Infuriated, she stuffed the pages into herbackpack and forced herself to sleep.

Sunday morning, she woke late and decided totake a bus to the hospital to rescue her vehicle before it gottowed. She was still livid about the lack of a Chapter One. Shewanted more. She needed all of it if she was going to get throughto Victor.

On her way home, she stopped off at herfavorite café, unable to bring herself to go home. She had spentnearly twenty-four hours confined there and she needed fresh airand sunlight.

As she sipped on her coffee, she was treated,yet again, to seeing Victor’s face on television. There was a bigbreak in the case and he was front and center at a pressconference. Elsa rushed to the counter to see what was goingon.

Victor looked tired but his voice was steadyand calm when he answered a reporter’s question. “I can’t give awayany vital information at this time. However, I can tell you thatwe’ve had a significant break in the case and we’re acting on itappropriately.”

“Is it true that you conferred with knownserial killer Anthony Bruce regarding this case?” someone frombehind the camera blared out.

Victor’s eyes darkened and his mouth thinned.Elsa cringed. She knew the look well. He was angry and she felt atwinge of sympathy for whoever had asked the question. Would Mr.Black lash out or would Victor’s cool professionalism prevail? Shewatched in stunned silence as he stared wordless at the reporter.As the room quieted down and waited for his answer, it was as if hewas looking directly at her and he knew what she was thinking andalready planning. She only half listened to his response as shestruggled with her conscience because all she wanted to do was getto his house and find Chapter One.

As she drove in silence, she caught herselfglancing uneasily into her rear-view mirror and over her shoulder.She had a much stronger guard up since meeting and being subjectedto Mr. Black’s brand of education. As she neared his house, shewondered who Anthony Bruce was and why Victor was so irritated withthe question. It wasn’t uncommon for the FBI or other lawenforcement agencies to utilize the help of convicted killers. Theyhad an inside track to how a murderer’s mind worked, after all.Then again, so did Victor since it was his area of expertise.

The noon sun was bright and high in the skymaking it even more imperative that she park in the same secludedspot she had parked before. When she exited her vehicle, a warningvoice whispered in her head to turn around but she moved withouthesitation. It was getting easier to ignore her voice of reason aseach day passed and she began to fear that soon all commonsensewould be lost and she would simply act without thinking. She hopedit wouldn’t come to that.

Slowly, she walked the distance to his house,trying to appear inconspicuous to any passersby. When his housecame into view, she was finally able to really appreciate itsbeauty. It looked so different in the bright light of day. With allthe lush green trees surrounding the property, the cool, sweetlyscented floral breeze and the wooden fence around the perimeter, itwas peaceful.

She dug into her pocket and put the key intothe lock and waited for the alarm to turn off. When it did, shemade double time to his office. This trip would be a quick one – inand out, she repeated to herself.

She made a bee-line straight to thedesignated drawer to find the stack of blank pages still exactly asshe had left them. She replaced the cover sheet and retied thetwine neatly, but as she laid it back inside the drawer, shehesitated. She didn’t really want to say goodbye to it. She hadtried her best to etch the words into her memory, but there werejust so many of them and she had read the huge manuscript in such ashort amount of time, she worried it would all be forgotten. Sheconsidered making a copy when she saw his printer. She untied thestring quickly and plucked out the sections that she thought weremost helpful and of course, the chapter containing Jordan andquickly made photocopies.

With the case study back in its rightfulplace, she closed the drawer and searched the remainder of his filecabinets for Chapter One but she was unsuccessful in locating it.Giving up, she turned to leave when she saw an unsealed manilaenvelope on his desk addressed to Virginia State Penitentiary,Anthony Bruce, #6429, which she assumed was his Department ofCorrections number. The same warning voice she heard before was nowscreaming for her to just leave, but she couldn’t resist taking apeek.

She emptied the contents of the envelope ontothe desk and her chest felt as if it would burst when photocopiedimages of his journal notes on her spilled out in front of her. Shesank into his chair, stunned and appalled. Her breath seemed tohave solidified in her throat as she sat trying to comprehend andmake sense of what she was seeing. She clenched her hands until hernails cut into her palms as the realization of what he was planningon doing hit her. She really was just another test subject to studyand pass around for everyone to try and dissect, exploit and breakdown. But a fucking serial killer? Victor had gone too far.

Elsa stood and stuffed everything into herbackpack, but left the envelope. She was a volcano on the verge oferupting and she had to get the hell out of his office before shetore it and his entire perfect house apart.

The drive home took half the amount of timeit should have, but she didn’t give a shit if she got a ticket ornot. The silence in the car seemed to grow tight with tension asher mind clouded with hurt, betrayal and anger. But still, shewanted to fucking help him. She choked back a cry, infuriated withherself for being such an ignorant bitch.

She slammed on her brakes and pulled onto theshoulder. Reaching into her backpack, she shredded his journalnotes without thinking. As soon as she did, she regretted it. Onlyhours before she was bemoaning the fact that she would never get toread his thoughts on her and here it was, like a gift. Or acurse.

The tears she had been fighting came in aflash flood and she cursed the air. Fuck Mr. Black and his game.She would win and this antic was not going to deter her and neitherwere his cruel words and cancellation of their time together. Shewas stronger than Mr. Black and she was smarter than Victor. Shewould be the champion in this game.

19:Invested

Victor was still incensed about thereporter’s question about Anthony when he woke on Sunday. Hisvisits to the Virginia Pen were to be strictly confidential. He hadno doubt who had leaked the information. Fucking Anthony. He lovedthe spot light and if he had a hand in helping catch a killer, hesure as hell was going to make it known to the world.

His work in Cambridge was done for now untilall the proper paperwork and particulars could be sorted outregarding their main suspect. Victor had pointed the detectives inthe right direction once he went with his initial gut instinct andthings were panning out. It was a huge relief, but that negativeinner voice was still nagging him because he knew better than toassume things would work out. Especially when it came to anythingrelated to law enforcement. It wasn’t like the movies or the bookswhere everything fell into place in a few days and wham, bam, yougot yourself a killer. It took time – more time than people on theoutside really knew. It would probably be another month or longeruntil they could even make an arrest. If they were lucky. But atleast for now they could keep an eye on the person in question.

The weekend wasn’t completely over yet and hehoped to get the chance to see Elsa later when he arrived back inRichmond. He had cancelled their weekend, but needed release afterthe frustrating last few days he had.

Back in Virginia, he drove straight to thebrownstone and cleaned himself up before texting Elsa.