Page 159 of Long Way Down

“Try me,” she said, frostily.

He shrugged, wry half-smile tugging sideways on his face as if to sayI warned you. “Spence wasn’t my attorney when my case first went to trial.”

She knew that, from the old file. “It was Phillips & Phillips.”

“Yeah. Very old, very well-established firm. I got donations, you see, from fans who footed the bill.”

That she hadn’t known. It had puzzled her how an electrician had been able to afford a prestigious Manhattan firm.

“But after the case, and after I got locked up here, I was back burner for them. If I put in a request for a meeting, they’d send a flunky intern out to sit down with me, but there was no real interest. My fifteen minutes of fame were up, and they’d moved on to the next monster the news was obsessed with.

“And then I got a visit one day from Spence.”

“When was this?”

“About three years ago, give or take. Walked in with a sharp suit, and shiny shoes, and he sat down, where you are now” – nod toward her – “and he wasexcited. Bursting with energy like a kid on Christmas morning. I woulda thought he’d play it a little cool, since there were guards standing around, and he did whisper, I’ll give him that, but the excitement was coming off him like steam. Kept saying it was an honor to meet me, and that he couldn’t wait to work with me.”

“Work with you onwhat?”

“The book I wrote, for starters. He thought we could spin it into some kinda Netflix deal or something, a documentary.

“I was bored, Phillips wanted to drop me, so when he slapped his card down on the table, I said I’d hire him. You shoulda seen him: I think he jizzed his pants.”

Melissa frowned, thinking back to the first time she’d seen Bradley. The second time had been the confusion and panic of a villain ousted; but the first time, here at the prison, he’d given the impression of an uptight, fastidious man. She’d taken it for strict adherence to his responsibilities…but it could have been an overeager devotion to his client. A client he’d been quite vocal about protecting from the police.

“Why was he such a fan?” she asked.

Osborn shrugged, and then sat forward to rest his elbows on the table, leaning toward her, casual, easy. He shook his head with a touch of bafflement. “He never spelled it out for me, but, given what he’d let slip sometimes, and the way he was obsessed with his appearance – he spent ten minutes one time wiping dew off his shoes with a handkerchief – I got the impression he had a rough childhood. Abusive parents, not a lot of money. He mentioned a few times that he’d have to wear dirty clothes to school, and he was on the small side, in college. The boys picked on him and the girls laughed at him.”

“So, what? Instead of working out and getting a better haircut he decides to stan a rapist?”

Another head shake. “I hadn’t made the news by then. No, I imagine he had other idols: that’s what I was to him. An idol. Someone to aspire to. And hedidwork to improve himself. He studied his ass off, worked after school jobs so he could afford to mail in his college applications, and wound up with several scholarships.”

Just like me, she thought with an inward flinch.

“He told me that he found himself a sponsor when he was in college. An older gentleman, a lawyer himself, who took him under his wing and who rented him a room; covered his expenses when law school took up too much of his time and he couldn’t work.”

She clicked the end of her pen. “Does this sponsor have a name?”

“Fredrick Seymour,” he said, and she paused halfway through writingFrederick, memory pinging. “Yeah,” Osborn said, a touch rueful, “the one who hanged himself off the banister of his mansion a few years ago. His computer hard drive was full of kiddie porn and someone was blackmailing him.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah,” he said again. “That devastated Spence. He cried telling me about it, in one of our meetings. He’d loved the man like a father. Said he couldn’t imagine the world without him in it.”

“The world’s better off,” she said with a snort, and he grinned.

“I thought that might be your sentiment.” His grin slipped away, replaced by a troubled expression, brows drawn together, eyes somber. “Believe it or not, I tried to help Spence. I told him he was a little too invested in me, that it wasn’t healthy to take everything he’d felt for Seymour and pivot to place that on me. He was struggling with what he called his ‘impulses,’ and so I was the one who recommended Eyes Ahead to him.

“Their leader interviewed me,” he said, before she could ask. “Big, tall, strong guy. Looked like he was blushing all the time.” He reached to tap the tabletop beneath Crider’s picture. “This guy. Real friendly, real enthusiastic about his little group. When Spence started talking about his ‘impulses,’ I thought of this guy, and I told Spence maybe he ought to look into something like that.”

“He joined them at your urging.”

“I guess you could put it that way, if you wanted to.”

“What else did you urge him to do?”

He opened his hands, the chain between the cuffs rattling. “Anything Spence said or did with that group he did on his own. I didn’t ‘urge’ him to do anything. I worked alone, remember? I didn’t need friends cheering me on.” His lip curled, briefly, as though disgusted by the idea.

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