Page 28

“You have fifteen minutes,” Jorge said quietly as he led Michael through the ward toward the meeting room where he would talk to the most prolific serial killer since John Wayne Gacy.

“What happened to thirty.”

“Screw you is what happened,” Jorge said curtly. “We are even after this, Michael. Have I made that clear?”

“Abundantly,” Michael said. “Relax. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“You mean besides having the case thrown out?”

“They won’t do that. I’ll record the whole conversation, and—”

Jorge stopped so quickly his shoes squeaked. “Excuse me? You sure as fuck will not.”

“Relax. I won’t share the recording with anyone. It’s a failsafe in case they do try to claim I’m interfering. I’ll record it, and when people read it and see that we didn’t discuss West’s case, it will fall through. Worst case, he’ll get a new trial, but he’ll stay in custody until then.”

“Yeah, and my career will be ruined.”

Michael held his gaze. “Your career would have been ruined years ago if it weren’t for me.”

“ Your career will be ruined too, dipshit.”

“I’m willing to take that risk.”

Jorge stared at him for a moment before sighing and shaking his head. “Fifteen minutes.”

He pressed a button on the wall, and the door opened to reveal an interview table with a chair in front of it. On the other side was another chair. In that chair sat the man who had once been married to Michael’s wife, the man who had psychologically and on a few occasions physically tortured Michael’s partner, a man who had killed at least thirty-two people, and—according to Faith—possibly twice that many.

Franklin West looked through the door and smiled. “Ah. What a pleasant surprise. Not as pleasant as the surprise I hoped for, but still pleasant. Won’t you come in, Special Agent?”

Michael’s hands curled into fists. He reminded himself that he was here for a reason and forced them to uncurl.

Then he stepped inside the room. West was shackled at his ankles and wrists, but Michael still felt like a mouse stuck in a room with a cat. West’s unblinking stare and piercing blue eyes exacerbated that image, and Michael had to stifle a shiver as he took his seat.

“Thank you for coming to see me,” West said. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Trust me, it’s not a pleasure,” Michael countered.

“Oh, but it is to me. I found Faith to be the more interesting of the two of you, but it was your bullet that ended Jethro Trammell’s life.”

“Right. I forgot that you think Trammell is God.”

“That depends on your threshold for deification. Perhaps he wasn’t an old man with a white beard who shot lightning from his fingers and breathed life into dirt. But for those precious minutes, when his victims were in his grasp, utterly helpless, unable to do anything but experience the pain he gave to them, he was God. To Faith, when she realized that not even her own mind, not even her spirit was free of his control, Jethro Trammell was God. And for a brief time, so was I.”

Michael’s upper lip curled. “You were never her ‘God.’ You were a psychopath who hurt her, but you never came close to breaking her. Neither did Trammell. He came close to killing her, but not breaking her. A few weeks in a hospital, and she was back on the street putting assholes like you where they belong.”

West chuckled, but Michael could see the hate behind his eyes and knew he’d gotten to him. “Since we’re done with that,” Michael said, “let’s get to the real reason I’m here.”

“By all means. You’re here to ask me about the Messenger.”

Michael’s brow furrowed. He wasn’t sure how much news West was allowed in solitary confinement, but he wasn’t happy to hear that news of the Messenger had filtered down to him. “Yes.”

“And you’d like to know who I believe the Messenger is.”

“Well, if you have an idea, I’ll take it. My initial thought was to try to understand how a psychopath like you ends up obsessed with Faith and what you hoped to gain from her attention.”

West laughed loudly, leaning back in his chair. Tears welled in his eyes, and Michael had to concentrate on his breathing to keep from leaping across the table and beating him to death.

“Oh, wow,” West said. “That’s wonderful. Boy. I can see that Faith is the brains of your outfit.”

“Ouch,” Michael said drily. “That hurts so much. I can’t handle how much smarter than me you are. It’s so godlike, and I’m just a lowly worm.”

“Oh, relax,” West replied. “God knows I’ll have precious little amusement where I’m going. I have to take what I can get.” He sat up straight, his smile vanished. “I’ll help you, but you have to do one thing for me. You have to tell Faith it was me who gave you this information. If she catches this criminal, she needs to know that I was the one who gave her what she needed to do that.”

Not a chance. “Fine.”

“Good.” West leaned back in his chair and sighed. “The mistake you’re making is assuming that this killer is obsessed with Faith. That’s not the case.”

Michael raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“No. This killer is obsessed with me. ”

“Is that so?”

“That’s so.”

“So he’s trying to impress you?”

“He.” West grinned. “Or she.”

“She? Wait, this asshole is in love with you?”

“That wouldn’t tell you whether it was a he or a she. In fact, I don’t know if the person sending me the love letters is a he or a she, but I do know—”

“You’re getting love letters? You’re not supposed to get mail.”

“I’m not supposed to be talking to you either, yet here we are.”

Michael’s lips thinned. “These love letters, what do they say?”

“Mostly the usual saccharine nonsense. How much she loves me, how we’re meant to be together—again, I use her for simplicity’s sake. I can’t guarantee that the killer is female.”

“What else?”

“Well, they say that Faith Bold is an evil… I don’t think you’d appreciate if I repeated the word. Suffice it to say, she hates her, and she promises me that she’ll punish her. She promises me that she’ll finish what I started and break her. And do you know what? I think she’ll succeed. Not the way I would have succeeded. Probably not the way she wants to succeed. But she’ll break Faith all the same. You know the only reason I’m not on death row right now is that Faith has consistently mishandled her cases to the point where the prosecution has to struggle to keep my case from being dismissed?”

Michael leaned forward. “Read my lips, West. You will never get out of here.”

“Oh, of course not. It wouldn’t be allowed. If the case was dismissed, I’d no doubt be shot within seconds of the judge’s gavel falling. But the fact remains that Faith has become so much of a liability that the FBI has chosen to allow the Messenger to keep killing rather than risk letting Faith make another mistake. Eventually, her mistakes will catch up to her. She’ll lose her job. She’ll leave in disgrace. Or—and I find this far more likely—she’ll take justice into her own hands.”

West leaned forward, his grin now a sneer. “I look forward to the day when you have to visit your partner in a cell just as you are visiting me. I look forward to the day when Faith has to come to terms with the fact that stripped of the trappings of justice and ‘right,’ she is no better than I am.”

The door opened, and Jorge called, “Okay, Michael. Time’s up.”

Michael got to his feet and nodded to West. “Enjoy irrelevance, little man.”

West’s laughter echoed across the room as Michael followed Jorge outside. Once the door closed, Jorge said, “Okay. We’re even now. Comprende ?”

Michael turned to the warden, and the look on his face caused Jorge to blanche. “I want every single letter West has received since he’s been incarcerated. Every one. Or I’ll come forward with everything I know.”

Jorge seemed to consider denying Michael for a moment, but only for a moment. “Okay,” he replied softly. “I’ll have them bagged up for you.”

Michael turned away, and Jorge's footsteps echoed behind him a safe distance away as the two men headed outside of the maximum-security ward.

Michael didn’t believe for a second that Faith would end up in prison for murdering a suspect. But it was far from impossible that Faith would lose her career for breaking too many rules.

And if West’s case was dismissed, and if he wasn’t shot on his way out of the courtroom…

He’d seen what West could do by himself. He’d seen what the Messenger could do by himself. Or herself. Or whatever.

But both of them together? That might be more than even Faith could handle.

He had to prevent that from happening. No matter the cost.