He crossed his arms, looking down at her. “I think you knew we’d end up here.”
She looked around the spacious greenhouse with its rows upon rows of flowering black dahlias. Several other plants grew in a bed in the far corner, one of them with lovely yellow bell-shaped flowers. “You shoved Gelsemium extract in my mouth?” The bastard. “You could have killed me.”
“I was willing to take that chance,” he drawled. He was dressed in black jeans, shirt, and puffer vest, his dark beard cut short, almost just scruff. His dark hair was also shorter than the last time she’d seen him. He’d always been lean and apparently in good shape, but she’d miscalculated his strength.
“That’s quite unkind of you. Don’t tell me this is about your hatred for your mother and all of that?” She waved a hand in the air, almost able to raise it to her waist. “I thought we took care of those silly issues.”
He crouched so they were eye to eye. “Oh, we did. You taught me, Abigail. Showed me that my strength was in fighting back and taking what I want. Not waiting and seeing. Not turning the other cheek and hoping. You taught me that I was a predator. You were my light.”
His mind had been surprisingly easy to infiltrate. But the two weeks away from her had changed him. She’d have to proceed carefully as she sat up fully.
He smiled and looked more like a wolf than a test subject. “But you’re just a liar like all of them. At your office at the university, you’re a blonde with blue eyes. Yet in real life, you look like this. I didn’t even recognize you at your sister’s office the other day. Why?”
She shrugged. “I can be whomever I want. Since I started at the university as a blonde, I figured I’d stay that way all year.” Or perhaps she was angry with Laurel for ignoring her so she fell back on old comforts. While she now enjoyed her natural coloring when not at work, she hadn’t decided to be herself at school. Surely it wasn’t cowardice. She was just choosing her own time.
“Your very appearance was a lie.” His smile lacked true emotion. “This is when the others started to beg and cry.”
Her chuckle moved her shoulders. “I’m not one of them, and deep down, you’re smart enough to know that.” She leaned toward him, keeping the parts of her body that now worked completely relaxed. “If I remember correctly, we established you have just as high an IQ as any doctor. As your mother.”
He lost the smile. “Don’t talk about my mother.”
Abigail let her smile widen. “We talked about your mother all the time while you volunteered for my study. How you would like to go back and hit her the way she hit you. How you’d like to smash her face in so that brain she was so proud of would be crushed. Didn’t she call you stupid?”
He backhanded her. “You’re terrified and hiding it.”
Pain crashed through her skull. She welcomed it, letting the hurt sharpen her focus. “I don’t feel fear, moron. Not like you want. I’m not afraid of you. You need the fear to fulfill your pathetic fantasy. I’m not scared.”
“You will be,” he promised. “Or maybe you’ll be the one, and you’ll live.” Hope glimmered in his psychotic eyes.
She unobtrusively took a deep breath, centering herself. Her legs had almost returned to full strength. “You know, it’s surprising those flowers don’t smell like anything.” There were so many. Shouldn’t they have even a light scent? “It’s like you. You were without light, color, or smell. Until you met me and I helped you tap into your inner strength. What is up with these weird flowers?”
“They’re black dahlias. They symbolize betrayal, the specialty of every woman. You’re all filthy liars.”
She sighed. “That’s pedantic. So beneath a true predator. I’m very disappointed in you, Jason.”
He reared up.
She tightened her legs, ready to kick when he lunged.
The door opened. A young blonde with unremarkable features walked inside, anger twisting her lips. “I knew it. I knew you were seeing somebody, Jason.”
Jason jerked.
Abigail paused. “Well. This is interesting.”
Jason started to stand, giving her an opening.
Abigail struck.
* * *
Laurel dodged back into the interrogation room, her phone in her good hand. “Tommy? When you went to the city but didn’t drive, who drove the truck on those occasions?” She held her breath.
“Jason did. He was trying to help Mr. Brewerston, and he wanted to take over the business.”
Connections and lines. Laurel’s mind started to draw links and possible associations. Dr. Keyes had said a dark-haired person had been with Tommy in the waiting room when he’d brought Mr. Brewerston to appointments. He hadn’t mentioned age or name. She’d assumed he’d meant Davie. “Tell me right now, or I’m going to arrest you. Did you or did you not have a gun this past summer that you showed to Davie?”
Tommy’s head sank. “Yeah. I had a gun, and I told him it was mine. We shot at trees out on Maple River Road.” He talked to the table. “I’m sorry. It was just fun. We didn’t hurt anybody.”
