The Inquisitor

by Gayle Wilson

  She wouldn’t draw every masculine eye, he acknowledged, but she’d find her share of admirers. The bone structure underlying that clear olive skin was too anatomically perfect not to attract attention. The discriminating would recognize it would be just that perfect when she was eighty.

  And you’ve always considered yourself discriminating.

  The image he’d been studying was suddenly replaced by an advertisement for a local car dealer. Sean punched the button, shutting off the television, before tossing the remote down on the bed.

  He walked across his motel room toward its wall of glass, where he pushed aside the draperies to look out onto the interstate that paralleled the wide right-of-way just across the parking lot. The scene he encountered was depressingly winter-dreary, although the climate was generally mild.

  The weather would make the killer’s hunting easier. More people outdoors than in the northern cities. Not that the bastard ever seemed to have a problem finding victims.

  Maybe what Dr. Kincaid said was right. Maybe he was so charming the women made it easy for him.

  He would have had to be something special to charm Makaela. His sister had been nobody’s fool. And unfortunately she’d had a lot of experience with phonies.

  Apparently not enough to see through whatever ploy her murderer had used to persuade her to go with him.

  Sean put his palm against the glass, using its coldness to fight the fury that flooded his brain whenever he thought of the things that had been done to his sister. They could still bring him wide awake, sweat pouring off his body, as he struggled against the nightmare images of what she’d suffered.

  The press in Detroit were the ones who’d christened her murderer “the Inquisitor,” a name horrifyingly appropriate. Too soon the people in this town would learn what the others had about the maniac in their midst.

  Unless the bodies were too decomposed to make them obvious, as the first two here had been, most law enforcement agencies now recognized those signature mutilations. The special agent on the FBI’s task force, the one who’d put Sean onto the Birmingham murders, had recognized them as soon as he’d read the description of the last victim.

  Now that the locals had connected the three, they would be forced to take the next step and admit that these killings were part of a series, which, through the efforts of the Bureau, had been linked and credited to one man.

  An unimaginably cruel and sadistic madman.

  The cops here would add whatever information they had managed to uncover to the profile that was slowly, but relentlessly, being built. And when it was complete…

  Sean’s hand closed into a fist that he slammed into the glass. The window shuddered in its frame, although the blow had not been particularly hard. It hadn’t been done in anger. It had been measured. Like a gavel pounded against a judge’s bench. Or a hammer driving a nail.

  The last one in your coffin, you bastard. And as God is my witness, I’ll be the one who’ll put it there.

  Long after the television screen had gone dark, he couldn’t get the psychologist out of his mind. After a while, he stopped trying, allowing her image to fill his head.

  She’d been so perfect he had wondered—briefly—if the cops had put her up to that interview. After mentally reviewing the clip, something he was able to do with almost complete fidelity, as if he were watching a replay, he decided that what he’d seen hadn’t been a performance.

  Her slight hesitancy and the care with which she’d worded her opinions made him believe she had really been speaking off the cuff. The expression on her face, although quickly controlled, had made it obvious that the reporter’s question about the murders had caught her off guard.

  That’s what you get for trusting the media, my dear.

  He smiled as he raised the wine he’d bought on his way home in a semitoast before he brought the glass to his lips. He grimaced slightly at the taste before setting it back on the coffee table.

  He had thought the merlot would make the evening more enjoyable, easing his disappointment about how quickly the locals had tied these three victims together. Now that they had, he knew it would be only a matter of hours before they made the connection to the others.

  His intent was always to break the pattern so that wouldn’t happen. But if he were able to succeed in that, then what would be the point of the entire exercise? Old habits die hard, he admitted with a smile.

  As some of them had, fighting the sweet release of death until the very end.

  At that thought, somewhere deep inside his body was a wave of sexual pleasure, so sharp, so pure, it literally stole his breath. He closed his eyes, allowing himself to relish both the feeling and the memories that had provoked it.

  Instead of the faces of the women whose suffering at his hands had induced that remembrance, the image of Jenna Kincaid clutching her coat against the cruel invasion of the cold as she wept for the child he had been again formed behind his lids.

  They’re helpless to prevent what is being done to them, often by the very people who should be their protectors.

  It was rare that someone was able to articulate so clearly, so precisely, the nature of the injustice he’d suffered. That she had done so without knowing anything about him.

  She was obviously someone of value. Someone he should get to know. Someone he should allow to know him.

  Not like the others, of course. She was above all that. Just as he would be when he was with her.

  She, unlike the rest, understood what drove him. Interacting with someone who could comprehend that on an intellectual level was a luxury he hadn’t allowed himself in a very long time.

  Simply another kind of indulgence, perhaps, but one whose time had definitely come.

  Two

  The sound of her door being flung open brought Jenna’s eyes up. The secretary she shared with three other therapists was aware that she used the last ten minutes of the hour to make notes on the session that had just ended. Why she would interrupt—

  Except it wasn’t Sheila. Not just Sheila, she amended. Her secretary was looking at her over the broad shoulders of the man who seemed to fill the opening.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Kincaid,” she said. “I tried to tell him—”

  “We need to talk.”

