A frighteningly logical answer, which raised an all-too-obvious question.
Well, ask it, then. Be direct. “Is that what’s going to happen?”
“Not necessarily. You’re right about the blindfold, Dr. Reilly. As long as you haven’t seen my face, you’ve got a chance of surviving our relationship.”
Our relationship. She supposed she should be glad he’d phrased it that way, implying a connection between them.
This time she didn’t hear the door open, but somehow she knew the precise moment when he stepped into the room. His presence chilled her like a cold draft from an unseen window.
The other chair protested as he sat down. He must be facing her across a distance of six feet. She waited through a long silence, thinking hard.
This would be their first extended encounter-very likely a period of maximum danger. She was something new in his world, destabilizing, threatening. It was possible he’d never been alone in a room with a woman before. He was almost certainly under more stress than his outwardly cool manner would suggest.
How to handle it?
Even though he’d seen through her efforts to form a bond between them, she had to keep trying. It was imperative that he not be allowed to objectify her, to reduce her to the status of a mere symbol. She had to be a person in his eyes, preferably a person who mattered to him.
Best to be agreeable, cooperative-but not overly friendly, or he would sniff out the lie.
He was perceptive, not easily deceived. He would know she had to be angry and scared. There was no need to conceal those feelings completely, even assuming she could. But she needed to tone them down, feign a comfort level she hadn’t achieved, and perhaps soothe his own anxieties also.
“Very good,” he said finally. She heard the crinkle of folding paper. “The letter, I mean. You were smart not to try anything clever. I would have used the Ultron on you for sure. Or done something worse.”
Proper response-subdued or combative? She chose a middle course, hoping to distract him while he slipped the letter in the envelope. She didn’t want him to notice her pitiful SOS.
“You really don’t have to keep emphasizing your control over me,” she said mildly. “It isn’t necessary.”
“Isn’t it? I take it, then, that my control is understood.”
Acknowledge his power-a subtle compliment to him. “You’ve got the stun gun.”
“I’ve got more than that.” The chair scraped the floor. Two quick footsteps. She felt him near her. “Hold out your hand.”
Hesitantly she obeyed. Touched something smooth and cylindrical. The barrel of a handgun.
“It’s a nine-millimeter.” He pulled the weapon away. “Fully loaded. I can kill you at any time, Doc. I can put a bullet in your heart”-click of a safety’s release-“or in your brain.”
“I told you, it’s not necessary-”
She tasted metal. The muzzle of the gun, thrust between her teeth, blocking speech.
“Bang,” he whispered.
Breath stopped, she sat rigidly, hands gripping the edges of the chair.
If he pulled the trigger, she would never even know it. That thought scared her worst of all.
“I don’t like you lecturing me on what is or is not necessary.” Fury clawed at the polished smoothness of his voice, shredding it at the edges. “And I don’t need to hear any of that crap about ‘control.’ I’m simply trying to establish guidelines for our relationship. Rules for you to live by. Literally.”
The gun withdrew. The pounding violence in her ears was the racket of her own heart.
“From now on, I-and I alone-will determine what’s necessary and appropriate. That’s acceptable to you, isn’t it, Doc? Or would you prefer to suck my pistol till it comes?”
The ugly sexual imagery, the explicit connection drawn between violence and intimacy, frightened her worse than the gun itself.
Show contrition now. No trace of defiance, nothing to set him off. “I’m sorry… really… if I said the wrong thing.”
“That’s better.”
He sat down again. She fought to suppress the tremors shivering through her body. The dampness on the inside of the blindfold was a sprinkle of tears.
“I honestly don’t mean to hurt you.” He spoke in a gentler tone. “I will if I have to, but that’s not the way I want things to work between us. See, I have plans for you.”
His pause solicited a question. She obliged. “What plans?”
He didn’t answer directly. “I have a problem, Doc.”
This time she waited, asking nothing.
“A problem,” he said again, gently. “I guess you’d call it a compulsion. I’ve yielded to it more than once.”
“What sort of compulsion?”
“I kill people. Women. I kill women.”
Don’t lose it now. Come up with a response. Something noncommittal, until you know what he wants you to say.
Erin held her face rigidly composed. “I see.”
“Three women so far. Three over a period of fifteen years.” The chair creaked as he leaned forward. “You probably think I enjoy it. That violence gratifies some twisted desire of mine. But it’s not true. I don’t kill for fun. I get no pleasure from what I do. It makes me sick.”
His voice dropped with each of the last four words, ending in a whisper.
“I do it”-he spoke so softly she had to strain to hear-“because I can’t stop myself. I’ve tried. But I can’t. I swear I can’t. I hold off as long as I can, and then I cruise the streets and… and I do it again.”
“You weren’t cruising the streets tonight,” Erin said slowly. “You targeted me specifically.”
“Because I need you.”
“What for?”
“You’re going to treat me, Doc. Cure me. Fix it so I don’t have to kill anymore. You’re going to set me free.”
9
Erin let the echo of his words settle in the room’s stillness. Though she knew what she had heard, somehow it seemed unreal to her, a ridiculous joke.
“That’s why you brought me here?” she said finally.
“Yes.”
“For… therapy?”
“It was the only way.”
“If you were to turn yourself in, you’d receive comprehensive treatment-”
“ No.” She’d pressed one of his buttons. Watch it. “I’ve got no intention of ending up in the nuthouse or on death row. I’m sorry for what I’ve done, but I’m not willing to submit to… punishment.”
His voice quavered on the last word. Erin wondered what sort of punishment had been inflicted on him in the past, and by whom.
“Anyway,” he added, “it would be unfair.”
Careful now, no hint of judgment: “Would it?”
“Of course. I told you, I can’t help what I do. It’s outside my control. So why should I be held accountable?”
Pointless to argue. Better to change the subject, reinforce the connection he was looking for.
“And you feel I can help you,” she said.
“You’re a shrink. You’ve got the training. And unlike the so-called experts on TV, you won’t be engaged in armchair analysis. You’ll be working with me directly. Besides, you have specific qualifications for treating me.”
“Do I?”
“I’ve read your articles. Some of them, anyway. The one in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology was particularly interesting.”
How had he gotten hold of that? The Journal was a scholarly publication, not available at newsstands.
The university library carried it, though. Was he a professor? A part-time student?
“I’m not certain,” she said cautiously, “that my writings suggest any particular expertise in the area of… multiple homicides.”
“You’ll see things differently once you’ve read the details of my case. It’s all there, in that folder you were so curious about.”
She remembered the sheaf of newspaper clippings. His resume, apparently. The public record of his crimes.
“Anyway,” he added coolly, “you don’t want to convince me that I picked the wrong person for the job. That would be counterproductive from a survival standpoint.”
Nice way of putting it. “You’re right.”