Page 50 of The Grave Between Us
If he came around that table and took Ian up on his offer, if he sat next to him and put up with Ian’s games—his sniffing and his lust and his erection—and got through the interview, Ian would lose the satisfaction of this attempted domination. If he could no longer unnerve Cole, why persist?
Cole tore off a single sheet of yellow paper and grabbed his pencil. He dragged his chair around the table, setting it sixteen inches from Ian, angled slightly toward the man. He sat, crossed his legs, and laid the paper and pencil in front of him.
Ian beamed. He spread his legs, as much as he could in his chains, knees pointing out as wide as they could go. His erection jutted out of his crotch, straining his prison jumpsuit.
Cole slid the paper and pencil over to Ian. “Here.”
“No comment?” Ian nodded to his crotch.
“I’m sorry, is there something there to see? I didn’t notice.”
Ian laughed. He winked at Cole as he picked up the pencil and pulled the paper forward.
He kept his word, limiting his narration to the bare facts. Timing, location, where he took Brenden and how. He put the gruesome details on the paper, bullet-pointing out his tortures like a to-do list. Strangulation, to the point just before death. Stabbings. Slicing. Filleting. Breaking bones. Reviving Brenden when he stopped breathing too soon. Verbal degradation. A wide variety of sexual assaults, before and after death. Ian would stop and chew on the pencil at times, gazing off at the corner of the room as if he was watching the murder play out in front of him. Once or twice, he’d suck on the eraser while he side-eyed Cole, breathing heavily through his nose.
Cole let those moments stretch like rubber bands, saying nothing, doing nothing. He stared at Ian like he was watching a toddler, babysitting him. Eventually the moment would snap and Ian would turn back to the page, scratching out another torture he’d inflicted on Brenden, with the timing, the sequence of events, how long he spent holding Brenden’s face in the mud as he assaulted him or how long he strangled him from behind before reviving him for the third time, only to grab his knife and roll Brenden to his back, straddling him as he grinned down at the young man.
Through it all, Ian’s erection throbbed.
The whole thing took just under two hours. Cole held back a sigh when Ian set down the chewed-up pencil and slid the paper back to him. “That should be enough for your forensic team,” Ian said. “They’ll find nicks on his bones from several of these stab wounds. His hyoid bone will be broken in several places. There will be broken ribs, too.”
“Don’t forget the broken lower legs.”
“Oh, yes. Those, too.”
Cole collected the paper, the pencil, and his empty coffee cup.
“Cole,” Ian said as he reached for the door handle. “We belong to each other now. We’re united for the rest of our lives.”
He walked out without a word.
McHugh was waiting in the hallway, as bedraggled and haggard as Cole had ever seen him. He held two cups of coffee, and he passed one to Cole. “I’m switching to white-collar crime after this,” McHugh mumbled. “I can’t listen to this shit for much longer.”
“I don’t blame you.” Cole leaned against the wall beside him. He tipped his head back. “We deal with a lot of dark shit, but this…” He sighed. “Usually, when they’re caught, they collapse. The mystery they’ve built, the bullshit magical aura they’ve bought into—especially if there’s press around their murders—evaporates. They’re just a dude in handcuffs, and they’re powerless and pathetic and alone, and all they want is some kind of validation again. It’s easy to manipulate them. Build that rapport, make them think you understand them. They’re so desperate for that human contact they almost fall over themselves to explain why. The guy who murders six prostitutes because he’s so broken as a human that he can’t talk to a woman unless he pays her. Or the guy who burns blonde women with cigarettes before cutting their heads off because his bottle blonde mother put her cigarettes out on his skin when he was a kid.”
“Jesus Christ,” McHugh muttered. “How do you sleep at night?”
“It’s ugly, and it’s disgusting, but it works. And you walk out of the interview room with those confessions and you can dump those guys in the trash bin of your mind. But him…”
“He loves to kill.”
Cole nodded. “More than that. He loves to torture. To terrorize. I think he lives for his victims’ terror more than for the kill. He’d keep someone indefinitely if he could keep torturing them and feeding on that terror, I think.”
McHugh shook his head. He pushed his fingers against his eyelids, scrunching his forehead into a frown. “The marshals called. Their transport van has a cracked oil pan. Some jackass ran over something and nearly ripped the whole thing off. Their other transport van is up in north BFE, so they’re saying either we keep Ingram here until they can get back, or we drive him to the prison ourselves.”
“How long until they’re expected to be back?”
“I was told three a.m. at the earliest.”
“Fuck.”
“I can do it. It’s not a far drive, and he’s shackled. He doesn’t scare me. He just fucking irritates me.” McHugh’s face twisted. “Hillary is still here. He can ride along. I’d rather not put you and Ingram in close quarters, and I’m sure you’re done with the guy for today.”
“I’d like to not see him again for a long time.” Cole frowned. “Hillary will go with you?”
“Yeah, he’s a good guy. He always pitches in. He’s been coming in early to help sort through everything.” McHugh waved to the conference room.
“All right. Well, let’s get him ready to go.”