  The intruder offered no apology for the interruption. The curt sentence had been more of a command than a request. Whatever his problem—and Jenna wasn’t using that terminology in the sense of something that needed treatment—she didn’t have the time or the inclination to deal with it today.

  “I’m sorry. You’ll need to make an appointment—”

  “How much?”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “How much is it going to cost to talk to you? What I have to say won’t take an hour, but I’m willing to pay for one if that’s what it will take to get you to listen.”

  As if to prove his point, he took his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans. Behind him, Sheila pantomimed dialing and then bringing a phone to her ear, brows raised in inquiry.

  Jenna shook her head, the movement slight enough that she hoped it wouldn’t be noticed by the man now in the process of opening his billfold. She was unwilling to call the police until she knew more about what was going on.

  The guy didn’t look deranged. Actually…

  Actually he looked pretty normal, if you thought normal was six-foot-something of solid muscle enclosed in black chamois and denim. He was carrying nothing in his hands, and the worn jeans hugged his narrow hips too tightly to conceal a weapon. He was also clean-shaven, although there was a hint of a five o’clock shadow on the lean cheeks.

  The black hair was so closely cropped it couldn’t possibly become disarranged, which might have given her some indication of his mental state. The fact that it had so recently been trimmed seemed a point in his favor. People who had really “lost it” weren’t usually concerned with personal grooming.

  His eyes, however, were the most compelling argument
that there was nothing seriously out of whack in his psyche. They were a clear, piercing blue, the color startling against his tanned skin and ebony hair.

  And right now they were focused on her face as he calmly waited for her answer, wallet open, long, dark fingers poised to pluck from it whatever amount she named. Still evaluating him, as she would any patient, Jenna noticed that his nails were neatly trimmed, the hands themselves completely masculine, fingers square despite their length.

  “Hundred and fifty?” he asked. “That do it?”

  She blinked, breaking the spell he had cast. “I’m sorry. I’m completely booked this afternoon, as I’m sure my secretary told you. If this is an emergency, I can try to work you in early tomorrow—”

  “Lady, I’m here in an attempt to save your life. And I’m even willing to pay for the opportunity. All you have to do is tell me how much.”

  He strode across the room, stopping when he reached her desk. Her gaze had followed him, her chin automatically lifting as he approached, until she was looking up into those ice-blue eyes.

  Above the right, a dark brow arched. “One seventy-five? Two hundred? Obviously I’m not up on the going rate for…therapy.”

  Jenna’s lips were still parted from her uncompleted sentence. Despite the obvious sarcasm, she closed them, glancing back at Sheila with a slight shake of her head to indicate she was willing to see him.

  The secretary’s mouth opened, probably to protest the decision, but then she snapped it shut. She reached for the knob of the door, pulling it closed behind her as she returned to her office.

  Jenna wasn’t sure Sheila still wouldn’t place that call to the police, despite the fact it had been vetoed. She also wasn’t sure she wouldn’t be relieved if she did.

  She looked back at the man who had invaded her office and now seemed to fill it. He, too, had watched the secretary’s departure. He turned back as Jenna refocused on his face. There was something in his gaze that looked like approval.

  Because she’d been crazy enough to let him stay?

  Or maybe he was pleased at the ease with which he’d gotten his way. Something he seemed far too accustomed to doing.

  “You can put your money away, Mr….?”

  “Murphy. Sean Murphy.”

  Although she waited, he didn’t offer to elaborate on the information, so she went back to the salient part of what he’d told her. “You said you’re here in an attempt to ‘save my life.’ I’m not sure what that means, but given how serious it sounds, I’m willing to listen. You have…” She glanced at her watch to make her point. “Exactly ten minutes before my next appointment.”

  He held her eyes, maybe assessing how serious she was about the timeframe she’d just given him. After a few seconds, he closed his wallet. He struggled to push it back into his pocket, verifying her initial assessment about the tightness of his jeans.

  Now, if only she’d been equally correct in gauging his mental state…

  “I saw your interview yesterday.”

  Something shifted in the bottom of Jenna’s stomach, cold and hard and a little frightening. She swallowed, determined not to display any outward sign of that sudden anxiety.

  “The one on holiday stress?”

  “Must have missed that part. What I saw was you giving your professional opinion about the man who killed three women here.”

  “I tried to make it clear to the reporter that serial killers don’t fall within my area of expertise—” she began, choosing her words with care.

  “What you made clear, Dr. Kincaid, was that you thought the poor, mistreated son of a bitch just couldn’t help himself.”

  The apprehension Jenna had felt was suddenly replaced by anger, most of it self-directed. She had known she should have cut the reporter off when he’d started that line of questioning. Instead, she’d been too conscious of the public-relations aspect of the interview. If she’d seemed uncooperative, that might well have been the only part of the segment to be aired.

