“Is that so.” My nostrils flare, her sweet scent torturously, dangerously close to pushing me over the edge. “I’m not opposed to you testing your theory, sweetness.” I lower my mouth close to hers, tasting her uneven breaths. “Say the word, and I’ll shred these musty old books while I fuck you senseless on top of them.”
She licks her lips, a goddamn taunt, and I hungrily follow the path of her tongue with a depraved craving that nearly sends me to my knees.
The dare hangs in the splinter of air between us. I know what she’s doing, but if my little profiler thinks she can psych me out by coming on strong, she’ll be sorely mistaken.
“I don’t rattle,” I say, gripping the beltloop tighter. “Hurt me or fuck me, Halen, but don’t use lame psychology tactics. It’s beneath you.”
I’m hit with a dose of her saccharine fear. Whatever she glimpses in my expression causes her to break away. My jaw sets hard. Disappointment is a fist to my guts.
“I’m tired of games,” she says, a hint of exhaustion deflating her shoulders.
“Then don’t play them.”
“I just want to find them.”
“We will.”
She searches my features, trying to suss out the truth. With a slow nod, she looks again at the bookshelves high on the wall. “This room didn’t belong to Landry,” she says, changing the topic as if the realization suddenly comes to her.
Inhaling a deep breath, I rub the back of my neck, my blood still a deafening roar inside my ears, my cock straining painfully against the closure of my slacks. I shamelessly reach down and adjust myself, loving how a pretty pink hue tinges her face at my crass act.
“You’re right. It’s too neat and organized.” I fold my arms across my chest. “And indexed. To a frightening degree. Almost an OCD-like quality.” I watch Halen move toward one of the bookcase ladders. “Where better to meditate for years in solitude than a private library. Like your own personal cave. Just like Zarathustra.”
“You failed to mention that before,” she says, her tone admonishing.
She fails to see how clearly she comes to insights when she gives in to us, freeing herself of other constraints. “The mansion is a hoarder’s den. The library isn’t. I felt it was obvious.”
“How many years did Zarathustra meditate in his cave, ten?” she says, referring to Nietzsche’s allegory, the one the Overman suspect is using as a guide to ascend to a god-like state of consciousness.
“Yes,” I respond. “Then he descended his mountain to bring the gift of the Overman to the people.” As I say it, I think about a lecture I once gave, where I lambasted Nietzsche and Jung for their blatant lifting of the shaman Primal Man. Wellington was there, my first candid interaction with him.
“A decade is a long time,” Halen says, drawing my attention. “Landry was never seen in town. No one talked to him, or communicated with him. If someone else was living in this mansion with him, would anyone know?”
“Most people don’t have the patience and discipline to meditate and study for a decade. I think you’ll find your Overman wannabe descended the mansion library much sooner.”
She nods absently, distracted. “Still, if the perpetrator spent any length of time here, then there has to be something left behind in this room.” She climbs onto the bookcase ladder.
I seat myself on the desk and pull my knee up, much more interested in Halen’s jean-clad ass as she ascends the ladder than the books. “It’s also obvious that Landry knew the perpetrator well. Landry had money, enough resources to provide the suspect with all this. A gift to someone he values, respects. They were probably close.”
She nudges the rolling ladder to the side to search a shelf. “Close like family? The background check on him turned up an estranged brother living in another state. He has no other living relatives.”
“Blood doesn’t always make family,” I say, suppressing an unwanted memory from far too long ago.
She casts a curious glance down at me, as if I’ve said something insightful.
“Don’t read into that, Dr. St. James. You know even a recluse needs an anchor, some form of human contact.”
She arches an accusatory eyebrow before she returns to her hunt.
“Landry was a sacrifice,” I say. When the perpetrator injected him with hemlock, he set Landry up to be the prime suspect. Conveniently, a dead one who couldn’t talk. “He was maybe even a willing one.”
“I considered that,” she says. “The perpetrator could have manipulated Landry to attack us and take the fall. With all this—” she fans a hand across the books “—it’s likely Landry was devoted to the perp’s belief system. He believed in a higher purpose, one he was willing to sacrifice his life for.”
She’s so fucking close, the need burns underneath my sinew, itching my bones. So close…yet she still can’t see the most obvious connection.
“Landry could’ve also known something about the perp, something incriminating. Something this person didn’t want to get out in the event they were caught.”
“Other than their identity?” she asks.
I shrug. “Every villain has their motive, sweet little Halen. Usually a virtuous one.”
While Halen seeks hidden clues, I try to curb my growing impatience. I slam the red leather book closed and set it aside, my wandering attention drawn to other objects on the desk.
“Back in the eighteenth century, there was a British secret society called the Hellfire Club,” I say, angling a map my way. “Their motto was: Do what thou will. Another take on the Will to Power.” I trace a finger over the map of the town, following creeks through the marshland and beyond. “The society met in caves. The Hellfire Caves. Rumors sparked that it was where the members offered sacrifices to Bacchus, the Roman equivalent of Dionysus. The society practiced black magic, pagan and satanic rituals, orgies.”
She peeks down at me from the top rung. “Does this have a point, Kallum?”
I smile at the way she says my name so casually when she’s distracted. “You never know what tidbit will be useful.”
“Speaking of useless information…” she says, making me chuckle. She uses her foot to roll the ladder and reposition herself. “You said at the hunting grounds that the killer chose his victim as a scapegoat. Explain.”
I rub my palms together, giving the healing, irritated cuts much needed friction. Halen accepts the truth better when she comes to her own conclusions. “What are you looking for?”
She shakes her head. “Are you going to explain what you meant back there?”
“No. Not until you tell me something first.” I push off the desk. “Why are you here with me, alone, if you truly believe I’m capable of a heinous act like the one at the hunting grounds.”
“We’re not alone. Agent Hernandez is here.” She slides a section of books aside as she plunders the top shelf. “Are you avoiding my question because you don’t actually have a theory?”
I stalk closer to the bookcase. “Are you avoiding mine because you don’t either?”
She wants me to be the killer. Locking me away forever would be so much easier for her. No conflicting feelings to confront, no dark little cravings to provoke her. If she had any evidence at all, or even a sound theory about the Harbinger crime scene, I wouldn’t be here right now.
The atmosphere of the library charges, the rain pelting the stained-glass windows to further the tense silence.
“What are you really looking for here, Halen?”
Her gaze finds mine. “The murder weapon.”
I narrow my gaze on her. “If I was the killer, I wouldn’t plant the evidence to damn me in the one place where authorities would search.”
“Then where did you plant it?” She angles her body so she can glare down at me. “There wasn’t much time, so did you stash it somewhere close to the crime scene?”
Her accusation hangs in the current snapping between us as we lock gazes.
