Chapter 38

Rebecca sat at the left side of the table as Nadia and Dean walked into the room. She looked so benign; it was easy to forget the atrocities she'd accomplished in her short crime spree. Her long, dull brown hair was messy and greasy as it fell over her shoulders and down her back. A few strands stuck to her forehead and drew more attention to the wild, slightly mad look in her eyes. She turned her head to glance at who had walked through the door but didn't seem the slightest bit interested in who it may be. When she turned back to stare at the mirror, her eyes were cold and empty. Nadia fought the shiver she felt coming and walked across the small room to sit in the chair opposite Rebecca.

Dean hovered around her protectively but she ignored him as he pulled out the chair beside her. Nadia fussed with her skirt to gather her thoughts. When she looked up, Rebecca was glaring at her with an intensity that made Nadia's pulse spike. She could even feel Aidan's repulsion toward Rebecca hovering in the back of her mind. Since the dream where she was ripped out of Nadia, Aidan seemed to be less and less at the forefront of her mind. The experience almost seemed to weaken her connection, but Nadia shoved those thoughts out of her mind and focused back to the task at hand.

"I know you couldn't care less, but we have to go through the formalities anyway. So, my name is Hayley Graham. I work for the FBI and was called in on your case." Nadia slid her hands casually onto the table in front of her and looked Rebecca directly in the eye. "You've made quite an impact here; the local authorities are running around like the sky is falling. You're the most fascinating thing to hit this town since the ice age."

"So this is the part where you flatter me?" Rebecca's voice was low and dry and her lips barely moved as she spoke. She was a far cry from the vibrant young woman she was just a few days ago, Dean noted. "Think it will make me talk about all my sins and…transgressions?"

Nadia smiled faintly, "No, I don't."

"Ah, so you're just not a fan of the town then."

Nadia leaned back and crossed her legs. "The town is beautiful; at least what I've seen of it. But every place, everything, has its dark side." She paused and sighed, "It's the people here that I find grating. They seem…entitled. Like the town is theirs and outsiders are just that, outsiders. Just people passing through; people who should be staying out of the town's business."

The slight shift in Rebecca's eyes, a tiny bit of interest told Nadia she was worming her way in. It would be easy to simply pull the confession out of her like she'd done in San Quentin; but that would look a little suspicious. Besides, she'd never been one for the easy way out. "You've lived here your entire life, right? Your family has always held a lot of sway in this town. It didn't help you much when your husband died did it?"

Rebecca's eyes flashed with rage and her body spasmed and she leaned forward. "Murdered! My husband was murdered!"

"Right, sorry. Mudered," Nadia pretended to correct herself but kept her face bored and uninterested. She licked her lips, "What was he like? Your husband?"

"Emmett. His name was Emmett," she growled.

"What was Emmett like?"

Rebecca narrowed her eyes at Nadia. "You don't want to know what he was like. All you want to hear me say is that I killed those men. And you know what?" Nadia lifted an inquisitive brow and Rebecca glanced up at the mirror and back again. Her mouth opened slowly, "I did it."

Nadia and Dean blinked in controlled surprise. Dean glanced at Nadia uncomfortably and Nadia could practically hear him accusing her. Too fast. You're going to fast, Nadia, they're going to know something's up. Nadia shifted uncomfortably, for she hadn't used even a whisper of influence over Rebecca's words. This confession was all Rebecca.

As if she could hear their thoughts, Rebecca said, "I'm sorry, did I ruin the fun? Was it over too fast?" She glanced at Dean's illusion, "Bet that's nothing new for you." Dean's eyes narrowed and Nadia couldn't help but put her hand gently on his thigh as a sign to stay calm. Rebecca blinked and looked back at Nadia again. "You were right about what you said, about people around here feeling entitled. The cops here are the worst."

"Carter," Nadia blurted.

The corner of Rebecca's mouth twitched, "Exactly." She stared over Nadia's shoulder and seemed to be able to see through the mirror. "He wanted so badly to be able to say he was the one who got me to say those three little words. Couldn't give him that now could I? Neither he nor any of those other sorry excuses for a police force ever put half as much effort into getting justice for Emmett that they put into capturing me. I guess one life isn't worth all that much around here; but six?" She inhaled through her teeth, "Well, that's a whole other story, isn't it?"

"You were a housewife. You were married to a good man with a steady job. You were expecting to add to all that with a baby." Rebecca's entire body tensed. "And then one night, a night like every other, your husband was attacked and left for dead. A while after that you lost him forever and the grief and loss was so terrible that you lost the one last thing that tied him to you. You lost your baby; a genetic piece of the man you loved. It wasn't fair. Having your life turned upside down isn't fair to anyone. Trust me, I know."

"You know?" Rebecca almost laughed in her face.

"I know you're thinking that this is some kind of interview technique. Connect with the suspect; but it's not. I lost every family member I ever had by the time I was 16. I never met my dad. I found my mom beaten to death when I came home from school. I went to the store for jelly and came home to find my grandpa bleeding out in our living room. Believe me when I say, I know how unjust the world can be."

Rebecca stared at Nadia. Finally, satisfied that she was telling the truth, she replied. "I knew there was something about you that felt familiar. You and I are alike. Very few people know the kind of pain we've been through. Even fewer know what it's like to go that whole time without ever knowing what happened to the people the loved. It eats at you until all you can think about 24/7 is getting justice on the people who've wronged you."

