Page 30 of The Perfect Crime

But that didn’t mean that he was above asking her to help him get some extra perks.She knew that he’d been beaten up a few times.It wouldn’t stun her if he asked her to put in a word with the warden to get a private cell.

She was about to find out.The door opened and a guard stepped in.He was followed by Haddonfield, who was manacled at the wrists and ankles.

On the surface, he didn’t look all that different from the young man she’d first encountered a year and a half ago on the UCLA campus where she was leading a seminar on criminal profiling.He was still the same tall, skinny, now-twenty-two-year-old with pale skin, curly blond hair and glasses.

But in other ways, the five months that he’d been incarcerated after nearly killing her in her hospital bed on the eve of her brain surgery had taken a toll.His skinniness, bordering on gaunt, was only emphasized by his dark blue jail jumpsuit.That curly, blond hair had been cut short and his wire-rimmed glasses had, for security reasons, been replaced by ones with bookish, black, plastic frames.He still had a splint on the broken middle finger on his left hand, which he wouldn’t explain but she suspected came from pissing off the wrong prisoner.He also had a puffy right eye.The last time she’d visited, it was the left one that was black.

A second guard standing behind Haddonfield guided him to the table and connected the hand manacles to a metal ring attached to the top of the table.Once they were secure, the guard stepped back by the door.The other guard remained closer to the table, just in case Haddonfield chose to do something rash.

“Thanks for coming, Jessie,” he said, sounding like a little boy excited that there was a magician at his birthday party.“I wasn’t sure you’d keep your promise.”

She noted in the last month, he’d become more familiar, referring to her by her first name rather than the old “Ms.Hunt.”He must have thought they were on more collegial terms, now that they “working together.”

“I always keep my promises,” she assured him, before cutting to the chase.“What’s going on?”

“Well, that’s actually the issue, Jessie,” he said, resting his hands on the table.“Do you recall what you guaranteed me?”

And now it became clear to Jessie why she was here.She had assumed wrongly, that she didn’t need to assuage the guy’s apprehensions right now, but clearly she was wrong.

“I guaranteed you that I would periodically bring in a case to review with you,” she said calmly, “and to the extent that I could share any particulars, that we could work on solving it together.”

“And yet you’ve only brought me a single case, Jessie,” he reminded her, “one that I was crucial to solving.”

That was overstating it, but Haddonfield had been helpful in making her see the evidence from a different light, one that did ultimately help her catch the killer she was after.She decided not to contradict his interpretation.

She was about to reply when she saw that he was looking to the side and muttering something to himself.All she could hear was the tail end, when he angrily murmured, “I’ll make the decision on this one.”

“What was that?”she asked, confused.

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head violently, as if trying to force something out of it before regaining some semblance of control, “do you agree with my assessment?”

“It’s true that I’ve only brought you one case so far,” she conceded, “but I figured now wasn’t a good time to bring you another one.”

“Why not?’he asked.

“Because,” she said, stunned that she needed to make this point,” your trial for committing multiple murders starts next week.I figured you’d be otherwise engaged.”

“I’m well aware of that,” he said with a pout in his voice.“But don’t you see that with that hanging over me, I need something else to focus on?”

Jessie felt a sudden wave of uncomfortable recognition.Shedidsee what he meant, because she was doing the exact same thing with him right now: using him to take her mind off a stressful, upcoming event.The realization that she and an unhinged serial killer handled their stress the same way, was to put it mildly, disconcerting.

Did everyone who constantly had vengeful feelings bubbling just under the surface handle their stress the same way?Of course, Haddonfield had gone much farther than Jessie ever did.He seemed to use murder as a means of releasing tension.She hadn’t reached that point—yet.Her work with Dr.Lemmon had worked in that regard.But the contrast to date in how they handled stress didn’t stop her from wondering just how different they really were.

“I guess I shouldn’t have assumed,” she said deferentially.

“Well, as long as you’re here,” he said, getting over it quickly, “do you have a case we can work on now?”

She briefly debated how best to deal with the question.Ultimately, she decided that with Haddonfield already a bit tetchy, she was better off just being honest.

“Iamcurrently working a case,” she admitted, “but I’m not authorized to discuss it.”

“Come on,” he pleaded, “just give me a few details.Maybe I can break it open.”

“I can’t,” she said firmly, “but Icangive you a heads up about something case-related before anyone else knows.Make sure to watch the noon news today.”

“Which channel?”he asked giddily.

“All of them.”

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