’t know!” Jack cried. “I just… I was mad. And scared. And… it’s just not fair. Like… where were you guys when Shooter was killed? I kept calling and calling and asking you to find justice for him, but… I guess I just didn’t trust you. I thought you’d already decided I was a murderer, and I don’t know. I was mad, and I figured, you know what, if I have to go to jail even though I didn’t get to be the one to kill her, so be it.”

“Jesus Christ,” Slade muttered. “What’s Roger’s number?”

Before Jack could give Slade the number, the door opened, and a uniform said, “Detective? We…” He glanced at Jack. “Can I speak to you two for a moment?”

Slade frowned. “Is it important? I’m with a suspect right now.”

“Um… he might not be a suspect anymore.”

Faith’s heart sank. She had a feeling she knew what the uniform was going to say. Slade sighed heavily. “Damn it. All right, just hit us with it.”

“We found another body, sir.”