Yardley’s heart seemed to miss a beat. She glanced down at her arms and saw gooseflesh, though the room was warm.
Eddie Cal looked different. His once-long hair had been cropped short and was now speckled with gray. The scruff on his face was white, though he was only a few years older than her thirty-eight. His forearms, the only part of him other than his face and neck not covered by the white prison jumpsuit, were pale and muscular.
The last time she had seen him, he’d dazzled her. Even as he’d said goodbye. That same irresistible charm he’d possessed from the first moment she had met him.
He told her he’d tried to stop. He kissed her. And then he ran for the window in the bathroom of their apartment and jumped onto the carport below. He must have prepared for that moment, because he went straight to a manhole in the parking lot, climbed in, and disappeared. Leaving her to be thrown on the floor by the SWAT team while she screamed that she was pregnant.
Cal then went on a crime spree across two states lasting three weeks. First he killed an elderly couple at a gas station. He struck the husband so viciously with a large rock that it shattered his skull. He stole the car, and the wife was found on the side of the road later that night, strangled to death. A few days later he broke into a home and drowned a single twentysomething woman in her bathtub before taking her cash and jewelry. The one that really got to Yardley was the family whose minivan he ran off the road. He robbed them, killing the father and causing injuries to the mother and children inside.
Yardley could only read about the crimes months after his capture, unable to face the fact that she had shared the deepest parts of herself with him. In addition to his prearrest spree, he was convicted of the murders of three couples—of breaking into their homes at night, binding and gagging them, sexually assaulting the wives, and then slitting the couples’ throats.
A month after his conviction, a jury had recommended the death sentence, and he had been on death row ever since.
Cal sat down. His eyes were the color of dark-blue rose petals—Tara’s eyes—and his lips had a thin red sheen to them. The guard turned the intercom on and then left the two of them alone.
She swallowed. “The camera is turned off. I know you still have appeals pending, so you don’t need to worry about this being recorded.”
“You’re even more beautiful than I remember.”
His voice had a raspy quality to it now, a grainy harshness from disuse.
She felt faint, like the ground had been ripped from underneath her. She closed her eyes and counted backward from three. At one, she opened her eyes and looked at him.
“You look healthy,” she said.
“I am healthy. And I plan on staying that way. At least for a while. My final appeal will be resolved in four months. Once it’s over, I’ll be executed. I’m choosing hanging. I won’t be put down like some dog. I’ll die like a man.”
“Real men aren’t executed for murdering helpless people.”
The venom in her voice was too obvious. She’d tried desperately to mask it—she was only here to get whatever information she could out of him, and she’d never have to come back—but she’d underestimated how powerful a reaction she would have. She felt physically sick.
“I’m not here to talk about myself.”
He watched her in silence for a while. “I never stopped loving you, you know. I realize everything changed for you when you found out, but nothing changed for me.”
“Are you even capable of love? Do you know what it is, or is it some type of interesting abstraction for you?”
He grinned. “Did you get the paintings I sent you?”
Cal had been a popular painter and sculptor even before all this, and after his arrest and very public trial, the dozens of works he had created skyrocketed in value. The first painting Yardley had received came with a note that she should sell the paintings to provide for her and Tara.
“Yes, I got them. Thank you.”
“But you didn’t sell them, did you? Did you throw them in the trash?”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not. I burned them.”
He smiled. “How many?”
“All of them. And everything at your studio.”
He chuckled. “That’s really too bad. They took away my paints about five years ago after a . . . misunderstanding in here. Those paintings would be worth a small fortune now.”
“I didn’t want your money.”
He nodded, and Yardley wondered how long she could last here. She felt like she was spinning in a gyroscope and a sudden halt could stop her heart.
“My father says you spend a couple weeks up at the ranch every year for Christmas. I’m glad you’re still connected with them.”
“Your parents are good people.”
A slight pause.
Yardley couldn’t speak for a moment. The idea of him thinking about her daughter revolted her. “She’s well.”
“Does she ever ask about me?”
“No. She did for a few days when she was ten. She was curious who her father was. I didn’t think it’d be fair to lie to her, so I let her read about you online. She had a few questions and then never brought you up again.”
He looked out a small window on Yardley’s side of the room. “Will you do one thing for me? I know I have no right to ask, but will you bring her to see me? Just once.”
“No.”
His eyes turned to her, the eyes she had fallen in love with in a different life, which she saw nothing but hate in now. “Whatever else I am, I am still her father.”
“You lost that right the second you decided raping and killing were more important to you. Do you have any idea what she went through? Everyone at her elementary school found out who she was and they started calling her Bloody Tara. Even the teachers didn’t want to spend time with her . . . I had to move her to a new school. We had to do that twice. She’s been an outcast her entire life because of you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not. You’re not capable of knowing what that means.”
He leaned back and exhaled. “You’ve read too many textbooks. The trifecta of serial murder, right? Animal torture, wetting the bed, and starting fires in youth. Did I do any of those things? You know I didn’t have a terrible childhood. You know my parents loved me more than anything. I’m supposed to be incapable of empathy. How many movies did you see me cry at? How many sunsets? Do you remember when I saw a real Jackson Pollock for the first time? I wept like a child. Does that fit the traits of what they’ve termed a psychopath? Or is human behavior maybe on a spectrum, and we’re all just somewhere on that spectrum? Some of us more one way and some more the other, none of us actually choosing where we fall but just being given our traits at birth?”
“You are a psychopath. Most psychopaths don’t realize they are because they have no insight into themselves.”
“I felt love for you. I felt empathy. I would’ve given you my life in a second if you asked for it. You can’t reduce me to one term and say that’s what I am. I’m not psychotic and I’m not dissociative. I did what I did because”—he blinked slowly—“I liked it,” he hissed.
She swallowed and rose to leave. “Goodbye, Eddie.”
“You didn’t even ask for my help yet,” he said as she turned away.
Yardley stopped. She turned toward him. He had a smirk on his face. She sat back down.
“I’m guessing Agent Baldwin has already asked you for help and you refused,” she said coolly.
He nodded. “Pretty odd to have a copycat. Don’t know if I should be offended or flattered.”
“I don’t think you can help. I just came here as a favor to him.”
“That’s a pretty weak appeal, Jessica. You think I’m really going to help just because you told me I can’t?”
“Why would you want to? Clearly all you care about is yourself. In fact I think it thrills you that someone is out there doing what you did.”
“Not what I did. Not from what Baldwin told me. There’re subtle differences even beyond those your boy sees.”
“What differences?”
He shrugged, a grin on his face. “That’s what we’re going to bargain for.”