Travis had already had two cups of coffee when he arrived the next morning in Rawlings, Wyoming. It was a little after nine thirty in the morning. The Rawlings State Penitentiary was where the notorious serial killer, Eric Solomon, was being held as he awaited trial.
It was Thursday, exactly fifteen minutes before ten, when Travis entered the facility. He immediately felt trapped, confined, as he always did within the walls of a prison. He hated this aspect of his job, for prisons always made him feel claustrophobic. There was no reason for the feeling, no past trauma or phobia that he could put his finger on. Maybe it was just a subconscious aversion at the thought of being confined.
He pushed the thoughts from his mind and went through clearance. He was then ushered to the interrogation room. He was fifteen minutes early. He’d planned that, for he’d known that by the time he cleared security and made the necessary pleasantries with the officials, he’d be right on time.
As he entered the room and the door clanged behind him, the noises of the prison fell away and he pulled out a chair and sat down. It was the position in which he began any interview with someone who was incarcerated. It was less threatening than standing. He glanced at his smartwatch to make sure he was still ahead of schedule and to mark his time. He was now five minutes early. From everything he knew from the file and what James had told him, the murderer had said little. As a result, the odds that he’d open up to Travis were slim, but he still had hope. That the possibility was there meant that he had to take it. He knew that was the reason James had agreed—the faint hope of information.
Five minutes later the metal door opened. A medium-sized man, with blond hair that curled over his ears and average looks, leaned nonchalantly against the doorframe. His face was boyish and younger looking than Travis had expected. Eric Solomon was only two months younger than he was and yet he looked a decade younger. His youthful face helped make him look trustworthy. It was what had lured too many women to their deaths.
Travis tried to maintain a friendly look while feeling nothing but loathing for this man who had brutally killed so many women. He had to clench his hands at his sides and struggle to keep a pleasant expression. This piece of crap had threatened Kiera, had touched her, torn her clothes and meant to violate and then kill her. He couldn’t think of that, for the rage it built in him would become uncontrollable in seconds. He’d stand up and take this piece of trash’s throat in his hands and…
Damn it, Johnson. Cool it.
He couldn’t. He’d kill him for what he’d thought that he could do to the woman he cared about.
He took a mental step back. What the hell was he thinking? He didn’t care about Kierra not in that way, not in a romantic way. He hated this piece of trash. That was it.
There was no getting around it. It was too soon. He didn’t know her. It didn’t matter. He was falling for her.
Focus, damn it.
The guard gave the man a push. Eric took another step inside. The step was reluctant, forced on him from behind. He gave Travis a bland look that showed little emotion as he was forced to take another step into the room by a second shove from the guard.
“Behave yourself,” the guard ordered. “Fifteen minutes,” he said as he looked at Travis.
Travis gave him a nod and the guard walked out closing the door behind him with a distinctive click.
Travis made a snap decision. He guessed that sitting for this interview wasn’t going to work, or at least sitting and waiting for him to sit wasn’t working. He needed to meet him halfway. Pride was standing between them and, to eliminate that problem, they needed to be on equal footing. He stood up and held out his hand.
“Eric?”
“Marshal Johnson,” Eric said with a sarcastic look.
“Travis.”
Just like that, Eric smiled at him, the previous antagonism gone.
Travis guessed it was an act not unlike his own.
“Have a seat,” Travis said as he reached for his own chair.
Travis pulled out the chair, and he sat down.
So did Eric.
They did it almost in sync.
Travis watched the murderer with casual nonchalance. He didn’t slouch in his chair. But he didn’t sit up straight either. He did everything not to appear threatening. Now, facing the man who was accused of such horrendous things, he wondered what could have brought him to that while tamping down the feeling of outrage that Kiera had been so close to dying at this man’s hand.
He took a breath and focused on objectivity. This was his one chance. He’d read the file. Eric Solomon had had every dysfunctional trigger necessary through his childhood to raise him into the killer he’d become. He was a classic case. He’d come from a fragmented and dysfunctional family. He had a father who had disappeared before he was six, a stepfather who had been abusive and a mother who’d been mostly absent.
