Blackmail.
It is such a simple, easy act. Find someone’s weak spot, put them in a compromising position, get proof that can be used against them, and launch the attack.
I am an expert at this. I don’t employ the tactic often, but when I do, there are serious consequences. Real people get hurt. Which is what I like the best.
People panic when you threaten all they hold dear. I have absolutely no doubt Ethan will follow suit. He will listen to my instructions to the letter. When things don’t go the way he expects, he’ll scurry to call the pretty little towheaded cop, and then I won’t have any excuse to hold back.
The cop is catching up, I will give her that. Ethan is acting as predictably as always: panicking, freaking out, shutting down, worrying. Inebriated and sloppy. He’s so banal, I simply don’t know what anyone sees in him. He is almost too dull to play with. Almost.
But the cop. The cop is interesting. She’s an acquired taste. Blunt. Very blunt. There’s no elegance to her, no finesse. That will be learned as she grows into a real investigator. Right now she’s easily led, a perfectly manipulatable puppet who can be shunted off in any direction I please. A bumper car. She’s a bumper car, fumbling through all the information provided, trying to stay upright. Trying to keep her head above water.
There’s an image. The sweet towheaded cop, water lapping at her sharp collarbones, the naked, pink flesh getting crepey and wrinkled from the soaking wetness. Dipped in silver wet and slippery green algae. The water rising higher and higher as the shadows deepen...
Sorry, we shouldn’t go there. Not just yet.
Smash cut to Sutton Montclair.
That’s better.
Here’s the deal. Brass tacks. If you give a society enough information, lay down enough threads, someone will have to follow the right one. It’s human nature. It’s the way our minds work. In a linear fashion, point A to point B to point C. So few of us have the capability to go from A to Q to H. It takes a special person to think that way.
I’m that special person.
But you already know that.