Latent Danger (On the Line #2)(53)

“I’m ready to talk.” She didn’t look at all like the helpless girl they’d last seen in their station. There wasn’t a hint of vulnerability to her now.

In fact, she was grinning at Zach when he walked in the door.

Zach sat across from her and re-read the Miranda warning, getting it on video.

“Ms. Gordon, I’m going to recommend, once again, that you don’t say anything right now until we’ve had a chance to speak with a doctor about your state of mind.” The lawyer was likely just making sure his performance was on the video in case she tried to say he didn’t do his job later. He also seemed to be setting the stage for an insanity plea. Zach would have a few things to say about that.

Apparently, Liz didn’t plan to heed her lawyer’s advice. She leaned toward Zach across the table. “It was brilliant, wasn’t it? Connecting their bodies to the old killings? I debated for a while about posing them in just the same way, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. They would have looked too peaceful. They didn’t deserve that.”

Most likely, the lawyer was pissing in his pants at letting them talk to her without her parents present, but he didn’t have a choice. In this situation, she only had to be seventeen for them to question her without a parent. Since her parents had informed them they wouldn’t be back for several days, Zach wasn’t about to wait for them to wander their way back into the country.

Zach cocked his head. “What did they deserve, Liz?”

Her eyes blazed with what he had come to recognize as pure hatred. Pure unadulterated rage. But then she seemed to be able to cool the rage and put on the false face she showed the world.

She was a hell of an actress. “They deserved to be taken down off the pedestal this world has put them on. To be shown that underneath it all, they’re just the same as every one of us.”

She tipped her chin in pride. “I did that and more. They were humiliated in death. I did that. Me.”

The lawyer cut in. “Liz, I really must stress that you should—”

“No, thank you,” she said, almost sweetly to the man, whose jaw dropped in response. Maybe someone had forgotten to tell him his client was bat shit crazy.

Zach had her. He had what he needed on video to convict her, but he wanted more. He wanted all the details, all the reasons. He was experienced enough to know you didn’t always get that. Sometimes, you didn’t get reasons and answers. But, damn, he wanted them this time.

“Was Candice on a pedestal?” Zach wanted to understand what made her choose her victims. Was it simply that they were there in Sawyer’s clubhouse or was there something more to it?

Liz shook her head. “No, Candice was just my way of making sure Sawyer didn’t get to take the credit for my work. I knew you were watching him, so you’d know he couldn’t be responsible for her. I couldn’t grab anyone at Elmhurst. There were too many people watching there.”

“Why Candice?”

“Wrong place, wrong time. She was walking home, there was no one around. I pulled my car over and pretended I needed help.”

“You used Rohypnol on her.” Zach put the information out there and waited to see what she’d say.

“Yeah, I had to buy something since Sawyer wasn’t around for that part of it. I found someone to sell me the drugs, but he could get Rohypnol and Ketamine, but not GHB.”

Zach nodded. “Why did you beat her after you killed her?”

Dead eyes flashed and she gave the smallest hint of a shrug. “Why not?”

That was the thing about her, he realized. So much of what she was saying had a why not quality to it and he was struck by how little she seemed to care—or maybe even grasp—what she had done.

He wanted to know why she’d gone after Shauna. What she’d planned to do with her.

As if reading his mind, she switched gears. “Where’s your girlfriend?”

Zach didn’t bat an eye. He’d worked like hell over the years to contain his anger in the interrogation room. He never let it come in here with him. If it showed up uninvited, he sent it packing, plain and simple. She wouldn’t get to him.

He let her see a frown on his face. “Let’s talk about you. How long have you known your uncle was a killer?”

Eyes dancing, she leaned in and pouted. “Oh no. Was she under that chimney when it came down? We could hear it outside, you know. Hell of a racket.” She laughed now. “I couldn’t have planned that better if I tried. What made it come down?”

Zach calculated in his head. He’d give her a little information, play her game. “The pulley anchored in the top of it.”

“Damn. That was handy.” She spoke like she might be going back to the house someday. She was evil. Pure and simple.

“Tell me about your uncle.”

She sat back with a sigh. “Uncle Herschel is legendary in my family. Although I didn’t know for a long time that he was a killer. I suspect my mother doesn’t know either.”

Zach waited. He could tell she was warming up for a story.

She didn’t disappoint. “He was always off. That’s how they put it. Off. I was never really sure what that meant. Then I heard my dad talking to my grandfather one day about four years ago. My grandfather was dying.” She rolled her eyes. “God, how he smelled. They brought him home to stay with us for those last months instead of leaving him at the nursing home and the whole house stunk like that minty crap old people rub into their skin. That and shit. He couldn’t stop shitting his pants.”