“Those names mean anything to you?”
“I think they were all baddies in Lord of the Rings.”
Ella cranked things up a notch. She reached beneath her table and grabbed a brown file. She pulled out the first photo in the pile. The corpse of Cassie Sullivan lay in her eternal death pose.
“See this? This is Cassie Sullivan. Local girl. We found her dead on Thursday morning, one leg severed. What do you think of that?”
Bret gawped at the picture, eyes wide, jaw wider. His fingers began tapping uncontrollably, and then he pushed his chair away from the table.
“What the hell is this?”
“That was just our first one.” Ella threw down the next photo and pushed it to the edge of the table. “Teri Harper. Same situation. Leg severed, and our killer left our first victim’s leg next to her body. Some kind of sick joke, we’re guessing.”
Ella knew the man’s ritual went far beyond a joke, but this man might jump at the chance to correct her. It was a risk worth taking. Psychopaths hated it when you interpreted their grand meanings incorrectly, because once they were isolated, they were no longer in charge of their public perception. The police and the press were, and the psychopaths needed them to get the story right.
Something changed in Bret, right there and then. Ella watched his anxiety transform into pure dread, like he knew the game was up. She’d seen the same response in a million different interviews she’d studied at the academy. Bret’s baseline state was typified by detachment and repulsion, but the sight of Teri Harper’s corpse spoke directly to his soul.
“This is disgusting,” Bret shouted, covering his face with his arm. “Don’t show me this.”
“We’re not done. Last photograph. Kate Sutton, but you might know her as Rena. Ring any bells?”
Bret shielded his eyes and shook his head, like a child trying to undo a scolding. Ella let him wallow as she sized up his body language, but with someone like this, it was difficult to separate the real from the performance. He clearly wasn’t of sound mind, that much was evident through his mannerisms and criminal history, but people like this often immersed themselves so fully in their fantasy worlds that they were able to convince themselves of their own innocence.
Right now, she just didn’t know.
She turned to Paige to gauge her thoughts. Paige’s expression did not betray her beliefs. She just looked like she was watching a freak show performance.
Ella punctuated her display with, “Bret, we think you did this. Our killer used a chainsaw at the last crime scene. Sound familiar?”
Now they just had to wait. The information was out there and it would take hold eventually. Whatever the truth, Bret would think himself in loops, then he’d tangle himself up and at some point, reveal his true intentions.
“I did not do this,” Bret said calmly.
Not what Ella wanted to hear. People rarely spoke in absolutes when they were completely guilty.
“Big words for someone who was more than happy to attack a man with a chainsaw,” Paige said.
“Attack him?” Bret said, still shielding. “I was never gonna attack him. I just wanted to freak him out.”
“Sure you were. Where were you on Wednesday, Saturday, and last night?” asked Paige.
“With my friends. All night,” Bret responded without missing a beat. “Like, I was on different couches every night.”
“Your friends?” said Ella. “The same people who’ve been holding up a supposed missing person?”
“Yeah. We were streaming. Video games.”
“You recorded them?” asked Paige. “We can watch the replays?”
Bret nodded with haste. “Yeah. You’ll see me on there.”
Paige’s teeth began to chatter, then she bit her lip. Ella didn’t know what a recorded video game stream replay was. She relayed this information to her partner via a confused expression. Paige filled in the blanks.
“They were playing video games and streaming it online. Most streams are automatically recorded. We can check the timestamps.”
Ella felt her concrete theory beginning to crack. This wasn’t going the way she expected.
“Then why did you run away when we knocked at your door?” Ella asked.