Page 32 of By the Time You Read This

Raisa couldn’t help but notice that, like the girls at the prison, Gabriela had styled herself to look like Isabel just before she was caught.

“We don’t know what happened to her,” Raisa said, honestly. “But we’re hoping you can help with that.”

Another beat, and then Gabriela shifted back, letting the door swing open all the way.

After Raisa and Kilkenny stepped into the tidy, well-lit apartment, Gabriela curled herself up on a fancy computer chair. She didn’t offer them seats, but Raisa took the sofa across from her, while Kilkenny leaned against the wall. It was his preferred spot—where he could watch the person’s face without being the focus of their attention.

“I’m not crazy.”

Raisa tried not to react. “Okay.”

Gabriela shot her a look. “Everyone thinks it. Because I’m interested in serial killers, like half the country isn’t as bad as me. As if Essi isn’t as bad as me.” Her mouth tightened. “Is she the one who gave you my name? She must have, she just doesn’t like anyone encroaching on her spotlight. She’s such an attention whore and then acts all holier-than-thou in front of—”

“You two know each other?” Raisa cut into the diatribe. The two of them seemed to be the leaders of two different, warring factions, and the dynamic was fascinating.

“She doesn’t know me,” Gabriela snapped, and then took a deep breath. “Sorry, she’s a sore subject.”

“Because you guys are on opposite sides of the Isabel argument?” Raisa asked.

“That, sort of,” Gabriela said with a one-shoulder shrug. “It’s more than that, though. If she just left me alone, or criticized our movement broadly, you know, whatever. But she’s flattened me intosome caricature. She mocks me, she sends her cronies to troll me online, she sends the freaking FBI to come interview me.”

Gabriela waved at them at that, and Raisa couldn’t deny the girl had a point.

“She doesn’t know anything about me,” Gabriela said again. “She doesn’t know I had a boyfriend once. I was fifteen and he was twenty-six.”

Raisa nodded. She could guess where this was going.

“She doesn’t know that he put me in the hospital four different times,” Gabriela continued. “She doesn’t know that not one goddamn nurse made him leave my side when he came to visit.”

She plucked at her bottom lip. “She doesn’t know that I prayed every day that he would just die. That someone would kill him.”

Gabriela looked up at them. “Essi thinks I’m crazy. But she won’t ever admit that Isabel saved people. Not me. But people like me.”

Raisa exhaled slowly. There would be no point in arguing with Gabriela. Fanatics were fanatics for a reason. They were blind to logic, and their mind would perform Olympic-level gymnastics to allow them to maintain their worldview and biases.

That didn’t make it easier to hear.

“I know she’s evil,” Gabriela said, sounding like she didn’t believe it. “But, god, I don’t care. She’s saved so many people, and I’m pretty sure her positive balance outweighs the negative.”

If Isabel hadonlykilled people who committed horrific crimes, Raisa might concede there was an argument there. Not one she agreed with, but one that could be made.

That wasn’t reality, though.

“She killed my parents,” Raisa said simply.

Gabriela looked away. Raisa caught a hint of shame behind her expression just before she did. It would take a lot more than that to rip out the roots of her obsession, though.

“She was young when she did that.”

“Right,” Raisa murmured. “Budding psychopaths have to start somewhere.”

Kilkenny tensed behind her, not because she was wrong, but because comments like that were just going to have Gabriela throwing up walls they would have to knock down to get any answers. Raisa wasn’t helping—in fact, she was actively hurting the investigation. This was why it wasn’t smart to get involved in cases that you were personally involved with.

Gabriela might be a bit strange, but she certainly wasn’t the first person in the history of the world to defend a vicious killer and believe she was in the right.

“Did you start the FreeBell movement?” Raisa asked, trying to get them back on track.

“That got co-opted,” Gabriela said. “After Isabel’s trial there were tons of people like Essi that came out of the woodwork.”

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