Jace parks near the back, away from the few other vehicles scattered across the lot. He reaches into the backseat, pulls out a clean shirt, a bottle of water, a pack of wet wipes.
I watch him strip off the bloody shirt, ball it up, stuff it in a plastic bag. His torso is scarred, I notice. Old wounds, long healed, layered over each other like a map of violence. He doesn't seem to notice me looking.
He pours water over his hands, scrubs at the blood with a wipe, pours more water. The process is methodical, practiced. He's done this before. Hundreds of times, probably.
When he's clean, he pulls on the fresh shirt and turns to face me.
"Ask," he says.
I shake my head.
"You want to. I can see it." His voice is flat and bored. "Ask."
I swallow. Force the words out.
"What did you do to him?"
"I extracted information."
"How?"
He's quiet for a moment. Then he reaches into the bag, pulls out a small case, opens it. Inside, arranged in neat rows, are tools. Scalpels. Pliers. Needles of various sizes. A small blowtorch. Things I don't have names for, things I don't want to have names for.
"Humans have approximately 206 bones," he says. "Each one can be broken in multiple ways. Some breaks are clean, quick, recoverable. Others are not." He closes the case. "Gerald Whitmore now has 197 intact bones. The other nine will never heal properly."
My stomach lurches. I taste bile.
"You broke his bones."
"I started with his fingers. The small ones first. Each break is a question. Each answer determines whether the next break isnecessary." He says it like he's explaining a math problem. Like there's a formula, a logic, a system. "He was stubborn at first. They usually are. Then I moved to his feet. The metatarsals. Do you know how many nerve endings are in the human foot?"
I don't answer. I can't answer.
"He told me about the Cyprus accounts after the third toe. He told me about the file storage after the fifth. By the time I reached his kneecap, he was giving me information I didn't even ask for." A pause. "He was very eager to cooperate by the end."
"Is he... is he dead?"
"No. Dead men can't be questioned again later." Jace starts the car. "I left him where someone will find him eventually. By then, I'll have verified his information. If he lied, I'll go back. He won’t talk because if he does, he will choke on his tongue."
The casual way he says it makes my skin crawl. Like torture is just another task on his to-do list. Like breaking a man's body is no different from washing dishes or filing paperwork.
"You're a murderer," I whisper.
He doesn't flinch. Doesn't react at all.
"Yes," he says. "I am."
We drive in silence for twenty minutes.
I press myself against the door, as far from him as the car will allow. My hands are shaking. My whole body is shaking. I can't stop seeing the blood on his arms, can't stop hearing the echo of screams in my head.
This is what he is. This is what he does. I knew it, intellectually. He told me himself: two hundred and seventeen kills. But knowing and seeing are different things. Knowing is abstract. Seeing is real.
And now I can't unsee it.
"The information he gave me will keep you alive," Jace says eventually. His voice is the same as always: flat, controlled, devoid of emotion. "Moore's financial records. The location of the physical files. Names of other people involved in his operation."
I don't respond.
