“Agent Briggs.” There was something musical about the monster’s voice, but it was his eyes that drew your attention: dark, soulful eyes, with the faintest hint of wrinkles at the corners. “To what do I owe this most inestimable pleasure?”
“We need to talk.” Briggs was all business. He didn’t rush the words. He didn’t drag them out. “I understand that you’ve been getting an unusual amount of mail as of late.”
Redding smiled. The expression looked self-effacing, almost boyish. “I’m an unusual man.”
“The prison screens and catalogs your mail, but they don’t keep copies of the letters.”
“Rather sloppy of them,” Redding opined. His hands were folded on the table. He leaned forward, just a fraction of an inch. “One can never be too careful about one’s…records.”
Something in the way he said records made me think that he was really talking about something else—something targeted to get under Agent Briggs’s skin.
Did Redding keep records of the women he’d killed?
Briggs didn’t rise to the bait. “Have you received any letters you would classify as fan mail?” he asked, his voice taking on a slight mocking tone, like Daniel Redding was a member of some long-forgotten boy band and not a restless predator locked in a cage.
“Why, Agent Briggs, I do believe you need something.” Redding feigned surprise, but the hum of pleasure in his voice was real. “Now, why would a man like you be interested in the letters received by a man like me? Why would you want to know that women write to tell me that they love me, that every day, my legacy lives on, that the lonely and the heartsick and the deliciously, darkly lost sheep of this world pour their souls into ink on the page, begging me, beckoning me toward them, so desperate are they for a shepherd.”
Redding’s voice was silky, his delivery of those words impossible to ignore.
“Why I’m asking these questions doesn’t matter. What matters is that I can make your life significantly less pleasant if you don’t answer them. How would you feel about a transfer? I hear there are some federal facilities that are lovely this time of year.”
“Now, now, Agent Briggs. There’s no need to resort to threats. I think we both know that given even the slightest opportunity, you’d throw me in the deepest, darkest hole you could find. The fact that you haven’t already means that you can’t.” Redding leaned forward, his eyes on Briggs’s. “I wonder—do you ever get tired of the things you can’t do? Can’t catch every killer.” Redding’s voice took on a pouting tone, but his expression reminded me of a hawk, sharp-eyed and merciless, focused on one thing and one thing alone. “Can’t keep a wife. Can’t keep from coming back here. Can’t get me out of your mind.”
“I’m not here to play games with you, Redding. If you can’t give me something, I have no reason to stay.” Briggs leaned forward. “Maybe you’d prefer I left,” he said, his voice as low and silky as Redding’s.
“Go ahead,” Redding replied. “Leave. I think we both know that you’re not my type. Now the delectable Agent Sterling, on the other hand…”
A muscle in Briggs’s neck visibly tensed, but he didn’t snap. Instead, he pulled a photograph out of the file folder and laid it on the table. He pushed the photo forward, keeping it just out of Redding’s reach.
“Well,” Redding said, mesmerized, “this is an interesting turn of events.”
He reached for the photograph and Briggs pulled it back. He placed it back in the folder and stood up. It took me a moment to realize what had just happened. This interview had been taped shortly after the first victim had turned up dead. I was willing to bet a lot of money that Briggs had just showed Redding a photograph of Emerson’s body.
I could see in the killer’s eyes that he wouldn’t be able to tamp down the desire to see it again.
“They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” Redding’s gaze was no longer on Briggs’s face. It was on the folder. “Where was she found?”
Briggs took his time answering the question, but ultimately doled out the answer—just enough to whet Redding’s appetite for more. “Colonial University. The president’s front lawn.”
Redding snorted. “Showy,” he said. “Sloppy.”
His eyes were still on the folder. He wanted to see the picture. He wanted to study it.
“Tell me what I want to know,” Briggs said evenly, “and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
Briggs was counting on Redding’s narcissism. He assumed the man would want to know everything he could about this imitator. What Briggs didn’t know—and what we knew now—was that Redding wasn’t criticizing the work of an imitator. He wasn’t looking to see his infamy reflected in this girl’s body.
He was a teacher, evaluating the performance of a prize pupil.
“I’m not interested in anything you have to say.” Redding managed to pull his gaze from the folder. He leaned back in his metal chair, as far as he could with his wrists chained to the table. “But it’s possible that I have some information that could be relevant to you.”
“Prove it.” Briggs threw down the challenge—to no avail.
“I want to talk to my son,” the killer said flatly. “You’ve kept him from me for five years. What reason could I possibly have to help you?”
“Basic human decency?” Briggs suggested dryly. “If there were anything human or decent in you, maybe your son would want to see you.”
“‘Doubt thou the stars are fire,’” Redding responded in a singsong tone. “‘Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar….’”
Briggs finished the quote for him. “‘But never doubt I love.’ Shakespeare.” He stood, gathering his things and slamming the door on the conversation. “You’re not capable of loving anyone but yourself.”
“And you’re not capable of letting this go.” Redding smiled again, equal parts serene and smug. “You want me to talk? I’ll talk. I’ll tell you who’s been writing to me, and who’s been a very, very bad boy. I’ll lay out everything you want to know—but the only person I’m talking to is Dean.”
The screen went black. Redding and Briggs were gone, replaced a moment later by an eerily similar scene, except that this time, Dean was the one sitting opposite his father, and Briggs sat adjacent to Dean.