should have been reassuring, but it wasn’t. Instead, the silence felt like the pregnant pause in a horror movie, right before the chain saw–wielding villain springs out.
I closed the file and stood, leaning over and gathering each folder into place, then stacking them all in the middle of my desk. Moving my mouse, I disrupted the screen saver, then shut down my computer.
I needed to get home and, for the rest of the evening, try not to think about death.
CHAPTER 31
Robert’s door was ajar, his attention on his monitor, and I rapped my knuckles lightly against the wood, then ventured a step in. “Hey.”
He looked up and raised his eyebrows, surprised. “Hey. Come on in. You could have just called me back.”
“I was in the area. My tailor is three blocks down.”
“Frank and Pat?”
I smiled. “Yeah. Best needles in Los Angeles.”
He gestured to the chairs before his desk. “Please, sit. I just wanted to talk about your profile.”
I took the left seat and glanced over at the goldfish. Still alive. “Sure.”
“It’s great work. Good stuff.”
I sighed. “But?”
He tented his hands before his face and studied me. “It feels like you’re holding something back. What is it?”
Damn attorneys. The good ones were way too good at reading between the lines and finding holes. I had barely had the chance for my new theories to solidify in my mind and wasn’t ready to present or defend them. Not yet, and not before talking to Randall Thompson. I cleared my throat and evaded the question. “I’m holding something back?” I countered. “What are you holding back?”
He ignored the response. “Tell me who this psychological profile fits.”
“I don’t know,” I said exasperatedly. “I haven’t interviewed Randall yet.”
“Fuck Randall.”
The harsh verb caused me to flinch.
“Who else?” He stared me down as if I were the one on the stand. “Does it fit any of your clients?”
“Is that why you hired me? For access to my clients?”
“Answer the question, Gwen.”
“No,” I sputtered. “This profile isn’t like any of my clients.” I said it without going through my roster, because SCREW HIM. It wouldn’t matter if one of my clients was an identical match to this profile. I paused. I couldn’t say in good faith that I wouldn’t tell someone, because I would. But I’d go to the police. I’d tell Detective Saxe, not this prick. “You know what?” I rose from my seat and snatched my purse off the floor. “I’m done here. I don’t have time to play games.”
“He killed my son.”
And just like that, with those four cracked words, my anger deflated. He was allowed to play games. He was allowed to get dirty. Someone had stolen his son, raped him of his innocence, dry drowned him, then dropped his body in a drainage ditch behind a recycling plant. Who was I to be mad at him for something, anything, that he did in an attempt to catch his son’s killer?
“What aren’t you telling me?” he asked tightly.
I turned back to face him. “It’s just a theory,” I managed.
“About the killer?”
I gripped the top of the leather chair. “Yes.”
“Tell me.”
I sighed. “It’s not confirmed, and needs some research. A private investigator would help. And I need to speak with Randall. Multiple times, if possible. I could share my ideas with you now, but it’ll only be a distraction. What’s in my report is more solid. Much more solid.”
I met his eyes, and the pain in them was raw and flaring. It’d only been nine months since he had buried his son. Too soon.
“It could be wrong,” I pointed out quietly.
“Just tell me,” he bit out.
“There are contrasting actions on the part of the killer. He hurts them and then puts salve on their wounds. Tortures them but feeds them well. His actions show dramatic swings in his compassion levels. Some actions are almost loving, then you have the barbaric act of removing their genitalia.”
I inhaled, prepared for ridicule the moment my next words came out. “It’s possible that the swings are consistent with someone with either paranoid schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder.”
Robert looked down at the printed profile before him and let out a quiet snort. It wasn’t quite a laugh, but it wasn’t the intelligent reception of the idea that I was hoping for.
“Like I said,” I told him stiffly, “it’s not something I could stand by in court.”
“But you believe it. If your child was the one who had died, you would pursue this path of thinking?” He looked back up at