She tilted her head to peer at him. “Are you making fun of me?”
“No. Do you remember?”
“Of course.”
“What do you remember?”
“Hands at nine and three, not ten and two? Sit back? Keep your grip solid, even when turning?” Diana assumed the position. “I’m not going to try to talk on the radio while driving though. That was a disaster.”
Bobby glanced over, watching her for a moment before finding his voice. “I wasn’t always suffocating, was I? I mean, we had fun sometimes.”
Diana let out a long breath. “We had fun a lot of times.”
The next several miles hummed under the wheels unaccompanied by words. Bobby switched on the radio, flipped through the stations, then switched it off. Finally, he made himself move on to the second part of his plan.
“You were right about Nadine Washburn. She’s the one.”
“How do you know?”
“A security cam across the street caught her going into the laundromat.”
“And the copycat?”
“A man left with much more laundry than he went in with. So much, he had to use a cart.”
“Did the camera get a shot of his face?”
“No. But if we can find security video of him getting into a vehicle, we might be able to trace him that way.”
Diana let out a heavy breath. “So that’s it then. Dryden… my father… he was telling the truth.”
“About the Copycat Killer being active again? Appears so. And the fact that he knew that…”
“Means he could be calling the shots.”
“Yeah.”
As they grew closer to O’Hare International Airport, Diana narrowed her eyes at the aircraft landing and soaring into the sky. “You’re not planning to put me on a plane and send me off somewhere safe, are you?”
“Funny,” Bobby said, although he had to admit the idea sounded like a good one. Time for the third part of his plan. “I figured that along the lines of practicing self-defense and emergency driving, you might want to be prepared in other ways.”
She turned her squint on him.
“He’s giving a lecture in Chicago, but he agreed to meet with us over breakfast.”
“Who?”
“Trent Burnell.”
“The FBI agent who first profiled Dryden?”
He figured she’d know who Burnell was. Judging from the weight of those file boxes he’d hauled to her hotel room last night, she must have compiled everything there was to know about Ed Dryden. And the man who had captured Dryden, not once but twice, loomed large in the serial killer’s history.
“I thought he might have some suggestions about how to deal with Dryden.”
Her eyes widened with surprise. “You set this up?”
“I know it’s hard to believe, but I meant what I said last night. I really am trying.”
A smile toyed with the corners of her lips. The most beautiful smile he’d ever seen.
They found Burnell in a private conference room at the Hilton. Although silver had mostly overtaken his hair, he looked younger than his years. His body held the definition that came only with focused exercise. And he exuded the calm authority of a man who’d earned his knowledge through hard work and surviving tough times.
Burnell glanced up from the laptop in front of him when they entered the room. After trading introductions, he gestured to a sidebar. “Coffee, eggs, and whatnot are over there. Help yourselves. I’m just finishing up the interviews you sent.”
Diana made a beeline for the coffee, probably eager to get some good stuff before heading back to the police station.
Bobby took a peek at the laptop. A recording of Sylvie’s visit with Dryden from the previous fall played out on the screen. As Burnell finished watching, Bobby and Diana took breakfast and seats at the conference table.
Once the video ended, Burnell looked at each of them in turn. “I can’t pretend this is an easy case for me, or that I’m objective where Dryden is concerned. Just so you know.”
Tension crept up Bobby’s spine and settled in his shoulders. Burnell had faced countless monsters over the years. If he thought Dryden wasn’t an easy case, what hope did Diana have of facing him down? “Diana is set to visit Dryden again late this afternoon.”
“I’m sure the chance to dominate and control his adult daughter is a thrill for him.”
Bobby leaned forward. Maybe there was a way out of this after all. “Do you think it’s a mistake?”
He felt Diana’s pointed stare from across the table. “A woman’s life is at stake.”
Burnell leaned back in his chair and tented his fingers in front of him. “I take it you two aren’t on the same page about this visit.”
“It’s Diana’s decision. I’m just concerned. That’s all.”
Diana gave him a damn straight nod before turning back to Burnell. “So how do you suggest I do this?”
“The first thing I usually tell an interviewer to do is establish a rapport with the subject. You’re way ahead there. He wants to talk. The downside is that he knows a lot about you. Personal things he can use to gain your trust, to manipulate your feelings, to hurt you.”
Warnings were all well and good, but Bobby was hoping for more specifics. “How can she prevent him from doing that?”
“First, don’t believe a word he says.” Burnell focused on Diana, speaking directly to her. “He’ll lie. He’ll exaggerate. He’ll twist the truth and attack the things dearest to you. Don’t take any of it to heart.”
“Can I use his emotions against him?”
“Not an easy task. Not with Dryden.”
“Why not?”
“Men like him don’t have feelings for others. Not exactly. Compassion, love, guilt, those things simply don’t exist for him.”
“So, what can I use?”
“With Dryden, you have to remember everything is about him. His emotions are about how others make him feel and him alone. That’s what you have to use to get him to open up to you.”
“I use how I make him feel?”
“Yes.”
“How do I know that?”
“When I first arrived this morning, I watched the tapes of your interview with Dryden yesterday and the visit from your sister from some months ago.”
“That’s the one you were watching when we came in.”
He nodded. “In the conversation with your sister, Dryden talked about how he felt after you and Sylvie were born. The way you looked at him made him feel important for the first time in his life. You made him feel like a god, is how he put it. And he implied that made him start feeling dominance in the rest of his life. Dominance over adult women.”
Diana leaned forward and splayed her hands on the table. “We were children. He was our father.”
“Exactly. It was a natural response on your part.” Burnell held up a finger. “But did you hear the defensiveness in your voice just now? Did you feel it in your body language? You took my statement as a judgment about you, an accusation that you were to blame for him becoming a serial killer. You might recognize rationally that any baby is going to stare adoringly at her caregiver. But emotionally you responded to my inference that you were the cause of Dryden’s crimes.”