What Are You Afraid Of? (The Agency #2)(67)

Personal connection? Carmen’s brows snapped together. What was the agent implying? That Carmen’s past was littered with friends who just happened to be serial killers?

“No,” she snapped. “I hadn’t met any of them until the actual interviews.”

Nikki held her gaze, almost as if she was judging whether Carmen was lying. Then she gave a small nod and scribbled something on her pad.

“Did any try to stay in contact after you were done with the interviews?”

Griff reached to lay his hand over Carmen’s fists, which were clenched in her lap. His touch was warm, soothing. Reminding her that Nikki wasn’t the enemy.

Carmen forced her stiff muscles to ease.

“Not that I know of,” she said. “I didn’t give any of them my personal contact information.” The original interviews had been set up while she was still in college, so she’d had all the original correspondence sent to her professor’s office.

Indifferent to Carmen’s attempt to remain reasonable, Nikki tapped her pen on the pad.

“Tell me about the killers,” she said. The words were a command, not a request.

Griff gave her fingers another squeeze, but this time Carmen was prepared for Nikki’s brusque style.

Instead of bristling, Carmen settled back in her seat and focused her mind on the men who’d become woven into the fabric of her life.

“The first was Neal Scott,” she told Nikki. “He was called the Trucker by the reporters for the obvious reason he drove a semitruck with a freezer trailer. He chose his victims from prostitutes who worked the truck stops along I-70. He would rape and kill them with a crowbar. Then he would keep the last victim hidden in his truck until he could find a new one.”

Nikki made several notes before she returned her gaze to Carmen.

“Number two?”

“The Professor,” Carmen said without hesitation. The sooner she finished with Nikki’s questions, the sooner she could learn why they’d been summoned to Chicago. She had to assume the FBI agent had a damned good reason for demanding they drive three hours to meet with her. “His real name was Dr. Franklin Hammel. He was an out-of-work English teacher in Baltimore who was obsessed with Edgar Allan Poe.”

Nikki glanced toward Griff. “You mentioned him when you sent me the pictures of the flowers in Carmen’s hotel room.”

Griff nodded. “His name was used on the credit card.”

A shudder shook through Carmen. All the men she’d interviewed had been monsters. But Franklin had truly terrified her. He had no remorse. No regret. As far as he was concerned, he was a creative genius who had the right to do whatever he wanted. And if he ever escaped from jail he wouldn’t hesitate to kill again.

“He would snatch girls from the local campuses and use them as his muse,” she said.

Nikki sent her a quick glance. “Muse?”

“He raped and beat them for inspiration.”

“Nice,” Nikki muttered.

“When they no longer satisfied his creativity, he would strangle them and leave them with copies of Poe’s stories on their chests and a bottle of cognac next to their bodies,” Carmen continued, deliberately blocking the memories of the women she’d seen in police photos. She still had nightmares.

Nikki’s fingers tightened on her pen, revealing she hadn’t been completely hardened by her job. She still reacted to the horror humans could inflict on one another. Then she gave a motion of her hand, indicating that she wanted Carmen to continue.

“Number three?”

“The Morning Star,” Carmen said, referring to him by the name she’d given him in the book. “Harlan Lord. He would hunt for his victims up and down the West Coast. He usually chose older women who reminded him of his mother.”

Nikki glanced up, her expression curious. “How old?”

Carmen understood the woman’s surprise. Most people assumed that serial killers always hunted young, beautiful women, or men, who could fulfill their sexual fantasies.

“Between forty and sixty,” Carmen said. “His mother was some sort of religious fanatic who brutalized him when he was young. He showed me scars on the bottom of his feet where she tried to burn out the demon in him.” She paused. It’d been difficult during her interview not to feel sympathy for what he’d endured. At least until she’d read the autopsy reports. He’d been a vicious killer. “So in turn, he would burn his victims on the beach at sunrise to cleanse his sins.”

Nikki jotted down more notes. “Go on.”

Carmen released a sharp sigh. She was trying to be patient. She truly was. But rehashing the crimes of men who were either dead or locked in jail didn’t seem the best use of their time.

“Wouldn’t it just be easier to read the book?” she demanded.

Nikki lifted her head, her expression impossible to interpret. “Right now I just want a brief idea of the killers and their victims.”

Carmen muttered a curse beneath her breath. She’d always thought that she was stubborn, but next to Special Agent Voros she was an amateur.

“Number four was Rob Merill, who was known as the Clown, although he wasn’t one.” Her voice was clipped. “He actually was the owner of a small carnival that traveled through the South. He never sexually assaulted the women he kidnapped, but he always shaved their heads before he would drown them in the dunking booth and dump them at a local junkyard.” She held the agent’s gaze. “He told me he wanted to humiliate them like they used to humiliate him.”