  And what if it were?

  Of course, it was easy to sit here now, without the red light of the camera focused on her face, and know what she should have done. She’d made a mistake, but she didn’t deserve to be chastised for it by someone who obviously had his own agenda.

  “I never said that. I never said anything like that.”

  “Close enough. And as a psychologist, you had to know he’d feed off your remarks.”

  She had thought something similar yesterday. Not that the killer would “feed off” her comment about sociopaths being the products of abuse, but that he would delight in hearing anyone talk about the murders. Just as he would relish the increased terror that kind of interview would bring within the community.

  “He’s already feeding off the media frenzy,” she said, refusing to allow this jackass to intimidate her. “I doubt anything I said yesterday is going to add to his enjoyment.”

  Since the police had announced the connection between the homicides, not only had the local media been all over the story, the twenty-four-hour cable news stations were carrying it as well. It seemed that the killer had now been linked to several murders in other parts of the country.

  Jenna hadn’t had time to do more than glance at the lead story in the morning paper. That had been enough to let her know this was going to remain at the top of the front page until this killer was caught. Or until things got so hot for him here that he moved on to another location.

  Which was essentially all she’d said yesterday, she reiterated mentally. Actually, there was nothing she’d said that wasn’t completely accurate.

  She had talked about the interview to Paul Carlisle, the founder of the practice, as soon as she’d gotten to work. That’s when she’d discovered that the station had replayed the part about the murderer on both the late-night news and again this morning, although they hadn’t bothered to repeat the rest of the interview.

  Maybe Sean Murphy had seen one of those broadcasts. In any case, there was nothing she needed to apologize for, she decided. No matter what he thought.

  “You really don’t have a clue, do you?”

  “I’m sorry?” Her voice rose on the last word.

  “You tell someone who likes torturing women that he’s just some poor abused kid who isn’t responsible for what he’s done—”

  “I never said that. I never said anything like that.”

  “Yeah? Well, you can bet that’s what he heard.”

  “And who made you the expert on what he heard?”

  “A long and intimate acquaintance.”

  Her analytical mind took over, replaying his words. “Are you saying…you know him? You know who he is?”

  “I know what he is. And I know what he does. Apparently a lot better method of ‘knowing’ him than whatever crap you were spouting.”

  Jenna stood so abruptly that her desk chair rolled back and hit the wall behind her. “We’re through here.”

  She reached across the desk to punch the button on the intercom. If he didn’t leave, she’d tell her secretary to do what she had wanted to when he’d first barged in.

  “You’re exactly his type, you know.”

  Startled by the change in tone, Jenna looked up, her finger stopped in midair. There was no longer any trace of approval in his eyes. They were cold. And very angry.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “You can look it up when the locals finally get their act together. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Tall. Slender. And not a prostitute or a waitress among them.”

  The trepidation she’d felt when he said he’d come to save her life stirred in her stomach again. Today’s front page had featured pictures of the local victims. And the description he’d just given fit them all.

  “I don’t know that he’s ever done a psychologist,” Sean Murphy went on, seeming to relish the impact his words were having, “but I’ve got a feeling he’d be interested.”

  “In me? Are you suggesting that the killer would be in
terested in me?”

  “Since you’re out there telling the world what a poor, misunderstood bastard he is.”

  She didn’t bother to refute the accusation again. He had decided that’s what she’d said. There was probably nothing she could do to dissuade him from his perception.

  And what if he’s right? What if that’s what the killer heard, too?

  Which would be a hell of an assumption. First, that the murderer had even heard the interview. And second, that he’d misinterpreted her words exactly as this arrogant SOB had.

  “Thank you for your concern,” she said, working to keep any emotion out of the conventional words. It was obvious Sean Murphy had come here to frighten her. She wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d succeeded.

  As soon as he was out of here, she would call the police and tell them what he’d said. That business about having a long and intimate acquaintance with the killer would probably be of interest to them.

  “Believe me, Dr. Kincaid, concern for you isn’t what brought me. Since you didn’t seem to have any idea what you’d done, however, I did feel a certain moral obligation to warn you.”

  “Then consider that your ‘moral obligation’ has been fulfilled. I assure you I feel duly warned.”

  As she said the last, she again reached for the intercom button, hoping he’d take that as a hint that they were done. Instead of turning toward the door as she’d hoped, he stood there, directly across from her desk, his eyes once more assessing.

  “He’s smart,” he said as if she hadn’t spoken. “And he’ll be in no hurry. He never is. A couple of months. Maybe more. Actually, it could be any time. Any time he chooses.”

  “Thank you.” She held his eyes without letting her own reveal any reaction to the threat. And she now had no doubt that’s what it was. “I’ll be sure to remember that.”

  For the first time a tilt at the corners disturbed the thin line of his lips. The smile seemed to soften the spare planes of his face, although it held not one iota of amusement.