Pain flashed in the other man's eyes as if he had been betrayed.
Will kept chipping away, his tone soft, as if he could be both the good and the bad cop rolled into one. "Is that why you dropped out of school when you were sixteen?"
Warren shook his head.
"I guess school wasn't that fun since they stuck you with the stupid kids." For Faith's benefit, Will explained, "Warren was put into special education classes when he was fifteen, even though his IQ tested within the normal range."
Warren looked down at the table, his eyes still glistening.
Will said, "It's kind of sad when the short bus pulls up in front of the orphanage."
Warren cleared his throat, struggling to speak. "You're never going to find her."
"And you're never going to see her again."
"I have her up here," he insisted, pressing his finger to his temple. "I have her with me all the time."
"I know she's alive," Will said, sounding so certain of himself that Faith almost believed him. "You wouldn't kill her, Warren. She's special to you."
"She loves me."
"She's terrified of you."
He shook his head. "She understands why I had to do it. I had to save her."
"What does she understand?"
"That I'm protecting her."
"Protecting her from Bernard?"
He shook his head, biting his lip, refusing to give up the teacher.
Will opened a red file folder and took out yet another sheet of paper, which he slid Warren's way. " ‘It is my opinion that Warren Grier has an undiagnosed reading and written language disability. This, combined with his average IQ and antisocial behavior-' "
Warren whispered, "She's going to die, and it's all going to be on you."
"I'm not the one who took her from her family. I'm not the one who killed her best friend."
"Kayla wasn't her friend," Warren said. "She hated her. She couldn't stand her."
"Why?"
"Kayla made fun of her all the time," Warren said. "She said she was stupid because she had to have special help after school."
"Was Kayla mean to you, too?"
He shrugged, but the answer to that question was lying dead down in the morgue right now.
"Tell me what happened that day, Warren. Did Kayla let you into the house?"
"She was just supposed to let me into the house and shut up, but she wouldn't stop. She was pissed about Adam, that he was upstairs having sex with Emma. She kept going on and on about how stupid Emma is, and how she doesn't deserve to have a boyfriend. She said Emma is stupid like me."
"Did Kayla start yelling?"
"When I hit her." Warren amended, "Not hard, though. Only to get her to shut up."
"Then what happened?"
"She ran up the stairs. She kept screaming. I told her to stop, but she wouldn't. She was supposed to help with Adam. I was supposed to hold the knife to her neck so he wouldn't try anything, but she just went crazy. I had to hit her."
"Did you stab Kayla?"
"I don't know. I don't remember. I just felt someone grab my hand, and it was him, it was Adam. I didn't mean to hurt him. I just stood up, and the knife went into his chest. I didn't want to hurt him. I tried to help him. I tried to warn him to go away."
"Where was Emma when all of this was happening?"
"I heard her crying. She was in the closet in one of the rooms. She had…" His voice caught. "The room was so nice, you know? It had a big TV, and a fireplace, and all these clothes and shoes and everything. She had everything."
"Did you hit her?"
"I wouldn't hurt her."
"But she was unconscious when you carried her down the stairs."
"We went outside. I don't know what was wrong with her. I carried her. I put her in the trunk, then I went to the parking garage like I was supposed to."
"Like Bernard told you to?"
He looked back at the table again, and Faith wondered what kind of hold Evan Bernard had over the young man. For all appearances, Bernard preferred girls. Was there another side to his depravity that they had yet to find out about?
Will asked, "Where did you take her, Warren? Where did you take Emma?"
"Somewhere safe," he said. "Somewhere we could be together."
"You don't love her, Warren. You don't kidnap somebody if you love them. They come to you. They choose you. Not the other way around."
"It wasn't like that. She said she loved me."
"After you took her?"
"Yeah." He had a grin on his face, as if the news still surprised and astounded him. "She really fell in love with me."
"You really think that?" Will asked. "You really think you belong in her world?"
"She loves me. She told me."
Will leaned closer. "Guys like you and me, we don't know what it means to be in a family. We don't see how deep that bond is, we never feel how much parents love their children. You broke that bond, Warren. You took Emma away from her parents just like you were taken away from yours."
Warren still shook his head, but with sadness more than certainty.
"What was that like for you, being in her room, seeing the good kind of life she had when you had nothing?" His voice was low, confidential. "It all felt wrong, didn't it? I was there, man. I felt it, too. We don't belong around normal people like that. They can't take our nightmares. They don't understand why we hate Christmas and birthdays and summer vacations because every holiday reminds us of all the time we spent alone."
"No." Warren shook his head, vehement. "I'm not alone now. I have her."
"What do you picture for yourself, Warren? Some kind of domestic scene where you come home from work and Emma's cooking you dinner? She'll kiss you on the forehead and you'll drink some wine and talk about your day. Maybe after, she'll wash the plates and you'll dry?"
Warren shrugged, but Faith could tell that was exactly the sort of life the man envisioned.
"I saw your booking photos when they arrested you downstairs. I know what cigarette burns look like."
He whispered a quiet, "Fuck you."
"Did you show your burns to Emma? Did she get sick the same way you do every time you see them?"
"It's not like that."
"She had to feel the scars, Warren. I know you took your clothes off. I know you wanted to feel her skin against yours."
"No."
"I don't know which is worse, the pain or the smell. First, it's like little needles digging into you-a million at a time just burning and stinging. And then the smell hits you. It's like barbecue, isn't it? You smell it in the summer all over the city, that raw flesh burning in the flames."
"I told you, we love each other."
Will's tone was almost playful, as if he was giving the windup for a joke. "You ever feel your skin in the shower sometimes, Warren? You're soaping up and your hand goes to your ribs and you feel the little holes that were burned into your flesh?"
"That doesn't happen."
"They're like little suction cups when they're wet, right? You put your finger in them and you feel yourself get trapped all over again."
He shook his head.
"Did you beg for it to be over, screaming like a pussy because it hurt so bad? You told them you'd do anything, right? Anything to make the pain stop."