CHAPTER ONE
1564 Words
CHAPTER ONE
FBI Special Agent Camille Grace entered the cell block of the maximum security prison, her body tightening before the familiar sound of metal slamming behind her could rattle her.
She had been to prisons like this many times but that sound still chilled her every single time. It reminded her too much of her past, her youth. Of visiting her own father in a prison very much like this one.
Camille walked down the corridor, accompanied by two guards, towering over her, and tried to stay focused. The serial killer she was about to visit would pry at any weakness of hers, any distraction at all. And she needed to be on her guard. She’d nailed the bastard after all this time, and she was not going to give him any sort of upper hand here.
She couldn’t falter here. She needed answers. She had just caught this monster, the only FBI agent who was able to, after a horrific streak of killings. Her name was in newspapers right now and she hated it. She wondered if the killer was aware of this, too.
Putting him behind bars had not been enough. Even with him in custody and off of the streets, Camile was having trouble sleeping. She needed to know why. Why he had done those wretched things? It tugged at her, like a living thing, the lack of resolution of it all. The seeming meaninglessness of it all. She didn’t quite understand it, and that was foreign to her. She’d always been able to pinpoint the motivation and drive of a killer. She’d put numerous killers away in the past. But this one…this one had stumped her. And it was going to drive her crazy if she wasn’t able to dig a bit deeper.
Why is it bothering me so badly? she wondered as she made her way down the prison’s central corridor.
You know why, she told herself. This was depraved. This man is sick in a way you’ve never experienced. You want to know there’s a reason—not just that this man lost his mind. This is the first one that hasn’t made even a crumb of sense to you.
Another cell door slammed open, and the guards, as if scared, waited there, and gestured for Camille to walk in while they waited outside.
They were right to be scared, Camille thought. And they didn’t even know what he was capable of, as she did.
She entered slowly, not sure what to expect. There, sitting chained to a metal chair, smirking up at her, was Richard. Or, rather, Sir Richard, as the press had dubbed him. The most diabolical killer the nation had seen in years. Twenty women in twenty days. He was wearing white pants and a white shirt, with a white bracelet at his wrist. Even in that outfit and in the confines of a prison, he looked evil.
He smiled at her.
"Sit, Agent Grace," he said graciously, gesturing to the chair before him. "I've been expecting you."
God, he chilled her. She clenched her teeth to make sure she didn’t say anything untoward. When she did take a seat, she finally allowed herself to offer the simplest of statements. "I'm here to ask you questions."
He chuckled. "Ah, yes, questions. Questions are important. They lead to answers. It's the journey, not the end point. And I am all about the journey."
Camille frowned. There was something off about this man. His eyes had a twinkle in them, but she couldn't tell if it was madness or something else. She stared at him and hoped he was done with his little riddles, his almost pretentious way of speaking, and waited for him to speak.
"We must earn our conversations, Camille," he said. "You know, like a dance. You ask a question, and I must ask you a question. Then you have to ask me a question."
"I'm not dancing with you, Richard," she said, flatly.
"Let's talk, then. Get to know each other."
“What if I don’t want to get to know you?”
“Ah, darling, then why are you even here?” The words poured from his mouth like a song. "What we do is talk. You and I are going to talk to each other. I'm sure you have a lot of questions, and I have a lot of answers. I trust you, Agent Grace, to bear the horror of those answers. You have seen the murders I have committed. You have seen the horrors done to those poor souls. You, as a woman, know what it is to feel violated in your very own body. And you know what it is like to struggle against that violation. You know what it is like to wish with all your might to die, to have no more of this, of your own body, the one that took you.”
He was in a white prison uniform, chain-smoking a cigarette in his hand. As if he didn't already have enough to answer for.
"Do you want to know why I killed those women?" he asked her, trying to sound friendly. “That’s why you’re here, right?”
"I'm here to find out why," she said, trying to keep him on point.
He smiled again. "I'm not going to tell you, of course. But you will find out, Agent Grace. And in the end, you'll thank me. The nation thanks me."
She grimaced. "What makes you think I'll thank you for anything?"
"You will, Agent Grace," he said. His voice was low, the way it always was when he spoke to her, always seeming to know that she was vulnerable in her youth and innocence. "This is something you’re just going to have to trust me on."
"Why did you target those particular women? Were you threatened by them?"
"No, Agent Grace," he said, practically beaming at her now. "It was simply because they were so pretty. So innocent. They deserved to be immortalized. I wanted to capture their beauty forever."
"Why didn't you simply paint them then?" she asked, unable to keep her sarcasm and anger away. The paint supplies in his basement had been the talk of many articles written about him, namely because they’d never seen the fruits of the supplies. It appeared he’d been ready to paint something but had decided against it.
"Oh, I tried that," he said, "But it wasn't good enough. So I painted them in blood. And cut them up, as you know."
"Why?" she asked softly.
"Because I could," he said. "Because I was angry with them. Because I was sad. Because life is difficult. Because it made me happy. It's hard to explain, Agent Grace, but also quite simple.”
Camille felt bile rising in her throat. "You're sick," she hissed.
"That is a matter of opinion," he said with a chuckle.
He looked her up and down and she could feel his stare on her. She fought down the bile, doing her best not to lose her composure. But it was harder than she was used to. Richard was an expert at getting in the minds of women and men alike, and making them play his game.
Camille thought about that. And the more she did, the more an understanding came to her. Sir Richard wasn't only a diabolical killer. Such a label was almost dangerous. No, he was just a man. Another pathetic, weak man who had been abused as a child. She had always known that; she’d known that from early on in the case. But she had never, until this moment, realized how weak he really was.
She stood, having gotten what she came for. He’d had no real reason. The man was simply outside of his mind. It made her fear what his trial might look like. If he was released and sent to a mental institution, she’d consider it all a failure.
"We're done," she said to him.
He smiled. "Far from it, Agent Grace. As you will soon see.”
“Are you threatening me?" she asked, incredulous.
"Threatening you? Oh no, my dear," he said. "I am protecting you."
Many retorts were ready on her tongue, but she swallowed them down. Instead, she turned to the guards behind her. "I'm done here.”
She turned her back on him and although she did not see him smile, she could feel it, just as she could feel his stare. It cut through the tension of the room like a blade. She felt his gaze on her until she made it back to her car and as she thought of the fight that was likely waiting for her back home, she wasn’t really even sure she wanted to leave.
What was the point of a home if you never wanted to return to it?
It was a question that stung her in more ways than one. It pulled up the ghost-image of her father’s face—not the sort of face she wanted to see moments after speaking with Sir Richard.
After all, her father had dominated her life from afar, via memory, for long enough.
Why give him that power now?
Feeling an overwhelming sense of foreboding, Camille started the car and headed home, having a sinking feeling that she was heading right into a break-up.
- Writer
