Frustration was putting it mildly. Her last interview with a convicted felon had left her with a freshly sharpened pencil almost impaled in her throat. Maggie had tried to assure her that Otis P.—as he liked to be called—was not violent. Out of the thirty-seven fires he had started, no one had ever been hurt or killed.

Gwen had wanted to ask Maggie last night how she could say such a thing about a serial arsonist? The simple act of torching building after building was quite violent. She wanted to remind her friend that many serial killers started as arsonists. But to do so would alert Maggie that perhaps Gwen wasn’t up for this assignment. And Gwen would much rather tamp down her ridiculous fear and struggle through this interview than admit to Maggie that she might not be capable of doing it.

Gwen was fifteen years older and she knew that Maggie considered her a mentor even as the two of them became friends. In fact, Gwen had a strong maternal instinct when it came to Maggie, wanting to shield and protect her, concerned to the point of nagging. Maggie’s dysfunctional childhood and failed marriage had closed off her heart in ways that even Gwen hadn’t been able to pierce. But she knew she was the only person Maggie trusted unconditionally. That should have been a triumph for Gwen, but in some ways it felt like a burden. Gwen didn’t want to give up the façade of being the older, wiser, reliable, unshakable mentor. She didn’t want to let Maggie down.

So here Gwen was, getting patted down by a prison guard with bad breath and clumsy hands. Or at least he pretended they were clumsy while he groped exactly where he wanted. The warden stood less than three feet away watching and enjoying so openly that Kunze stepped in between. She had purposely worn slacks with her suit instead of her trademark skirts. And pantyhose, knowing the control top and added layer around her thighs would make it more difficult to slip fingers where they didn’t belong.

Gwen also knew that if she complained she could lose the interview. She knew enough about prison politics. Warden Demarcus didn’t care that they were FBI. If they wanted entrance into his house, they had to play by his rules.

“You’ll need to remove your high heels,” Demarcus told her when his man was finished.

“Why is that?” she asked, trying to sound curious instead of stunned.

“Too provocative. What are those, three inches?”

“And what would you have me wear instead?”

The guard pulled out paper shoe covers that were about twice the size of Gwen’s feet.

“She’s not taking off her shoes,” Kunze said before Gwen could respond.

She watched the two men stare each other down.

Outside the prison walls Warden Demarcus might be mistaken for a high-paid lawyer. His shirt and trousers looked tailored, his tie an expensive silk. Gwen recognized Italian leather shoes when she saw them, though she thought the tassels were a bit much. He had a handsome face and a thick head of dark-brown hair with a peppering of gray at the temples that made him look distinguished. But it wasn’t the clothes that made the man intimidating. There was something about the way he carried himself. His back was ramrod straight. He held his square chin slightly up as though he were looking down at everyone he met. Gwen decided it was the man’s eyes that made him so intimidating. They were narrow set with a hawkish nose that made him look like a predator.

Demarcus stood several inches shorter than the assistant director. Gwen had heard that Raymond Kunze had played linebacker in college and had even been drafted into the NFL. But he chose the FBI instead. He still looked like he could level half of an offensive line and he certainly could pick up Demarcus quite easily and throw him across the room. But he didn’t need to do that. His stare telegraphed that fact quite well.

Gwen got to keep her shoes.

Now, as she waited alone in the interview room, she actually felt better knowing Kunze sat somewhere behind the one-way tinted window that took up most of the wall to Gwen’s left. She made herself as comfortable as was possible in the metal folding chair. She had bypassed the opportunity to take notes. Her last experience proved how easily pen and pencil became weapons. It even made her question how the wire in a spiral notebook could be used.

Gwen heard the door open and she sat up straight. Otis P. Dodd came into the room and instantly filled it, a giant of a man with a lopsided grin. As the guard attached Otis’s shackles to the iron rings in the floor beside his chair, Gwen couldn’t help thinking how silly it was for her to worry about pens and pencils. Otis P. Dodd’s hands looked big enough to snap her neck in seconds.

CHAPTER 24

“What do you like about starting fires?” Gwen asked him.

After their short introductions, she delivered her first question exactly like she had practiced it in her head during the long drive from the District to the prison. It was a gamble. She didn’t want to put him on defense but she wanted to learn about him. She wanted to find out a little something about Otis before she asked about his friend, the killer who left his victims in orange socks.

Otis seemed pleased with the question, but it was actually difficult to tell. He hadn’t stopped grinning since he sat down.

“Some people like to call me a pyromaniac.” He licked his lips and Gwen already recognized it to be a nervous tic. “I’m really a powermaniac.” Then he smiled more broadly, crinkling the crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes.

Despite his size and Gwen’s initial reaction, she realized she didn’t find him as frightening as she had expected. He had almost a childlike demeanor about him. His Southern drawl came out soft and gentle, slow and thoughtful. Even as he claimed to be a “powermaniac,” there was nothing threatening in his tone or manner.

“You like the power it gives you?”

“Absolutely. Nothing quite like it.”

Before Gwen could ask another question, Otis offered, “I’d like to see a whole city burn down. That’d be somethin’, wouldn’t it?”

Still grinning, his tongue darted out the corner of his mouth.

Gwen would quickly learn that the grin was a permanent fixture, no matter what Otis was talking about. Perhaps another nervous tic, just like licking his lips. There was nothing salacious about either. In fact, he reminded Gwen of a teenager, a bit awkward and uncomfortable in his own body.

Then he added, “But I know you didn’t come all this way out here to ask about me.” He tilted his head and squinted, looking her directly in the eyes, as if gauging what she was after. “You wanna know about Jack.”

“You know his name?”

“Don’t know if that’s his real name, but that’s what he was going by.”

“He told you about a woman he murdered. Is that right?”

“Actually he told me about quite a few.”

Gwen tried to hide her surprise. She held his gaze. Criminals were good liars. Was Otis playing with her?

“He told you he murdered more than one person?”

“That’s right.”

The lopsided grin didn’t budge.

“How many people did he claim to have murdered?”

Otis looked up at the ceiling as though he might find the answer there. He thought about it for a few seconds then said, “Probably about thirteen or fourteen. Course it’s been more than a year since me and him talked.”

Gwen swallowed, hard. Maggie and Tully believed this killer had murdered others, but more than a dozen? This wasn’t what she had expected.

“Did you find another one of ’em?” Otis asked. He sat forward, his brow furrowed, not just curious now but offering her his confidentiality.

“Yes. We think so. She had on orange socks.”

This time Otis’s smile flickered and he raised one of his eyebrows, as if all of a sudden he had tasted something bad but he didn’t really want to complain. Finally he shook his head.