Travis knew that children could overcome those odds; many did. Not Eric. He’d run away from home at thirteen and disappeared off the authorities’ radar. Following that, there’d been a long period of silence, until now.
Although he’d seen the file picture, it didn’t reflect what Travis saw now—an open, friendly face. It was an illusion, he knew that. The initial assessment had indicated that the suspect was a sociopath. It was clear that Eric was giving him what he thought he wanted.
Eric silently watched with obvious reluctance and then slouched as he faced Travis with his arms folded. His face was tense, resistant. He barely looked at Travis. In fact, he didn’t look at anything at all except the top of the desk that separated them.
His well-toned frame made it clear that he spent a good deal of time working out. Travis wondered if he spent any time contemplating the lives he had taken. He guessed the opposite might be true, that he might think about taking more. Fortunately, he could no longer do that. The question remained, was there someone out there who could. Someone who would carry on where he’d left off? Was Kiera’s theory valid at all? Was what he and James speculated a reality?
“You killed a lot of people, Eric,” he said without inflection. He slouched back in his chair. He didn’t make eye contact but rather looked over the man’s shoulder. His words were designed to be exactly as they sounded, unimpressed.
“You been living under a rock?” Eric snarled. “That’s old news.”
“You’re right, it is,” Travis replied, deciding to go straight for the heart. “Bet you wish that traitor who rode along with you got some justice too.”
Silence met that comment.
Eric’s lips tightened. His eyes flicked right and then left and didn’t quite meet his. Travis pulled back in his chair as if putting as much distance as possible between them.
Seconds ticked by and Eric slouched further down in his seat as if by that he were proving his disinterest.
“You’ve been wronged. I can see that,” Travis said knowing that the sudden changes in mood were on the accused murderer’s file. He was extremely unpredictable.
Silence filled the room and seconds ticked by.
Eric shifted on the rock-hard metal chair. He glanced at the clock on the wall. Then he leaned forward, an ugly look on his face as if he were about to physically attack.
“Where is she? Where is the bitch that put me here?”
Travis didn’t say anything immediately. He didn’t want to give Eric Kiera’s name.
“If she’s not dead yet, she will be soon.” He shook his head and his next words put all doubts to rest. “I should have raped her when I had the chance.”
At that, it took everything Travis had not to lunge across the table and choke the life from this piece of crap. He’d dealt with a lot of slime in his time but never had it been so personal.
“Got under your skin, didn’t I? Tell me where she is and maybe I’ll tell you a bit more of what you want?”
He wouldn’t let Eric see how much the turn in conversation had gotten to him. Instead he flipped the interrogation back to where it belonged—on the killer.
“Would you have started killing without him, Eric?” He asked, taking charge of the interview. He didn’t wait for an answer. He held the killer’s eyes as if the truth might be hidden there. “You weren’t alone, were you?”
Eric cursed.
“Your partner was the reason that you got into this mess wasn’t he, Eric?”
He’d been winging it for the last few minutes, relying on the fact that there might be some hate on Eric’s part over what had happened to him. That was, if any of this had any validity, if the relationship existed at all, if there was another killer.
He met the accused serial killer’s insolent gaze with a “couldn’t care less” look of his own. Eyes told a lot about someone. In this case, the accused’s eyes were a dusty blue, innocent as a baby’s except there didn’t seem to be any depth to them. They reflected the overhead fluorescent light: flat, barren—emotionless. Travis sat back, stretching his legs out, keeping his arms free, his hands on the desk.
“So, now they’re free and you’re here. This isn’t what you deserve.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Travis ignored that. “What do you think? I think he has himself a new partner, someone else to enjoy his pursuits with.”
Silence was thick in the room. The dull clang of metal echoed down the hall. Eric’s mouth tightened. His arms folded across his chest as he leaned back. Whether on purpose or by accident, he was copying Travis’s pose.
Precious seconds ticked by; a minute passed. And then, just as he prepared to launch his attack from another angle, Eric sat up and leaned forward. His expressionless eyes, eyes that made Travis want to take a step back, met his.
“She deserves to die alongside me,” Eric muttered.
She.
That one word seemed to vibrate between them. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. It was amazing that he’d revealed anything at all, Travis thought. He pushed that reaction back, concentrating on keeping his face emotionless.
