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“Are you here to tell me all the ways I went wrong?” Ruben asked her. “Or maybe you’re here because you want to reform me.”
“No, I’m here to talk about other magicians who kill.” Paige let those words settle in.
“What, you think I’m going to help you?” Ruben made it sound as though she’d insulted him just with the suggestion.
“Yes,” Paige said. “I think you will.”
“And why would I do that?” Ruben asked. That was always the tricky part with a serial killer. They didn’t do things just out of altruism, because most of them couldn’t even understand the concept. They often didn’t want the same things as most people, either. Paige needed something very convincing if she was going to get one to talk.
Thankfully, in this case, she was fairly sure that she hadsomething that might work.
“Because I’m the one thing you want,” Paige said. She spread her hands, gesturing to herself. “An audience. That’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it Ruben? My guess is that most of the people here don’t appreciate you, or what you did. They certainly don’t let you perform your tricks.”
“Effects,” Ruben snapped, in a much sharper tone. “Not tricks. Only amateurs call them tricks.”
Paige offered him a smile. “You see, you’re teaching me something already.”
Her best shot was to play up to him, to let him talk. This was a man who had killed people he thought were ignoring him; it was obvious that attention was the main thing he wanted. Giving him that might be enough to get Paige everything she wanted in return.
“What do you want to know?” Ruben asked. “It isn’t like all of us killers are in a big club somewhere. I can’t tell you who this guy is you’re looking for.”
“No, but you can tell me something about the way he thinks, and the way he needs to work,” Paige said. “Tell me about your kills, Ruben. How did you pick out your victims?”
“That was easy,” he said. “I just looked for bitches who ignored me, or who tried to condescend to me.”
He gave her a hard look as he said it, making it clear that he thought she fit into the latter category.
“Am I condescending to you?” Paige asked. “I want to hear what you have to say. You know more than me about all of this, Ruben.”
“Of course I know more than you,” Ruben said. “Magic was my life for years. Do you know that they don’t even let me have a deck of cards here? Say I start too many fights because everyone thinks I’m cheating.”
“Are you cheating?” Paige asked, because there was something about the way Ruben said it that made her think he wanted her to ask it.
“Of course I’m cheating. Why should I play fair with idiots? Are you an idiot, little miss FBI?”
“You tell me,” Paige said.
“I think you might be,” Ruben said.
“What makes you think that?” Paige sat there, waiting.
“Two things. First, you’re here talking to me, rather than out looking for how this guy is working his effects. Every magician has props, and props tend to be custom made, or bought in very specialized places. If you really had a clue about all of this, you’d be there, not talking to me.”
Paige found herself making a mental note of that. The prop safe, in particular, should be easy to trace. If it had been bought recently, maybe the killer would be easy to find once she started looking down that route.
“What’s the second thing?” Paige asked.
“The second thing that makes me think you’re stupid?” Ruben replied. “That’s the fact that you came in here alone with an escapologist and you thought you’d be fine.”
He held up his hands, no longer securely manacled. He must have dislocated his own thumb to break out, or found some way to pick the lock. There was no time to think about which it might be, though, because the former serial killer was already leaping across the table at Paige with the manacles held between his hands like a weapon.
Paige had a moment to feel absolute terror as the serial killer threw himself at her, but she still managed to get her hands up to block his lunge at her. Because she was still seated, the momentum of it bore them both to the ground. Ruben wasn’t a big man, but he was still bigger than Paige, his weight pressing down on her as he tried to strangle her with the length of chain he now held.
Paige twisted from under him, kicking out hard to push herself away. He tried to lunge in again at her and Paige managed to fend him off with her hands and feet, kicking his legs from under him so that he went tumbling to his back.
“Can I get some help in here?” Paige called out to the guards beyond the door. Even as she did it, she moved in on Ruben, managing to block his attempt to lash out at her with the manacles and grabbing his arm. She twisted, forcing him over onto his stomach, her weight barely enough to hold him in place.
Paige heard the cell door open somewhere behind her.
