“I’ve been expecting you.”
*
They took him back to the FBI headquarters and put him in an interrogation room, moving in to sit opposite him under the unblinking gaze of a camera. To Paige, he looked like he was projecting an attempt to appear calm and in control, but she could see the nerves underneath it, too. This was a man who had been around the justice system too many times to believe that any of this was good for him.
“So, Cal,” Christopher said. “When I arrested you, you said that you’d been expecting us. Do you want to tell us what you meant by that?”
“I’m not saying anything until my lawyer gets here,” Sanders retorted.
“So it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that you knew your killing spree would lead to you getting caught eventually?” Christopher tried. “Was that it, Cal? You knew that Ingram would give you up, so you wanted to kill as many women as you could before we caught up to you?”
Sanders was silent, then, simply shaking his head to make it clear that he wasn’t going to say anything else. When Christopher gestured to the door, Paige went with him. The two of them could always look into the room via a screen set up just outside.
“Do you think that we’ll be able to get him to talk?” Christopher asked.
Obviously, he had more experience with interrogations than Paige did, but she guessed that he wanted her opinion because of her psychological expertise. It was nice to know that he respected that, but even so, Paige wasn’t sure quite what to tell him then.
“It will depend on why he’s done this,” she said. “If what you said in there is true, and this does prove to be a last spree, knowing that he’ll be caught, then maybe he’ll want to claim credit for it.”
“But he might not?” Christopher asked.
“He might still think that he can get away with it by staying silent,” Paige pointed out. “We don’t have much in the way of direct physical evidence, and while the dying words of a serial killer might have been enough for a warrant, I doubt they’ll convince a jury.”
“Forensic teams are already searching his house,” Christopher said. “Anything that links to any of the dead women, and we’ll have him.”
Paige could see that he was itching to get back in there and put pressure on Sanders, but for now, all the two of them could do was wait there, watching him while they waited for the lawyer to show up.
“He looks more nervous than he’s letting on,” Paige said. He certainly didn’t seem to share Ingram’s lack of fear. Did that mean that he didn’t have that almost pure, uncompromising psychopathy that Ingram had possessed? Did that mean that he might actually respond to an appeal based on the humanity of his victims, or simply to the fear of what might happen next if he didn’t talk?
Paige was still contemplating it when a prim woman in her forties approached the interrogation room, wearing an expensively cut pantsuit and carrying a briefcase. She had dark hair, high cheekbones, and piercing dark eyes that currently held deep disapproval.
“Are you the agents who decided to arrest my client based on nothing more than the word of a serial killer?” she demanded.
“I’m Agent Marriott,” Christopher said. “This is my consultant, Paige King.”
“And I am Audrey Lowerstoft, of Marlin and Lowerstoft. You will release my client at once.”
“Not when he’s our lead suspect in multiple murder cases,” Christopher shot back, “and certainly not when we haven’t questioned him yet.”
“You have nothing on him,” Ms. Lowerstoft said.
Christopher didn’t look impressed. “We have a long history of criminal behavior, some of it violent. We have his personal history with Lars Ingram, which might have allowed him to learn Ingram’s methods. And, as you said, we do have the word of a serial killer. Ingram’s dying confession of who his partner was.”
“More like his dying act of revenge,” Ms. Lowerstoft said. She held out a piece of paper. When Christopher didn’t take it, Paige did, reading through it.
“It’s an immunity agreement,” Paige said. “Sanders was let off assault and possession of an illegal firearm charges in return for information leading to Ingram’s arrest.”
Christopher looked doubtful at that. “Ingram was caught because DNA linked him to one of his crimes.”
“Once he was caught, that helped to convict him,” Ms. Lowerstoft replied. “But my client’s information was what got them to that point. This is a petty act of revenge on Lars Ingram’s part.”
Was this possible? Was it really possible that Lars Ingram had played her, even as he was about to die?
The reality of that hit Paige all at once. Ingram had played her, the way Adam Riker had played her before, sending her down a blind alley, lying because he could. The sheer similarity of it meant that Paige believed it, knew that it was true, even as she hated it.
Paige cursed to herself at having been taken in by Ingram, at having been played by him again. From the start of this, he’d wanted to waste her time, and had shown no interest in catching the real killer, yet she’d been willing to believe that a psychopath might tell the truth just as he was about to die?
Christopher still looked determined, though. “I still want to question Sanders. He might have given Ingram up, but that could just have been to get rid of his competition as a killer.”