“Please check your handbag, phone, and any other effects,” the officer instructs, placing a plastic container near me. “Then walk through.”
I unload all items before stepping through the metal detector. After I’m cleared, I’m instructed to follow a short hallway to the last cell on the right.
I walk the length of the corridor toward Grayson the same way I descended those stairs all those years ago. My steps slow, uncertain. My heart constricted painfully, my pulse firing through my veins.
I’m not allowed physical access to him; I can only speak to him through the bars. That same cold, unforgiving iron that filled my father’s cellar.
“You weren’t there today.”
I push my hands deep into my trench coat pockets. He’s still wearing the suit from the courtroom, minus his belt and tie—removed for safety precautions—his white dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled up to expose the intricate ink that covers his forearms, accentuating his lean muscles. He’s strikingly attractive, and I have to force my gaze away from his piercing blue eyes to answer him.
“No, I wasn’t there,” I say, but it’s a lie. I stood outside the courtroom doors, my back pressed to the brick wall, listening as the trial unfolded.
But Grayson already knows I’m a liar. He watches me from the other side of the cell, those observant eyes dissecting the truth of my words. “My lawyer thinks I can beat the capital punishment charge.”
I inhale a fortifying breath. “Are you actually afraid to die?”
The corner of his mouth tilts. “Isn’t everybody?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I’m no longer on the clock, doc.”
I remain silent, waiting him out. There should be more urgency to this discussion, with the little time we have left. And yet, a strange calm surrounds us, like the solemnness before the end of a tragedy.
“I don’t fear death,” he eventually says. “Not in the way most people do. My life never held much purpose, so I thought once they killed me, I’d just be done. There’s nothing to fear in that. Fuck, I even welcomed it. Finally, an end to relentless compulsions.” His gaze tracks me, predatory and invasive. “But then there was you.”
“I fail to see how I have anything to do with it.”
His tongue sweeps across his bottom lip as he stares up at me from the cot. “You can’t fear losing what you never had. You changed that. I can’t simply cease to exist now, not when I want you this badly. When I know what we could have together.”
My heart clenches, and I adjust my glasses, giving myself a moment to remember who my patient is. “That’s a distorted perspective,” I say. “If youlive?—”
“If—?”
I swallow hard. “Grayson, regardless of the trial’s outcome, we’ll never be together. You’re a serial killer behind bars. Forlife.” The echo of my voice carries, reflecting the harsh truth back to me. “I’ve explained before, you’re experiencing transference. These feelings you have…they’re not real.”
“Because I’m incapable of feeling.”
“Yes,” I say, softening my tone. “You’re very skilled at manipulation, at mirroring emotions to get what you want. But you’ve confused that skill with genuine feeling.”
He bounds off the cot. “Disempathetic,” he pronounces slowly, the Irish inflection bleeding through to stress each syllable. “I’ve done my research. Why didn’t you ever bring it up? Why haven’t you said a single fucking word about it, when it’s plain as day?”
I release a humorless laugh. “Disempathetic type is theoretical, Grayson. It’s a propagated myth to comfort partners of psychopaths, a delusion they cling to, convincing themselves that the person they love is capable of returning it.”
Grayson’s jaw tightens, his tone dropping dangerously. “Admit it’s possible for me.”
“I will not ever.”
Something lethal flashes behind the vibrant blue of his eyes. “Then why are you here, Dr. Noble?” My name is spat with the same callousness I see in his gaze. “If I’m just a delusional fuck, and you feel nothing for me, why are you here?”
“Grayson…” I say, unable to control the tremble in my voice. “I do care for you, but strictly as my patient. I’m here to assess how you’re coping after the hearing today.”
But that’s another lie.
“Hmm.” A wicked smile carves that dimple into his cheek as he hums, amused. “No, you’re here to find out if I’m going tell the world your little secret.”
I lick my lips, my heart in a vise as I stare up at him. “I’m tired of this game, this…dance. I won’t be manipulated.”
