Into the Night(84)

She took a step toward the SUV. The light followed her.

“Tucker tipped his hand. The guy had always ridden my ass, but that day he just came out and said he thought I was a killer. He said that shit.”

She stared at him and took another slow step toward the SUV. You are a fucking killer.

“Knew trouble was coming,” Jonah muttered, “when he said I couldn’t empathize with the victims. Fuck, fuck, fuck. That was the one word. Shrinks always use that word. Empathize. No, I can’t empathize. I don’t feel shit for them. But I still do the job, don’t I? I still get the work done.”

Macey’s breath slid out. “That’s why you hacked the files at the FBI. You...you mimic, don’t you?” Oh, hell. That was a coping mechanism that psychopaths often used. They didn’t feel the way normal individuals did, so they just mimicked the behavior. They acted as if they got angry, as if they were hurt, as if they loved. But it was all just acting.

He hadn’t known how to act like the other agents in the team, so he’d cracked into their files so that his responses would become like theirs. She could see now. Finally.

“Asshole said I wasn’t acting right because my hands weren’t shaking. I mean, hello! I was doing what good agents do, you know? Standing calm in the face of danger. That’s how Bowen always acts!”

Another step brought her even closer to the SUV.

“But Tucker fucking Frost was standing there judging me. Saying I was off with my response. Like he can talk! The whole world knows what a screwup his brother was. But the guy...he started asking about my family. Saying I’d just stood there, waiting to watch Peter Carter kill himself, the same way I stood there and watched my family die.”

“He was wrong,” Macey said, forcing those words past lips that felt numb. It was cold out there, and she was still bleeding from so many cuts. Her body ached. Her temple throbbed. Nausea rolled in her stomach and she knew that she was staring at another monster.

“Yes.” Jonah seemed pleased. “He was wrong. He didn’t get me at all, did he? I loved my father. Was I supposed to hurt him?”

As he killed everyone else?

Maybe that was when Jonah had stopped being able to feel. Maybe he hadn’t been born without emotions. Maybe they’d just died when his family had.

“He loved me, too. Said he loved me the most. That was why he smiled right before he shot himself. Because he’d saved me.”

No, he hadn’t saved you. He just hadn’t killed you.

“Tucker was asking about my program, saying that seemed like the perfect way for our perp to find the serials.” He laughed. “On that, he was right.”

“You told me the program didn’t work,” she rasped out even as she inched closer to the SUV. As long as she kept him talking, he didn’t seem to even notice her movements.

“I lied.”

The light was still on her.

“It worked. I found Daniel. Gale Collins wasn’t the first to die in that little North Carolina town. She was just the bait I sent in for him. I found him, a doctor practicing off the grid, giving pain pills out like candy, using a new name and still slicing and dicing. I sent Gale to him. I told her it was an undercover FBI operation, but it wasn’t. She was just some hick girl who thought she was doing something big—when she was the one who was the pawn to get our game in motion.”

Another tremble rolled through her body. This one was only half faked. “She had my eyes.”

“Yes! Yes—and I knew that he would have to grab her. So I waited in town, I watched, and the instant he had her...I had him. I let him have his fun, seemed only fair, and when he was getting ready to finish her up, I snuck up behind him with my hammer. One hit. Bang. And he was down.”

She licked her busted lips. “And Gale?” Because he’d said getting ready to finish her up.

“I slit her throat. I mean, I couldn’t very well have her admitting to anyone that she knew me, could I? That would just screw everything up.”

She was close enough to the SUV. Macey spun and ran for the driver’s-side door. She yanked on it as hard as she could and it popped open.

“Macey, fuck, get away from him! The SUV will roll! Stop it!”

She fumbled inside, shoving against what was left of the air bag, grabbing for Bowen as she hung half in the vehicle.

But Jonah’s arms closed around her waist and with a loud growl, he yanked her back against him. “I’m trying to save you! It’s all been for fucking you!”

She kicked out at him, slamming back with her heels to hit his legs and throwing her head back to ram the bastard in the nose. He howled in pain, but didn’t let her go.

If anything, his hold tightened.

“I killed Haddox...for you! I knew you’d never do it on your own, and I wasn’t going to let him stay out there after what he’d done to you!”

She stilled.

“My program worked! I could find those bastards! I found Remus!”

She didn’t struggle at all. When she struggled, he just tightened his hold. When she stilled...

His hold is loosening.

“He killed his girlfriend’s stepmother,” he whispered, his breath blowing over her ear. He seemed to be hugging her now, not restraining her. “I knew it was him. And the dumbass just trotted right up here to me like a lamb to a slaughter.”