“If I could give you normal, I would.” Agent Sterling’s voice was sharp. “But I can’t, Dean. I can’t erase the things that have happened to you. I can’t make you—any of you—want normal. I tried to keep you out of it. I’ve tried treating you all like kids, and it doesn’t work. So, yes, I’m an enormous hypocrite, but if the five of you can help us stop that man from taking even one more life, I’m not going to fight you on it.” She looked at her father. “I’m done fighting you on it.”
The interrogation room was smaller than it had looked on-screen and more claustrophobic than it had felt from the other side of the mirror. Dean, Briggs, and I arrived first. One of the agents on Briggs’s team, who I recognized as Agent Vance, went to get Dean’s father from the prison officials. Once the director had pointed out that Redding’s involvement in this case had happened under the warden’s nose, the warden had been accommodating—a nice contrast to what Agent Sterling and I had dealt with on our last visit.
I took a seat at the table and waited for Dean and Briggs to sit down beside me.
They stayed standing, hovering over my shoulder like a pair of Secret Service agents flanking the president. The door to the room opened with a creak, and it took everything in me not to turn and track Daniel Redding’s progress from the door to the table. Agent Vance fixed the chains, tested them, and then stepped back.
“So,” Redding said, eyes only for me. “You’re the girl.”
There was a musical quality to his voice that hadn’t come across in the recordings.
“You’re quiet,” Redding commented. “And pretty.” He flashed me a subtle smile.
“Not that pretty,” I said.
He tilted his head to the side. “You know, I think you believe that.” He paused. “Modesty is such a refreshing trait for someone in your generation. In my experience, most young people overestimate their traits and abilities. They get too confident too quickly.”
The DNA under Trina Simms’s nails, I thought. There was no way that Redding could know about that—and yet, I was aware that there were two layers to this conversation: the obvious and what lay underneath.
Agent Briggs put a hand on my shoulder, and I turned my attention to the list of questions in front of me—Agent Sterling’s list.
“I have some questions,” I said. “If I ask them, will you answer them?”
“I’ll do you one better,” Redding told me. “I’ll tell you the truth.”
We’d see about that. Or, more specifically, Lia would see about that from her position behind the two-way mirror.
“Let’s talk about your partner,” I said.
“Partner isn’t the word I would have chosen.”
I knew that—and I’d used it on purpose. Agent Sterling had suggested that it was to our benefit if Redding thought he was in charge. Let him think me an ordinary girl, not an adversary.
“What word would you use?”
“Let’s go with apprentice.”
“Is your apprentice a college student?” I asked.
Redding didn’t hesitate, not even for a second. “Yes.”
“Is your apprentice someone who’s never been to college?”
If Redding thought it odd that I was asking two versions of the same question, he gave no indication of it. “Yes.”
“Is your apprentice under the age of twenty-one?”
“Yes.”
“Is your apprentice over the age of twenty-one?”
He smiled. “Yes.”
“Is your apprentice someone you met through the mail?”
“Yes.”
“Is your apprentice someone you met in person?”
“Yes.”
There were more questions. I asked them. He answered in similar fashion. When I reached the end of Sterling’s questions, I spent a second hoping that Lia would be able to tell us which answer in each pair had been true and which had been the lie.
“Any other questions?” Redding asked.
I swallowed. I was supposed to say no. I was supposed to get up and walk out of this room, but I couldn’t. “Are you trying to replace Dean?” I asked. It was hard to look at him and not see Locke and the way she’d fixated on me.
“No. A man does not simply replace his finest work.” Redding smiled. “My turn: do you care for my son?”
“Yes.” I kept my answer short. “Why did you want me to come here?”
“Because if you’re a part of Dean’s life, you’re a part of mine.” There was something about the look in Redding’s eyes that was chilling. “Do you know what he’s done? What he is?”
I could feel Dean stiffening behind me, but I didn’t give in to the urge to turn around. “I know about Veronica Sterling. I know about Gloria, and all the others.”
That wasn’t quite true—but I let Redding think that Dean had told me everything.
“And you don’t care?” Redding said, tilting his head to one side and staring at me, into me. “You’re drawn to darkness.”
“No,” I said. “I’m drawn to Dean, and I do care, because I care about him. My turn—and you owe me two questions.”
“Ask away.”
My instincts were telling me that Briggs wouldn’t let this go on for much longer. I had to choose my questions carefully.
“How do you choose who dies?” I asked.
Redding put his palms flat on the table. “I don’t.”
He was lying. He had to be. The only connection between Trina Simms and Emerson Cole was that they both had a connection to Redding.
“I believe I owe you one more answer.”
“Fine,” I said. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Redding chuckled. “I like you,” he said. “I do.”
I waited. Give him enough rope, I thought, and he’ll hang himself.
“Something you don’t know,” Redding mused. “Okay. Let’s try this one: you will never find the man who murdered your mother.”
I couldn’t reply. I couldn’t breathe. My mouth was cotton-dry. My mother? What did he know about my mother?
“That’s enough,” Dean said sharply.
“Oh, but we’re having such a nice little chat,” Redding said. “We prisoners do a lot of that, you know. Chatting.”
He wanted me to believe that he’d heard something through the prison grapevine about what had happened to my mother. That meant that he knew who I was—or at least, knew enough about me to know that I had a mother who was missing, presumed dead.