Chilled (Bone Secrets, #2)(48)

Darrin had started to sweat. In a good way.

“Rosa died the other day and you’re not watching the residents? You don’t get up to check late-night noises? Two people from this home are dead. Don’t you think you should’ve stepped it up a little?”

Darrin had thought his spine would melt. Kinton had been physically pumping testosterone into the air. Darrin had sniffed and dropped his gaze. “I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

“Thinking is what you’re paid to do! These people need extra attention,” the man had said with clenched teeth.

Darrin had squeezed his eyes shut, afraid he wouldn’t project the right level of sorrow. He’d been luxuriating in the hot rush. The whole confrontation had turned into an emotional heat wave Darrin had never experienced before.

Darrin had an empty chasm deep inside him. He felt nothing. All the time. Other people were born with something in their brains that Darrin was missing. An important chemical or hormone or synapse. Even as a child, he’d known something was wrong.

The antidote had appeared the first time he’d watched his young cousin die. He been in the pool with her and simply watched. The rush that’d rolled over him as her last breaths left her lungs had addicted him. He’d sought more from other victims over the years, needing his fix, feeding hungrily on their terror as he physically squeezed out their life’s essence. But Alex Kinton was giving him the same dizzying rush in his brain and Darrin hadn’t laid a hand on him.

“I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. Maybe if I hadn’t been so tired your brother would still be alive.” He’d slowly let his eyes open, gradually dragging his gaze up from the floor, aching for the next reaction.

All color had rocketed out of Alex’s face, and his bloodless lips clamped together. His eyelids had widened the tiniest bit, and Darrin had held his breath. Alex had looked ready to collapse. Instead, the agent had turned, made tracks down the hallway, and strode out the front door. Pushing past two residents, Darrin had darted to watch from the living room window. Outside in the hot sun, Alex had leaned on his palms on the hood of his truck and stared down at the asphalt between his arms. He’d looked like a man resting from a hard run or someone waiting to vomit. He didn’t move as Darrin had slowly counted to ten.

Then Alex had abruptly straightened and taken a hard look at the group home over his shoulder. Darrin had darted one step to the right, hiding behind the curtain. Had Kinton seen him staring? Kinton’s gaze had slid to the gate to the backyard and pool of the house next door and his shoulders sagged. With a rough yank, he’d opened his truck door, climbed in, and left.

Darrin had exhaled, suddenly exhausted.

Alex Kinton had just led him on a roller coaster of adrenaline that rivaled Space Mountain. No, better than that. Faster, higher. And Darrin wanted another ride.

He’d figured surely Alex would be back soon.

Instead, Alex had returned and snatched Darrin’s discarded cigarette butt for DNA.

Darrin hadn’t left any DNA with Samuel or Rosa. But he had with Kimberly Brock, Susan Mannon, Claire Hines, and others. He’d known it was virtually impossible to avoid leaving DNA behind. He tried his best. He’d always figured the best way to protect himself was not let himself be tested, therefore avoiding any connections. Thanks to a computer database and a cigarette, suddenly he’d been linked to several of his victims.

So simple. He’d been brought down by evidence any CSI television show addict could have spotted. How had he been so stupid? Twenty years he’d slipped away from the police and then was brought down by something so trivial.

Him and Al Capone.

The day Darrin had been arrested had started like any other normal day. Until the swarm of police that showed up before breakfast. Alex had been there. Silent and watching. Staying back out of the cops’ way under the tree by the driveway.

Darrin had winked at Alex as the police pulled him down the driveway in handcuffs.

At least Alex had visited him in prison. It’d been Darrin’s idea. He’d reached out to the marshal, hinted that meeting with him in prison could be of benefit to other victims’ families. Alex had come, probably hoping that one day Darrin would confess to killing Samuel. Thanks to modern technology, he’d been linked to a lot of his crimes. But there’d been others the police didn’t know about. To keep Alex coming back he’d given names, dates, and locations, which Alex passed on to detectives. But never more than one tidbit a visit.

Alex had hounded Darrin, who soaked up every minute of it, getting off on the agent’s ragged grief and anger. In a way Darrin became Alex’s private therapist. Darrin wanted to know what made Alex tick. So he’d made Alex speak, telling Darrin about every shitty thing in his life in exchange for facts on Darrin’s victims. Now Darrin knew how it hurt to grow up with a retarded brother. Darrin knew about the selfish wife who made Alex choose between her and his brother. Darrin knew all too well about Alex’s * of a boss.

Quid pro quo.

He’d visit every few months. Sometimes every month. Each visit he seemed thinner and paler than the last. Like something was eating him from the inside out.

Alex had only crumbs of information to show for all the meat he’d sliced off his psyche and handed to Darrin. Alex’s visiting days were Darrin’s best prison days. He’d live for weeks off the buzz from being in the man’s potent presence.