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“He’ll get what’s coming for him,” Faith said.
“True that,” Michael agreed.
The paramedics came out of the house then. Faith caught a brief glimpse of Gina’s face underneath the gas mask. Her face was pale, and her lips were blue. The paramedic reading her vitals noted that she was alive but only barely and probably not for long.
Faith’s lips turned down in a frown.
Michael put a hand on her shoulder. “You did your best,” he said. “Most agents wouldn’t have gone back to double check like you did.”
“I don’t feel guilty,” Faith said. “It would just be nice if my best was enough one of these days.”
“It is,” he insisted. “Don’t think of the ones you didn’t save; think of the ones you did save.”
Faith nodded. Michael was right, but it was hard to believe that while she watched the ambulance driving away carrying Gina’s life on the slimmest of threads.
“You two coming?” Derek called.
“Three,” Michael called back. “On our way.”
The three of them got into the cruiser and followed Travis and Derek to the station. They were silent on the way. Faith reflected that in her line of work, victory rarely felt like victory.
At least it felt like an end. There were other killers out there, but this one wouldn’t take any more innocent lives.
She took a little comfort in that as the cruiser accelerated onto the main road.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Faith and Michael sat across from the man who had killed six people—his wife, the three victims they knew of, Kevin MacGregor’s wife, and the original owner of the name he used. He had admitted to those killings when Faith showed him the rings, and he knew he was caught anyway.
“Gina’s gonna be all right,” Michael said. “I want you to know that.”
“Of course, she’ll be all right,” the man said. “It makes sense. The world rewards the cheaters and punishes the faithful.”
“Why did you change your name?” Faith said. “No one suspected you of killing your wife. Why change your name? Why list your new house under that name if you weren’t trying to hide?”
Leroy Batty raised his eyes to Faith, and Faith saw shame and hate in equal measure pour from his eyes. “Leroy Batty is a weak man,” he said. “A fool. He believes that love and sacrifice will earn love and sacrifice in return. He doesn’t understand that cheaters thrive off of fools like him. They’ll always take advantage of him. They’ll use him and hurt him and beat him and hate him, and he’ll never ever find happiness that way.”
“Are you happy now?” Faith asked.
“Well notnow,” he said, as though Faith had asked the most foolish question in the world. “You’ve stifled me.”
Faith was fascinated by that choice of words. “Stifled you?”
“Yes,” Batty said, “I’ll spend the rest of my life locked in a cell unable to work.”
“Levinson’s work.”
He nodded. “Yes.Mywork. Leroy doesn’t get a say anymore. He’s too weak.”
“Who’s Henry Levinson?” Michael asked. “The real one?”
“The original Henry Levinson was a serial philanderer,” Leroy explained. He married three times and cheated on all three of his wives. I killed him because he was a cheater. I took his house and job because he looked almost like me. The nose is wrong, but I just told them that I broke it falling drunk down the stairs after my wife died.”
“Clever,” Michael said sarcastically.
Leroy chuckled bitterly. “I know you’re making fun of me, Special Agent, and that’s all right. Cheaters never understand.”
“I’m not a cheater,” Michael protested.
