“Why would I be scared of them?” she said calmly even as she tried to figure out how to turn the conversation back to Strickland. “Like you, the people I talk to are fully restrained. I’m never in any danger.”
Strickland grunted in response, though whether it was in agreement or not, she couldn’t say. Jumping in before he could get in another personal question, she quickly asked him about how he selected his victims, hoping to ease him into admitting he’d killed more than the one man in Westover Hills.
Her concerns that Strickland might be hesitant to further incriminate himself proved unfounded as he began telling her stories about finding one target after the next, as well as how he’d stalked them through various clubs, restaurants, and stores, getting close enough to confirm they had the particular traits he was looking for. He’d tracked them back to their homes, charmed his way in, and then killed them. The vivid details he provided convinced Hadley he was telling the truth, and when he suggested that he truly had consumed the entire corpse in a number of cases, she believed him. Even if she wasn’t sure how he’d done it.
Unfortunately, it was becoming abundantly clear that she was dealing with a genius level intellect. The man told her just enough to make it clear what he’d done, but never enough to actually place him at any particular crime scene. Not legally at least.
But as he continued to play with her about the other murders he’d committed, Strickland kept up a steady commentary on how a “woman like her” had gotten into this line of work. He asked a few questions about her family, her relationships with men over the years, and her personal experiences with violence. It didn’t matter when Hadley refused to answer the questions because Strickland simply deduced the information on his own, being scarily accurate in almost every detail.
Hadley kept pushing the conversation back on Strickland and his murderous past, and while she thought he might have given her enough to tie him, at least loosely, to one or two of the FBI’s unsolved cases, she was becoming increasingly alarmed at the realization that he seemed to be infatuated with her.
Having the criminals she interviewed become obsessed with her was a hazard of the job, especially for the more narcissistic types. It always seemed to come back to them wanting to possess and control everything within their sphere of influence. She typically used that kind of fascination to her advantage, but with Strickland, she wasn’t sure that was a good idea.
“Do you know how absolutely perfect your skin is?” Strickland suddenly asked.
His gaze locked on her forearms where they rested on the table as he spoke, and it was damn hard not jerking them away and hiding them in her lap. The only reason she didn’t was because it would give the man too much power over her.
“I’d really like to touch you,” he said, his voice bordering on a whisper, his eyes expressionless. “Maybe you could give me a little taste.”
Knowing she had lost complete control of this interview, Hadley started to point out the obvious—that Strickland was locked down in cuffs and would remain that way for the duration of this discussion—but before she could get the words out of her mouth, he yanked one of his hands back so violently she thought he was going to break the cuff—or pull the eyebolt right out of the table.
Neither of those things happened.
Because Strickland simply ripped his hand out of the cuff, ignoring the damage the move caused. Then he darted out his bloody hand to grab Hadley’s left wrist, jerking her halfway across the table.
Hadley screamed, but she was too busy trying to snatch her arm back to really care about how much noise she might be making. Unfortunately, she quickly discovered that Strickland was much stronger than he looked, holding her wrist captive easily no matter how hard she fought him.
He lunged toward her, and Hadley knew he was going to bite her—to get that taste he’d wanted. She struggled, trying to ward the man off with her free hand, shoving and punching at his face and neck.
But it did no good. It was like hitting a brick wall.
Suddenly, his tongue was on the inside of her forearm and Hadley lost her mind as she realized that Strickland was licking her. He was licking her! Her skin felt like it was about to crawl right off her bones.
Strickland drew back and then all she saw were flashing teeth. Her heart pounded, fear gripping her at the realization that this psychopath was about to take a bite out of her arm.
Hadley was so focused on his teeth coming at her that she didn’t even realize Maddox and Ferguson were in the room until the two men slammed Strickland’s face down on the table and began to wrestle his fingers from around her wrist. Blood covered Strickland’s lacerated hand, making everything slick, but even with that, she didn’t think the men would be able to free her.
Then Warden Burnett was there as well, pulling Hadley out of her chair and helping to get her away from the psychopath intent on eating her, then hurried her toward the door.
More guards poured into the room, but over all the cursing and shouted orders, Strickland’s voice was unmistakable as he ranted about escaping from prison to come after her.
“I’m going to enjoy hearing you scream, Doctor!”
The next few minutes were a blur. Though it could have been hours. Hadley wasn’t sure. At some point, she realized that Burnett and some other correctional officer she’d never met were wiping her arms down with sanitary wipes. Hadley didn’t understand why until she saw the blood on the wipes. She began hyperventilating, expecting to see hunks ripped out of her flesh.
“It’s okay,” Burnett said, grabbing her hands and steadying them. “It’s not yours. He never got a chance to bite you. You’re okay.”
It took a minute, but she finally calmed down enough to think straight. Burnett wanted her to stay for a little while longer, but Hadley needed to get out of there. As they walked out to her car, Burnett handed Hadley her purse. She hadn’t even realized she’d never picked it up.
Maddox met them at the car, telling them that Strickland was locked down in the infirmary getting stitches for the severe lacerations he’d gotten yanking his hand out of the cuff.
As she opened the door of her SUV, the correctional officer kept apologizing, about not getting to her fast enough, for taking so long to get Strickland’s hand off her wrist, for letting her go into that damn interview room to begin with.
Hadley could only nod. She seriously didn’t want to talk about it. The skin along her arms and hands felt gross and sticky, and all she wanted was to find the bottle of hand sanitizer in her purse and bathe in it.
“You shouldn’t be alone right now,” Maddox said as she got into her SUV. “Do you have anyone you could stay with tonight?”
Hadley barely had to think before nodding. “Yes. I have somewhere I can go.”
