Laura frowned at him. “What makes sense?” Given that she was looking for someone that she knew was directly targeting her, his words made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Was this his plan all along? To get her to arrest him again, for some sick reason?
“Well, I heard about the murders,” Dockhand said. His tone was humble and quiet, his eyes landing somewhere on the table rather than meeting hers. “I knew they would be looking into offenders. That’s what happens whenever there’s something like this. They come knocking on your door.”
“Sex offenders,” Laura pointed out. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it, Brock? Men who have been violent towards women.”
“Yeah.” He cast his eyes further down for a moment, as if ashamed. Laura wasn’t buying it.
“But why does my involvement have anything to do with you being calm?” Laura asked. She wanted to needle him, to goad him into saying something he shouldn’t. “I’ve taken you down once before. You don’t believe I can do it again?”
“Oh, I believe it,” Dockhand said, with a wry smile that quickly faded. “But I didn’t do anything this time. And it makes sense. You hear about these murders, you see that I’m here—I don’t blame you. I would bring me in for questioning, too.”
“So you admit that you look guilty?” Laura asked. She was determined not to give in to him. She was rolling with what he was saying, trying to find a way to twist it against him. She needed to, if she was going to get a confession out of him.
“Well, I guess.” Dockhand shrugged. “I’m not, though. Like I said. I’m not… like that anymore. I don’t do things to other people.”
“You don’t?” Laura asked, giving him a look that told him he wasn’t believed. “How convenient that is. And we’re expected to, what? Just go by your word?”
“I know it’s a big ask, but I’m really not that way,” Dockhand said. Even as his tone became pleading, his body language stayed quiet. His shoulders were slumped, his hands loose on the table. He hadn’t formed them into fists or taken on any tension. “I’m just trying to live this quiet, peaceful life now. Not getting into any trouble. Keeping to myself. Really. I want to be a better person than I was.”
Laura stared at him for a long moment, assessing. His face was open. He didn’t glance up at her slyly to see if she was buying it. He just kept his eyes on the table. Sad eyes. Not afraid or angry or defensive. Just sad.
Sad that he’d been caught?
“Where were you last night?” Laura asked, switching tactics. They could get to the bottom of this easily. Either he had an alibi, or he was guilty.
“I was at home.” Dockhand paused, looking at his own hands. He moved them slightly, picking at a bit of loose skin on his thumb. Was that a tell? “On my own.”
“Not really an alibi, is it?” Nate spoke up for the first time, grunting.
“Not an alibi at all,” Laura said, her voice hard. “And the night before last?”
“I was watching TV on my own, at home, every night this week,” Dockhand said, taking care of her next question as well. “I know. It’s not proof. But I live alone and I’m not going out after work. I’m sober and I don’t want to get into anything again. I just… ask me about what I’ve been watching. Go on. I can tell you anything you need to know. Or—you can access my viewing records, right? See what I’ve streamed?”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Nate told him. “You could have set it up to run and then left home, and got back before you ever needed to press another button.”
Dockhand sighed. Miserable, not impatient or angry. “All right. But that’s where I was and what I was doing. I swear.”
“Do you hate me?” Laura snapped. “Is that what this is? I put you away for years. You must have missed so much. Do you want to hurt me with this?”
Dockhand blinked at her. “No,” he said. “I haven’t even thought about you for years.”
Laura sat back in her chair, studying him. He didn’t look up at her. He looked, strangely, contrite. But that could easily be an act. She’d come across psychos before now that were able to pretend convincingly enough.
But this one… she wasn’t so sure. He was totally different from how she remembered. He had been hot-headed back then, always ready to scream abuse and insults at anyone who crossed him. But a coward, otherwise. And now he was so meek, so quiet, just sitting there and accepting the accusations as if they didn’t matter.
The only reason Laura could think of for a man to act that way would be if he truly was innocent. Even if he was supremely confident that he wouldn’t be caught, Laura would have expected arrogance, flippancy, not calm and quiet.
She wanted it to be him. She wanted it badly. If it was him, then their work was done. They’d caught the killer, brought him off the streets, prevented any more women from being murdered. But just because she wanted a thing to be true didn’t make it so. One of the key tenets of being a good FBI agent was to keep your mind open, to avoid hemming yourself in to one theory. If you blinded yourself, you wouldn’t be able to see the truth.
Was that what was happening here? Laura knew she hadn’t had any new visions, even when she’d touched him to put the cuffs on. Sitting here opposite him now, she felt nothing. Did that mean that he wasn’t the killer? That she was touching the wrong things, putting herself in the path of the wrong people?
Of course, it could just have meant that they did have the right guy. No more visions because there were no more killings to come. It was over.
On the other hand, it could mean that she was now so far off base with her guess at who the killer was, that she had undone all of her earlier work and put herself at too much of a distance for a vision to come.
There was only one thing Laura knew for certain. They couldn’t let him go until they were sure he was innocent. Which meant that they were only just getting started with the mind games.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE