“Gold star.”
“The one Cox is at?”
“The same.”
Silence knitted itself across the line for a moment, thicker than static.
“And this is about that message you got,” he said.“I wasn’t sure if you were going to go.”
“Me either,” Kate replied.“Then I became sure.”
The truth was she’d gone back and forth so many times the mental gears had started to grind.Ignore him and risk people dying, if by some freakish chance he was telling the truth.Go to him and risk giving him exactly what he wanted: space in her head, time with her attention, another chance to perform.
She shifted in her seat, watching a white Department of Corrections van trundle past toward the staff entrance.The driver didn’t look at her; he had the air of a man who’d long ago decided that eye contact within a hundred yards of this place was above his pay grade.Dust kicked up in the van’s wake, settling on the already-filmy chain-link.
“He could be bluffing,” she said.“Trying to claw back relevance.Or he could really have a follower out there, a disciple… whatever we’re calling them this week.Someone who wants to keep the brand alive.”
“Copycats,” Marcus said.“The sincerest form of flattery.And the biggest pain in the ass.”
“Exactly.”
In the field, the idea of a copycat was almost worse than the original.Originals had patterns.Logic, however twisted.Copycats had fandom.They mixed devotion with improvisation and came up with the kind of chaos that made profilers weep.But thus far, Cox had either done the killings himself or commissioned followers.No one had operated outside of the fold.
But Cox had never been so securely confined before.
“You think he’s co-operating?”Marcus asked.“Like, genuinely trying to stop something?That doesn’t seem very on-brand.”
“It might if he thinks it serves the myth.”She picked at a loose thread on the steering wheel, nails worrying the fake leather.“And bear in mind, if someone else is using his Commandment shtick without his permission, that’s a threat to his control.The one thing he cares about more than theology is copyright.”
“Or,” Marcus said, “and I’m just spitballing here, he’s playing with you because he’s bored out of his mind in supermax and you’re the only reality TV he gets.”
A reluctant smile tugged at her mouth.“I am aware that that is a possibility.”
“Good.Because I can’t shake the feeling this is exactly his idea of a spa day.You show up.He gets to look all soulful and talk about judgment and divine justice.You go home pissed off.Ten out of ten: would manipulate again.”
“He’s not going to see me pissed off,” she said, more sharply than she intended.
“Uh-huh,” Marcus said.“Whatever you say, partner.”
She rolled her shoulders, trying to shake out the tension, and turned the key partway to bring the windows down an inch.Heat rolled out, stale and stuffy, and the air that came in was cooler, edged with cut grass and the faint chemical tang of whatever they used to keep the grounds obedient.
“You know I can’t ignore it,” she said quietly.“If there is someone out there and I stayed home because I thought he was lying…”
"I know," Marcus said, softer now.The joking tone stepped aside, letting the older undercurrent through."I'd be the one yelling at you if you did.I just—" He broke off, then started again.'I'd like this recovery streak to continue for us both.Fewer mad chases through abandoned buildings.More paperwork.Maybe a nice embezzlement case, where the worst thing that happens is we get bored and argue."
“Come on,” she said.“You’d hate that.And you’d complain.”
“Absolutely,” he agreed.“But I’d complain from a position of not being dead, which is my favorite kind of complaining.”
A car door slammed somewhere across the lot, sharp in the thin air.She glanced over.A correctional officer in grey tactical gear crossed to the entrance, her boots leaving small asthmatic puffs of dust with each step.She moved with the unhurried assurance of someone who spent all her days in the company of people who would cheerfully kill her if given half a chance.
Kate pinched the bridge of her nose.“I’ll be careful.Warden says I’ll have line-of-sight supervision the entire time.No contact, full restraints.”
“And if he starts on the whole ‘you’re my witness’ routine?I know you told him you didn’t care, but I’m not sure that will have sunk in.”
A flicker of the rooftop again, when he’d looked at her with blood on his teeth and said,The work has barely begun.She pushed it firmly away.
“Then I’ll hang up the phone like a civilized person and let the warden deal with his hurt feelings.”