In a creepily similar moment, Rebecca licked her lips and leaned back in her chair just as Nadia had done. "You want a confession; I'll give you a confession. I have nothing to lose." She glanced down at her hands and ran her finger around the cold metal cuff at her wrist. Then her eyes bounced from Dean to Nadia. "The first time, I was so nervous. It doesn't take much to get a man's mind off any sort of danger that surrounds him. Pretend to trip, struggle with your groceries, pretend to have car trouble… It doesn't matter; they just can't seem to fight the need to be the knight in shining armor. Of course, the good guys do it because it's the right thing to do; but the others? They linger, they charm, and they invite you up to their apartment." Rebecca's gaze was distant and Nadia suddenly knew why Brad Arnold had been killed in his apartment instead of on the street.

"He had no idea who I was. He didn't remember Emmett lying on the sidewalk dying but he knew that he wanted to get laid. So I let him take me up to his crappy little shithole and let him believe that all his dreams were about to come true. The only person who was getting anything shoved inside of them that night though, was him. The first time I stabbed that knife into him, he looked so confused." She smiled and laughed creepily. "He was such an idiot. By then killing was so easy it was almost funny. Do you know the first emotion that passed through his eyes when the knife slid into his abdomen?" Nadia didn't say anything but waited for Rebecca to finish. "Disappointment. He was actually more disappointed he was going to get laid than he was worried for his own life."

She went on to describe each murder in disturbing detail but Nadia tuned out after a while. She kept her eyes and awareness on Rebecca but didn't pay attention to the words she was actually saying. Dean's face was blank but she could see the tightening around his eyes and the muscles in his jaws clench and unclench. When Rebecca rounded up the last of her blood red memories, Nadia didn't waist a second standing and making for the door.

Before she and Dean could get out of the room, Rebecca called for her attention. "You look at me like I'm a monster because you have a badge shielding the darkness within you. It can see it on you, just below the surface. Try and tell me that you're facing a suspect with your gun drawn, you don't picture the face of the person who killed your family. Tell me that you don't hope, in the back of your mind, that he does something that makes your murder justifiable. You are nothing but me with a badge. I'd like to see how the public would view you."

Dean grabbed Nadia's arm and wrenched the door open, pulling her out of the room and practically slamming the door behind them. He wrapped his arm around her lower back, "Don't listen to her. She's just trying to make herself feel better. Trying to bring those down around her."

Nadia leaned heavily against him and whispered, "I'm gonna be sick." Dean held her up and hurried her into the ladies room where he held her hair back from her face.

"She's right." Nadia splashed water on her face and looked at Dean's reflection in the mirror in front of her. Dean had locked the bathroom door and Nadia dropped their illusions because she wanted to see his face without any trouble. The look on his face in response to her words, however, made her think twice about her decision.

Dean stepped forward and stood right behind her with his arms crossed. Nadia avoided his gaze by becoming suddenly engrossed in the water running over her fingers and down the drain. "You are nothing like her." His voice made Nadia cringe from its barely controlled anger.

"Six people, Dean. Six." She was surprised that Dean could even hear her words over the rush of the water. "I've killed hundreds." She straightened up and looked her reflection in the eye, "You're right, I'm nothing like her; I'm worse. So much worse. She's a saint compared to me."

Dean spun her around hard and gripped her biceps until she winced. "Stop it! I won't let her get into your head. I might not be able to protect you from some things," the image of her lying limp in his arms in the tub leapt to mind, "but I can protect you from this." He looked at her hard and pulled her close until their bodies were touching and she could feel his breath on her face. "Those men were innocent, Nadia. The people you killed were far from it." His voice was strained from anger and the desperation he felt to hold onto the girl he knew.

"We can't know that. I couldn't know that, I knew that going into this whole thing. Thousands of innocent people are put in prison every year; how could I know they were all innocent? I can't, it's not possible. Not unless I stayed there and pulled a confession out of every one of them. I couldn't know but I killed them anyway."

"You didn't put them in there in the first place. Someone else did. They wouldn't have been in there if someone else hadn't screwed up; it is not your fault!"

She looked away and fought the urge to roll her eyes. "Semantics."

He licked his lips and searched for a new approach. "Look at me." She kept staring at the wall to her right so he repeated the demand harsher. "Look at me." When she met his gaze, he continued. "You know me. If I thought that you were even the slightest bit like her," he nodded toward the door, "would I be here right now? Would every bit of me be terrified that something was going to happen to you? That you were going to shut yourself off again and disappear again? That I'm not going to be able to figure out what this thing is that's after you before it's too late?"

She watched every tiny movement of his face and saw the gripping fear he kept hiding in his eyes. She swallowed and looked down at his chest where she was gripping his shirt. "No," she whispered and his grip immediately relaxed, letting the blood flow again.

He pulled her into his arms, dragging his lips across hers, over her cheek and ear until he kissed her neck softly. "I'm not letting you go again." She knew that he meant his words in every way possible. He wasn't going to let her leave; physically or emotionally and that meant everything to her. Even if she lived believing only that and nothing else, she'd be happy because finally someone that loved her and was fully prepared to face everything that came with her.