“You’ll be meeting Ingram in the room on death row we reserve for meetings with lawyers and family,” the guard said. “With such dangerous prisoners, we don’t bring them to the usual visiting rooms.”
It seemed like a sensible precaution to Paige, but it also meant that she and Christopher had to go far deeper into the prison, walking along halls lined with cells. Paige could feel the eyes of the prisoners on her as she went.
“Hey, pretty girl! You here for some fun?”
It reminded her far too much of her time in the institution, with that familiar feeling of very dangerous people looking at her like she was a potential target. It was a frightening sensation, especially now that Paige had seen exactly how dangerous the attentions of someone like that could be thanks to Adam Riker. He’d fixated on her, escaped from the institution that held him, then targeted people from Paige’s life he thought had wronged her, all building up to the moment when he tried to force her to kill her own mother.
At the same time, though, Paige knew that she had to be tougher about this. Christopher didn’t seem to have a problem walking through this place, and nor did the guard leading them.
Paige kept her eyes forward and kept walking, trying to make herself look as little like prey to these violent men as possible.
They headed deeper into the prison, past the general wings, into a space that was smaller and quieter, but which instantly felt more oppressive. Paige knew instantly that they were on death row now. She would have known it just from the looks of the orange-jumpsuitwearing prisoners there. They were a whole order of danger greater than those of the prisoners in the rest of the prison. They were the expressions of men who had nothing left to lose, and so no reason to hold back from any violence that they wanted.
“Don’t go near the bars,” the guard with them said.
“They like to attack if you get too close?” Christopher asked.
Paige saw her nod, and wondered what it had to be like, working every day in a place where she might be attacked or even killed. Then again, Paige was planning to join the FBI, and she had no illusions about that keeping her safe.
“We search the cells regularly, and we find improvised weapons far too often,” Nadia said.
The guard led them through to an interview room in the same drab gray as the rest of the place. There was a camera on one wall, and a table in the middle with a screen set halfway down it. There were chairs on either side, while metal brackets on the table were obviously designed to allow a prisoner to be handcuffed in place.
“Wait here,” the guard said. “Don’t leave this room without me. It won’t be safe.”
Paige sat, waiting with Christopher on the far side of the screen. It meant that she got a good view of the door as Lars Ingram came in, led by the guard.
He was a little over six feet tall, with a face that was lined and worn from his time in custody. His hair was cropped short, revealing scars on one side of his face. His large frame seemed almost slumped in on itself as he walked, but Paige wasn’t fooled by that. She could see the anger lurking in his expression as he looked over at her and Christopher. She suspected that the slumped look was a way to lure people in closer, getting where he wanted to be in order to do damage.
The guard sat him down and cuffed his hands to the table. He looked over at Paige and Christopher but didn’t say anything.
“Lars Ingram, I’m Agent Marriott, and this is Ms. King,” Christopher said, in a formal, professional tone. “We’d like to ask you some questions.”
He gave a kind of grunt before he answered, as if the whole thing were an effort for him. “About what?”
“There have been two murders in the last few days,” Christopher said.
“And why should I care?” Ingram demanded.
“Because those murders have stolen your MO,” Paige said. “Someone is copying you, Lars.”
She used his first name deliberately, trying to establish a connection, however small.
He shrugged then. “If you’re here looking for suspects, I have a pretty good alibi.”
It was obviously a joke, but there was nothing funny about him in that moment. He was looking at Paige with contempt, but also with something far more dangerous. Paige knew that look: it was the expression of someone looking her over like he was determining what kind of a target she would make.
“We’re not here for you, Lars,” Paige said. “We want to find who’s copying you.”
This time, the look was almost pure disdain.
“And why should I care about that? You going to offer me a pardon if I help you? A stay of execution? You know what I’m facing tomorrow, right?”
Christopher shook his head. “We don’t have the authority to offer you anything.”
“Then why should I talk to you?” Ingram demanded. “Why shouldn’t I just go back to my cell and think about what I’m having for my last meal?”
Paige caught the moment when Christopher looked over at her. He was obviously hoping that she would be able to find a way to get Ingram to talk. That was the reason that she was here, after all: to get inside the heads of serial killers. If she couldn’t do that, here, then was she really going to be able to help find the man who’d done this?