Paige took her best shot, trying to work out what drove this man, and what he would react to.
“Are you happy that someone is copying you, Lars?” Paige asked, trying to play on his pride. “You killed in a way that was special to you, that meant something to you, yet here is someone else stealing that from you, sullying your work with their own.”
It was a shot in the dark, but Paige thought that perhaps it might work. Some killers were proud of their work to the extent that they might consider anyone who tried to copy it a threat to their legacy. They wanted to be unique.
The shot didn’t land, though. Paige could see that it didn’t, because Ingram just shrugged.
“It doesn’t matter to me if someone else copies me. It’s kind of flattering,” Ingram said. “Maybe I should be happy that someone wants to do things my way. Stop wasting my time.”
Paige swallowed, trying to think of another approach to try. She looked over at Christopher in case he wanted to take over, but he just gave her an encouraging look. Paige went again.
“You’ve talked about how little time you have left a couple of times now,” she said. “Just one more day. And what have you actually achieved in your life? All you’ve done is evil. This is your last chance to do something good. Something worthwhile.”
For a second or two, Ingram was silent. The silence just deepened, and Paige thought that maybe, just maybe she’d managed to get through to him.
Then Ingram laughed.
“Is that all you’ve got? You think I feel guilty? Every single one of those bitches was asking for it. The only regret I have is that I didn’t get more of them. Guard! Take me back to my cell!”
“Wait, we’re not done here,” Paige said.
“Yes, we are,” Ingram said. The guard came forward, unlocking him from the table. He stood. “You know what? A guy wants to keep killing, good for him.”
He headed for the door, and the only thing Paige felt then was a yawning chasm of emptiness. Christopher had been relying on her to find a way to get through to Ingram, but she’d just run straight into a brick wall. She’d failed. All she could do was watch as the guard took Ingram away, ready to return him to his cell.
She wanted to be able to call out after him in that moment, to come up with something clever that would get him to talk, but the truth was that she couldn’t think of anything. Paige and Christopher had struck out here. They weren’t going to get any help with the copycat from the man he was copying.
All they could do now was try to come up with something else, but Paige couldn’t even begin to think of what.