“I can understand that feeling,” Travis said.
Eric said nothing.
“We’re close to making that happen, but we need your help to do it,” Travis said ignoring the animosity that felt alive between them. He stated the lie without a trace of guilt. If that was what it took to flush the truth out of this murderous piece of trash, that was what he would do. “She’s out having fun, living the life and you’re here…” He shook his head. “For how long?”
Eric remained silent.
“You’ve been wronged. I can see that,” Travis said.
“She started all this,” Eric said unexpectedly as he shook his head. “She’s the reason I’m here. It wasn’t my fault.”
He sat up straighter, drawing himself back, almost defensive.
“I believe you,” Travis encouraged.
“Do you?” he said with the original sulky edge that had lessened slightly as if he were feeling slightly more talkative. “She always said we’d be together forever, that she’d never leave me. And now I’m here and…” His face shut down, as if he knew that he’d said too much. He shoved back from the table.
“Eric,” Travis began. “I can help you.” In the back of his mind he could only thank whatever stars had aligned that Eric hadn’t demanded a lawyer be present. It was a possibility that might have deep-sixed this idea before it had even begun.
“Help me what?” he snarled. “I’m going to die in this hole and you know it.”
“You help me, and I can help you,” he said. “If you’re sentenced…”
“I don’t need your help,” he gritted through clenched teeth. Spittle fell on the table. “It’s over. I don’t need you or any of your twisted promises.” He stood up in a rush and the chair clattered backward. Behind him the door swung open. Before either of them could move farther, the guard was in the room. In seconds, he’d grabbed onto him.
Eric’s eyes met his.
It wasn’t the first time he’d faced evil and it wouldn’t be the last. Still, he was glad to walk out the gates of the prison and leave Eric Solomon far behind.
The trip hadn’t been as successful as he’d hoped. He’d proven only one thing. He had confirmation from the killer himself that he hadn’t acted alone. More amazingly, he’d also had confirmation that the other killer was female. But whether Eric would ever admit to that in court was another matter. They’d work on that when the time came. Most important, he knew that he needed to get Kiera into a safe house and they needed to do it faster than James had thought. They needed one now.
Travis was on the phone to James before he hit the road. He explained the situation and an hour later he was heading back to Cheyenne with orders to get Kiera packed and ready for her new life. He wasn’t sure how that would go over. What he did know was that there was an APB out on a woman who might be the second serial killer. A woman who might have only one goal in mind, making sure that her last victim died.
This time the little over two-hour drive that stretched out in front of him felt endless. As he left Rawlins’s city limits behind, he’d never felt more determined in his life. It was during the drive that he was able to contemplate, really think about how much Kiera had come to mean to him.
Even after this short time, he couldn’t imagine his life without her. Despite that, he knew they were too different, their lives too disparate to ever pursue a relationship. He didn’t know from one moment to the next where he might be or what he might be assigned to. And Kiera, she had her job, her love of her elderly patients and her passion for helping. He knew all that despite the little time he’d spent with her and he wanted so much more. He was blindly falling for her without knowing her like he should. And he didn’t know if she felt the same way or not. It was too early in the game and yet his mother had always said that it had been that way with his father. It had been that way with two aunts and uncles as well—it was the way his family worked. They were romantics. He pushed his what-ifs aside and only hoped that she’d give him the chance to get to know her, a chance outside the boundaries of this case.
It was when he was on the last leg home with fifteen minutes to go that he heard the news that made fear run through him like it never had before, even when he’d faced off against the most dangerous criminals. There’d been an attempted prison break at the Rawlins state prison. No further details were released.
“Damn it!” He slapped the steering wheel. He was still too far away. He ordered Siri to give James a call. She answered back in her usual precise tones with a hint of an electronic accent and told him that Jane wasn’t in his directory. He smacked his palm against the steering wheel again in frustration but gave the order again, this time slowing his voice down, and he had much better luck.
“No word yet on what happened,” James said. “I believe it was stopped in time.”
Believe wasn’t a word that gave him any comfort. Had the break been stopped? One name ran through his mind.
Eric Solomon.