“How do you know?”
Her hands settle in her lap. She keeps her gaze steady on me, but I see the anxious need to wrap her string around her finger. She hides it well—almost as well as she hides the ink on her hand—but I’ve caught her once. A black thread she keeps tucked inside her pocket. The skin of her index finger wears the groove marks from where she wraps it, tightening the thread over and over.
I wonder why she does it, where she picked up the compulsion.
“You said you have uncertainties,” I say, keeping the tables turned. “But what if it’s not uncertainty at all. What if you simply don’t want rehabilitation to work.”
Her pretty mouth parts, before she can blurt a practiced response, she checks herself. “Why would I not want it to work?”
I shrug as I ease back into the leather chair. “Because seeking the answer on how to fix the sick and deviant is boring. You’re really seeking to understand why you’re so drawn to it yourself.” My mouth twitches to hold back a smile. “Which is far more interesting.”
She allows a faint smile to slip free. “I suppose that’s a logical leap. Of course I’m drawn to it, and fascinated with my study. Understanding your compulsion to punish and kill people?—”
“I’ve never killedanyone.”
Her lips thin. “Why traps, Grayson?”
Her question tenses my shoulders. This isn’t what I want totalk about. “Why not traps? Aren’t we all victims of some sort of trap? A wife trapped in an unhappy marriage. A child trapped in a loveless family. A woman trapped in a profitless, unfulfilling career.” My gaze drops to her mouth. Those satin pink lips press together with a tell.
“Those are theoretical,” she says, her tone softening, “and they’re not life threatening.”
“They can be.”
“But your traps are designed to take lives, Grayson. Your victims forced to participate against their will.”
I release a lengthy breath. “It’s never against their will. Their choices led them there. They’re responsible and should be held accountable for their actions. I only provide a resolution. I offer them a final choice, a way to redeem themselves, which is more than any god would grant them.”
Her hand inches toward her pocket before she firmly rests it on the armrest. “Do you see yourself as a god? Granting your victims redemption?”
She can do better than this. Sheisbetter than this tired psychobabble. “No, I see myself as a hunter. They’re not victims, they’re predators stalking the woods in search of prey. If they fall into the hunter’s trap, then they were in a place they never should’ve been.”
She wets her lips, her tongue peeking out to tease me. One of her sins: seduction.
“This room is designed like a trap,” I continue. “You lure the mentally ill in with promises of recovery and freedom. Maybe not physical freedom, but freedom from their demons. Once they’re shackled—” I tug at my restraint “—you feast on their horror stories in the name of psychology. You feed off them, sating your own twisted curiosities. And then you publish your papers on the poor damned souls that never had a chance. You reap glory off the murderers and from the victims themselves.”
Her sigh is heavy, breathy. Torturous. It slides over my skinwith a tantalizing stroke, making the distance between us unbearable. “Have you always been this judgmental?” she asks.
This line of questioning is tiring, getting us nowhere. “No,” I say, cocking my head. “But I’ve always liked puzzles.”
“Puzzles,” she repeats, deep brown eyes narrowing. “And why is that?”
Unbidden, a memory from my childhood flickers across my vision, and I tamp it back down into the dark recesses. “I like the mechanics of puzzles, the way each piece has a place, a purpose. The way it simply belongs.”
London uncrosses her legs and straightens her back, sitting taller in the chair. If she wanted to, she could curl up in it. “Where do you feel you belong, Grayson?”
Oh, if she only knew how loaded that question was. But this isn’t about me or my story; this about her—where she fits into the puzzle. It’s time to start peeling back her layers.
I hold her gaze as I say, “With you, Dr. Noble. I belong right here with you.”
A tense battle of wills arcs between us, neither one of us willing to be the first to look away.
Yet if I come on too strong, if she becomes too aware, she could request my transfer. Better not to chance it by provoking her. I curb a smile and avert my eyes to the chain resting against my leg.
“I refused your interview a year ago,” I say, baiting her with an answer she’s wanted since our first session, “because I didn’t trust you.” I look up in time to catch her eyes widen a fraction.
She subtly arches one eyebrow. “And you trust me now?”
Dr. London Noble has a reputation of getting convicted murderers a reduced sentence or even off completely. She humanizes monsters. She tames the untamable. She’s the answer to every killer on death row—their angel of mercy.
