“I admit, I’d love to read it, if only to answer some of my own…” He trails off.
My defenses go on alert. It’s also expected of me to ask this man to finish his sentence. Securing my interest in him and his thoughts. But the psychologist reads the change in his breathing. The dilation of his pupils. His adrenaline just spiked. He’s practiced this question, the moment rehearsed. If it was impulse, his demeanor wouldn’t change.
He’s preparing his lie.
I lick my lips, drawing his attention to my mouth. “What do you want to know, agent?”
He leaves his hand fixed to my neck, a touch of dominance. “The key,” he says. “What happened to the key?”
The key Malcolm Noble wore around his neck. The one I drove into his jugular to end his life.
The murder weapon.
No one except Grayson knows the complete truth of that night. That my “father” forced me to help take a girl’s life. That I in turn killed him during his attack on me. That I wrecked into a tree with the intent to end my own life…
So much darker than the story I told the FBI.
I step closer to him and put my hand on his chest. My point of contact serves two purposes. To distract him from the acceleration of my heartbeat that occurs when telling a lie, and to divert his focus to the sexual tension between us.
He may be a federal agent, but he’s still a man. Simple in his desires. Sex is a tried-and-true method of control.
I inhale deeply, allowing my breasts to graze his chest. “I don’t remember,” I say, a tremor causing my voice to crack. “It must’ve gotten lost at some point during his attack on me…or the accident. I don’t know, and I’m not sure I want to remember…”
He cups the back of my neck, brings me into an embrace. His arm locks around my waist as he releases a heavy exhale. His reaction is either one of disappointment, or relief. Deep down, I don’t believe Agent Nelson wants me to be a villain.
He wants to be the hero of my story. He wants to fuck me without any guilt.
That could never happen. I need an antihero to complete me. A man that looks beneath my surface into the black abyss of my soul and licks his lips, ravenous to devour me.
All one has to do is look at my brain scan to see that.
As he pulls away, his eyes crease in a squint, gaze narrowed on where his thumb rests on my neck. I used foundation to try to conceal the bruise left behind by Grayson’s rough touch. Nelson glimpses that mark, and I wonder if it arouses him, the thought of me fucking—roughly—away my worries.
“Call me if you need anything.” He steps back without having acted on his attraction.
I nod, demurely pushing a hank of hair behind my ear. “I will. Thank you.”
I reach the top step and turn to watch him walk away. He’s satisfied with my answers for now, but once the dust settles—as he put it—he’ll have more questions. Those trifling
little inconsistencies that drive men like him to do the job they do and excel at it.
He has more in common with the men he hunts than he realizes. How else could he work these types of cases, get inside deviants’ heads to bring them to justice? If Agent Nelson had suffered one or two horrific events in his own life, he may have even ended up the villain himself.
Just like Grayson, Nelson needs the pieces to snap together neatly. He won’t be satisfied until he has all the answers.
5
The Pawn
Grayson
Every killer has a signature. Even a copycat trying to emulate another murderer leaves behind a telltale calling card. Like a fingerprint, his signature makes the crime distinctly his.
Unlike a killer’s motive, the method to conduct the kill, the signature is deeply imprinted on his psyche. It’s a fixation that was already developed before he ever took his first life. And just like a compulsion, the killer wouldn’t be able to deny his carnal desire to commit this action.
He’s driven to do it.
My signature is pretty simple in design: torture. London uncovered this easily enough, citing I achieved gratification from staging scenes where my victims ultimately suffered.