Page 65 of So Wicked

West chuckled, but Michael could see the hate behind his eyes and knew he’d gotten to him. “Since we’re done with that,” Michael said, “let’s get to the real reason I’m here.”

“By all means. You’re here to ask me about the Messenger.”

Michael’s brow furrowed. He wasn’t sure how much news West was allowed in solitary confinement, but he wasn’t happy to hear that news of the Messenger had filtered down to him. “Yes.”

“And you’d like to know who I believe the Messenger is.”

“Well, if you have an idea, I’ll take it. My initial thought was to try to understand how a psychopath like you ends up obsessed with Faith and what you hoped to gain from her attention.”

West laughed loudly, leaning back in his chair. Tears welled in his eyes, and Michael had to concentrate on his breathing to keep from leaping across the table and beating him to death.

“Oh, wow,” West said. “That’s wonderful. Boy. I can see that Faith is the brains of your outfit.”

“Ouch,” Michael said drily. “That hurts so much. I can’t handle how much smarter than me you are. It’s so godlike, and I’m just a lowly worm.”

“Oh, relax,” West replied. “God knows I’ll have precious little amusement where I’m going. I have to take what I can get.” He sat up straight, his smile vanished. “I’ll help you, but you have to do one thing for me. You have to tell Faith it was me who gave you this information. If she catches this criminal, she needs to know that I was the one who gave her what she needed to do that.”

Not a chance.“Fine.”

“Good.” West leaned back in his chair and sighed. “The mistake you’re making is assuming that this killer is obsessed with Faith. That’s not the case.”

Michael raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“No. This killer is obsessed withme.”

“Is that so?”

“That’s so.”

“So he’s trying to impress you?”

“He.” West grinned. “Or she.”

“She? Wait, this asshole is inlovewith you?”

“That wouldn’t tell you whether it was a he or a she. In fact, I don’t know if the person sending me the love letters is a he or a she, but Idoknow—”

“You’re getting love letters? You’re not supposed to get mail.”

“I’m not supposed to be talking to you either, yet here we are.”

Michael’s lips thinned. “These love letters, what do they say?”

“Mostly the usual saccharine nonsense. How much she loves me, how we’re meant to be together—again, I use her for simplicity’s sake. I can’t guarantee that the killer is female.”

“What else?”

“Well, they say that Faith Bold is an evil… I don’t think you’d appreciate if I repeated the word. Suffice it to say, she hates her, and she promises me that she’ll punish her. She promises me that she’ll finish what I started and break her. And do you know what? I think she’ll succeed. Not the way I would have succeeded. Probably not the way she wants to succeed. But she’ll break Faith all the same. You know the only reason I’m not on death row right now is that Faith has consistently mishandled her cases to the point where the prosecution has to struggle to keep my case from being dismissed?”

Michael leaned forward. “Read my lips, West. You will never get out of here.”

“Oh, of course not. It wouldn’t be allowed. If the casewasdismissed, I’d no doubt be shot within seconds of the judge’s gavel falling. But the fact remains that Faith has become so much of a liability that the FBI has chosen to allow the Messenger to keep killing rather than risk letting Faith makeanother mistake. Eventually, her mistakes will catch up to her. She’ll lose her job. She’ll leave in disgrace. Or—and I find this far more likely—she’ll take justice into her own hands.”

West leaned forward, his grin now a sneer. “I look forward to the day when you have to visit your partner in a cell just as you are visiting me. I look forward to the day when Faith has to come to terms with the fact that stripped of the trappings of justice and ‘right,’ she is no better than I am.”

The door opened, and Jorge called, “Okay, Michael. Time’s up.”

Michael got to his feet and nodded to West. “Enjoy irrelevance, little man.”

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