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“I don’t accept your apology!” Lucy took a deep breath. Her anger wasn’t getting them the information they needed. “So you set these guys up. I copied the database and identified seven I was responsible for. Eight including Brad Prenter.”
“You? Responsible? I killed them!”
“I set them up. How do you think that makes me feel? That I caused another human being to die?”
“You should feel relieved that they can’t hurt anyone else, that they will never destroy another family.”
In the back of her mind, Lucy realized that she was relieved they were off the streets. But she couldn’t accept cold-blooded murder. If vigilante justice ruled, anarchy would soon follow.
“The system is far from perfect. But your way is not the answer. It’s premeditated, cold-blooded murder. That makes you as much a monster as they are.”
He looked pained. “I thought you would understand. You took justice into your own hands.”
Kate jumped up. “Don’t go there, Mallory, dammit!”
“It’s okay, Kate.” Lucy put her hand on Kate’s arm without taking her eyes off Mallory. “I’ll tell you the difference. Adam Scott raped me. He nearly killed my brother. He stabbed Dillon, who can no longer feel anything in his left hand. He’s lucky he still has a hand! It was personal. He hurt me and people I love. I killed him.” When she’d learned that Adam Scott had set explosives in Dillon’s house, when she heard the explosion she later found out was in Jack’s car, she didn’t think. She didn’t plan. She took one of the many guns in the house and ran the six blocks to Dillon’s house. She saw Scott and Dillon fighting in the yard. There were no cops anywhere; there was no one to help. It was up to her.
Scott was such a sick psychopath, deep down in his core evil. He believed that she’d come to run away with him. He let his guard down, stepped toward her and said, “You’re late.”
She shot and killed him.
She said, “For six years, shooting Adam Scott has eaten me up because I don’t feel any remorse for it.”
Lucy took a deep breath, and before Kate or Mallory could say anything, she asked, “Why Prenter? He didn’t fit the profile of the other victims.”
“Yes he did,” Mallory said, and left it at that.
“How?”
Mallory shrugged. “Figure it out.”
“I’d rather you just tell me and stop playing these games. I’m sick and tired of it.”
He didn’t say anything, but stared at her, waiting.
“And Roger Morton? Why did you kill him?”
“You have to ask? I don’t regret the killing of Morton. I’d dance on his fucking grave if I could.”
Kate said, “I could have put him back in prison for life. Did you manipulate him into coming here, or did you learn he was coming here and then plan to kill him?”
“Prison,” Mallory snapped bitterly, turning to Kate for the first time. “Really. I prefer a bullet in the back of the head. Cheaper, faster justice.”
Lucy said quietly, “So you killed Morton because he was a rapist and helped Adam Scott cover up untold murders. And he was walking free.”
“I would have saved you if I could—”
Lucy raised her hand. “But you didn’t. And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? Because you didn’t stop him from raping me, you needed to punish him because of your own guilt. You took a picture of me after deliberately getting my class schedule. You framed it and put it in your house. You knew where I worked and what I was doing. You lured Roger Morton here so you could kill him in my own backyard. And you say you’re not obsessed with me?”
“Lucy, you needed to know he was dead. I wanted to give you peace.”
“Peace.” Lucy almost blurted out her accusations about him killing Cody, but she needed to do the one thing that Hans had asked her to do, not use this interview because she was battling her own guilt. “Why bring Morton here? You were a noble assassin,” she said sarcastically. “Why have him come here? To where I live?”
“I had to.”
“But why?”
Mallory didn’t answer.
