“Okay, show time,” Hadley said to herself as the door to the interview room opened.
Eugene Strickland shambled into the interview room, a prison guard on either side of him. Tall, dark-haired, and too smug for her liking, they led him to the metal chair across from her at the table, cuffing his wrists to an eye bolt set in the top before chaining his ankles to the legs of the chair. A part of her wanted to think that all of this was overkill, but after seeing the pictures of what this man had done to his victims, she got over that silly thought quickly enough.
The guards were still double-checking the tightness of the cuffs around Strickland’s wrists, clearly wanting to make sure the man couldn’t slip out of them when Hadley realized the man wasn’t paying attention to them at all. Instead, his dark eyes were locked on hers, studying her with an intense, calculating gaze.
After the guards left the room, complete silence descended, and Hadley took the opportunity to get a closer look at the man in front of her. Strickland looked different than he had in the pictures she’d seen. In the photos, he appeared handsome and physically fit, like some model on the cover of GQ magazine.
Today, however, Strickland was looking a bit worse for wear. His skin was pale and blotchy, bruised in some places, peeling slightly in others like he had sunburn or a recently healed case of road rash. Or gotten into a fight with another inmate.
“You lack the usual cheap briefcase and scuffed shoes of an underpaid public servant, which means you’re not any kind of defense lawyer.”
Strickland’s voice was so soft that Hadley was tempted to lean forward to hear better. She refused to do so on general principle. “And from your dress and manicured nails, I can tell you sure aren’t with the FBI.” He raked his gaze over her in a way that made her want to spend the next week taking a shower to get the feel of him off her skin. “At least not in any law-enforcement role.”
He suddenly lunged forward, yanking his cuffed wrists violently against the eyebolt holding them down. Having dealt with inmates wanting to rattle her during interviews more times than she could count, Hadley didn’t react but instead regarded him calmly.
Strickland sat back and tilted his head a little, regarding her like she was an interesting creature pinned to a dissection pan. “Since you didn’t react, I can only assume you’re comfortable with dangerous people like me. That must mean you’re a psychologist with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit here to convince me to confess to a plethora of unsolved murders.”
Hadley took a moment to recall what she’d read about Strickland in his police record because something seemed off right then. The man came from a family with money, but there’d been nothing in the files suggesting he was highly educated, exceedingly clever, or even motivated to do more than work out and pay for expensive clothing. That didn’t match with what she was sensing from the man on the other side of the table. This guy had read her like a book, knowing she was working with the FBI before she’d even said a word.
“I’m a psychiatrist actually,” she said, reclaiming the narrative. “One completely independent from the FBI. They brought me in to assess you to determine if you’re intelligent enough to be a serial killer.”
Strickland didn’t answer right away, disappointing Hadley and piquing her interest all at the same time. She had purposely taken a jab at the man’s ego with the comment about his intelligence hoping to provoke a knee-jerk response to see if she was dealing with a garden-variety sociopath or a true psychopath in every sense of the word. In her experience, sociopaths tended to be hot-headed and impulsive, reacting poorly when someone cast any kind of dispersion against them. Psychopaths, on the other hand, were too cold and self-assured to care what others thought about them. They might recognize when someone dissed them, but couldn’t generate the emotions to be offended.
It was too early to tell for sure, but Strickland hadn’t responded to her implied insult at all. It was almost like he hadn’t registered a thing she’d said. Or more likely, he simply didn’t care.
“Psychiatrist? Then I guess I should be calling you Doctor.” A slow smile crossed his face. “And what is your assessment, Doc? Do you consider me intelligent enough to be a serial killer?”
Oh, hell, yes.
“I really couldn’t say,” Hadley said. “We’ve only just started talking. It will take a little more time than that.”
“So, you simply want to sit here and chat with me in the hopes that I’ll be distracted by your beautiful face and creamy perfect skin and accidentally confess to all my crimes?” Strickland asked, his eyes practically glittering he was so entranced with the thought of the two of them continuing this conversation.
Hadley was not comfortable with a man known for eating people to be complimenting her skin. But she kept that thought to herself. She’d have to put up with the man’s skivvy behavior if she was going to get anything out of him.
“Exactly,” she said with a bright smile. “You’re certainly free to decline the offer if you have something else you’d rather be doing.”
Strickland’s eyes slid across her face again before dropping down to her bare arms, staring at them like he was memorizing every square inch. Thirty seconds must have passed before he raised his gaze back up to her face, locking on her lips in a way that sent a shiver zipping up and down her spine and had her hoping someone put him in a deep hole and never dug him up again.
“I certainly wouldn’t mind some scintillating conversation,” Strickland said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, like he knew the two of them were playing a game. “But it’d be boring if we only talked about me. Tell me about yourself.”
And there it was. The steel behind the previously polite banter. Strickland was making it clear that if she wanted to know anything about him, then she’d have to talk about herself as well. Like they were on some weird, twisted first date. On the other side of the two-way mirror, someone pounded on the glass, though she wasn’t sure if it was Maddox or Ferguson who was concerned about her letting Strickland inside her head.
Probably Maddox. The FBI probably wouldn’t care what kind of danger Hadley put herself in as long as it got them the information they wanted.
“Never let it be said I don’t like talking about myself, but I’d rather start with you,” Hadley said, accepting the rules of the game. “Did you go into that apartment in Westover Hills intending to eat your victim?”
Since they lacked any true empathy for the pain and suffering of their victims, many serial killers found it easy to talk about their handiwork. At least after they’d been caught. Some did it in a cold, detached fashion like they were discussing the weather. Others would go into graphic detail, taking pride in the ability to sicken the listener. She wondered which type Strickland would be.
“It didn’t take me long to decide on my intended target,” Strickland said, not really answering her question, but talking about the general subject at least. “Less than twenty minutes from the moment I first saw him, in fact. I’ve always been decisive when I see exactly what I want.”
The creepy way Strickland regarded her as he spoke was more than a little unnerving, even considering how much time Hadley had spent around psychotic killers. Shrugging off the goosebumps that ran across her shoulders and down her arms, Hadley kept talking, doing her best to keep the subject of the conversation focused on Strickland as much as possible. Unfortunately, the man had an uncanny ability to steer things in the direction he wanted them to go, which just so happened to be anything to do with her.
She did get Strickland to confess to planning to eat his victim right from the beginning, forced to sit there as he went into excruciating detail about which parts of the body he consumed first. But in exchange for that stomach-churning information, he insisted on knowing about the other types of criminals Hadley had worked with in the past.
“And it doesn’t scare you?” Strickland asked softly, running his gaze over her bare arms again. “Being so close to the most deviant members of your society like that.”
Hadley wasn’t sure what to make of that comment about your society. Psychopaths tended to place themselves above everyone else, but Strickland was taking it to a whole different level. Like he didn’t consider himself to be one of them.
