Page 33 of The Grave Between Us
Most of Ian’s focus had been fixed on Cole’s face. Cole’s lips were as detailed as a photograph, his cheeks outlined as clearly as if Ian had run his hands over his face to memorize its shape. Despite the garish color, his eyes were almost like looking in a mirror.
It was obvious that Ian had spent a great deal of time studying Cole, and not just face to face in their sessions. He’d turned over his memories night after night, held on to Cole in the spaces behind his eyelids, remembered the shape of his mouth and the way light refracted off his eyes, memorized the length of his eyelashes and how they shadowed his cheek. Ian had been nearly finished with his drawing when Cole walked in. It was one of the most invasively intimate things Cole had ever experienced, to be seen that deeply. All the days he had sat across from Ian and picked his mind, Ian had been taking him in millimeter by millimeter, memorizing the shape of his lips and the angle of his jaw. He felt raw, exposed. As under the microscope as Ian was, albeit in a different way.
“Impressive,” he said. His voice was rougher than he wanted it to be. He cleared his throat. Ian grinned. “Do you have a photographic memory?”
“No. But I take care to remember things that are important to me.”
“I would think that your victims would be important to you.”
“You’d be correct. And you’re thinking like that joke of a psychologist. I bartered this crayon from him in exchange for a promise to draw that which was most important to me.” He waved to the paper. “Voilà.”
“I’m most important to you?”
“Of course you are.”
“That hasn’t always been the case.”
“No, but that’s not what my agreement with the psychologist was. If he expects anything different, he’ll have to be more explicit. But until I see him again…” Ian wiggled the crayon between his fingers. “I’m supposed to embrace my creative side. Do you have any more paper?”
“I can get you some in a little bit.”
Ian set the crayon down, perfectly parallel to the edge of the table. He folded his hands in front of him and stared at Cole, his lips settling into his usual smirk. “You would like to bargain as well.”
“No. I’ll bring you paper no matter what. I’d rather not leave yet. I just got here.” It was Cole’s turn to smile back at Ian, watch him carefully for a reaction. Was that a spark of light in the depth of Ian’s gaze? A flare of something? Hunger? Satisfaction? “You manipulated your psychologist well. Getting a crayon, being allowed a longer chain, access to paper. All based on a false promise to provide important images out of your subconscious. You could draw your victims for the psychologist, but we both know you won’t.”
“No.” Ian shook his head. “I have no interest in sharing my men with him.”
“Your men?”
“Yes. They became mine when I took them. I had their last moments, their last breaths. I held their lives—and their deaths—in my hands. I was responsible for the most intense moments of their existence. My lips were there as they exhaled for the final time. Being that close to another person when they die, especially when it was you who took their life, means that they become a part of you. I have parts of every man I’ve ever taken inside me.”
Possessive dominance, check. Cole mentally ticked off another bullet on the behavioral checklist he’d built for Ian. Ian didn’t just want to murder those men. He wanted to dominate them. Possess their life and their death, and then possess them for all time.
“I’m not going to share my men with just anyone.” Ian cocked his head, peering at Cole. “I’m thinking about letting you meet them. I am. But you have to know what you’re asking of me.”
“I understand.” Cole’s stomach clenched, and he took a sip of coffee, thick with cream to settle his constantly churning heartburn. He kept adding more and more cream every day, it seemed. What else could he do? He couldn’t pop Pepto in front of Ian. Even if empathizing with Ian’s possession of his victims made him sick, he had to carry on. Walking into the black midnight of Ian’s soul would be worth it in the end, when Cole gained entry to those dark inner caverns to unearth each of the men Ian had taken, freeing their memories and bringing their bones home to their families.
“I’d like to see drawings of your men. But that’s not what I want to talk about right now.” A push, and then a release. “I want to talk about manipulation. You manipulated your psychologist expertly. You’ve tried to push me a few times, but you’ve backed off.”
“I have more respect for you now.”
“Thank you.” Cole tipped his head. “It’s a game for you, isn’t it? Treating other people’s minds like toy boxes to pick through. Playing with them and then putting them down again.”
“Guilty as charged.” Ian spread his hands, then brought them together, rubbing his palms. “It’s the burden of the brilliant. I can see what people are thinking before they do. See what they’re feeling, too. How they’re reacting to the life around them. People are transparent. It’s easy to reach in and pluck a string here, pluck a string there.”
“Once you know what you’re looking for, reading behavior patterns is pretty simple. So is reacting to them, depending on what you’re trying to achieve.”
“Precisely.” Ian smiled.
“That’s one way you’d find men to take, isn’t it? I know you subdued Nelson Miller in a blitz attack. He was alone in his car, and you came through his driver’s side window. You didn’t have a lot of risk attacking him on a rural road. But you took men outside of their cars, too. Or lured them into your truck.”
“Lured. What an interesting word.”
“You’d manipulate men into a sense of safety. Make them trust you before you attacked.”
“Of course. Sometimes I’d spend whole days with my men before I’d take them. We’d enjoy the hiking trail or the lake we were on together. Most single men out enjoying nature are high on life, open to wonder and expecting to have a fabulous day. If they meet a friendly, fascinating man on the trail, or in a kayak, what could be better?”
“You’d seduce them?”
