When their supervisor told them that she and Danny would not be going back after today, Rainey was secretly elated. She'd had enough of Dalton Chambers to last a lifetime, but she couldn't let him know that. Once Danny was out of the room, she began her final attempt to get some truth out of Dalton about the young girl and any of the other murders he was suspected of committing. If he admitted to the rapes, well, that was just icing on the cake.

"Dalton, he's gone now. Just focus on me. Don't give the guards a reason to hurt you, okay?"

Dalton took his focus from Danny in the hallway and moved his blue eyes back to Rainey. She watched his face reform from murderous intent to charming. In another life, he could have been a movie actor. He had the looks and the ability to transform into whatever he wanted others to see. Dalton was an actor of sorts, playing out his fantasies, as star and director of his own sick plot.

Dalton smiled easily. "I don't know how you work with that guy. You're much too nice to have to deal with that every day and a whole lot better looking."

"Thank you, Dalton. It isn't easy. He loses his temper so often, I wonder if he should be doing this job." Rainey knew Danny could hear her through the speaker in the hall.

Dalton made a show of deep concern. "You should ask to be given a new partner. You shouldn't have to put up with him."

"I'll do that. He really is a pain in the a.s.s," Rainey said, chuckling.

"So, what do you want to talk about today, pretty lady?" Dalton was pouring on the charm, as if they were going to talk about the weather, not the heartless murders and rapes he committed.

Rainey pretended that she was being forced to ask the questions. "I don't really want to bring this up, because I know you don't like to talk about it, but my supervisor insists that I get the answers to some questions. He said that if I didn't get answers today, he is going to take me off the case."

"I don't want to talk to anyone else. Tell him, I'll refuse to see them. I requested you from the beginning, remember. The only reason I let McNally come today is because you were with him."

"I appreciate that, but I'm afraid it won't do any good. The Special Agent in charge says there is no reason to send me back here, if I can't get what he wants."

"If I answer just a few of his questions, will they let you come back? You're the only person who comes to visit that I really want to see."

Rainey saw the opening and jumped. "What about your parents? Don't you enjoy their visits?"

Dalton displayed his uncanny ability to mimic real human emotion. Psychopaths could feel fear, anger, even sadness in the moment, but not remorse or guilt for what they've done or are about to do. He dropped his head, trying to appear ashamed. "I hate to see them. They are so hurt by this. I can't stand to see my mother cry like that."

"You told me your relationship with your parents was good when you were growing up. Don't let your mistakes ruin that." Trivializing Dalton's crimes as mistakes almost made Rainey choke. She tried to move the conversation toward her goal. Rainey lowered her voice and said, softly, "If we could just move on from this confession stage, put it behind you, and start the healing part of your recovery, I think you would feel better."

She saw his eyes measuring her. He whined, "If I tell you everything, you won't come back. You would have no reason to come see me."

Rainey laughed faintly. "Oh Dalton, we will be studying you for years." Which wasn't a lie. They would study him, but they had nearly everything they needed and wouldn't need to interview him anymore. She continued, "People will always want to come see you and ask questions. You're one of the youngest, most successful serial murderers we've ever encountered. People want to know what turned such a nice boy into a killer. There will be thousands of words written about you. You are special."

This puffed Dalton's ego sufficiently. "I would like to help in any way I can. If studying me helps prevent this from happening, at least I will have done some good. I don't know why I turned out this way. I think my brain is wired differently than normal people."

"No question about that," Rainey thought silently. Dalton didn't give a rat's a.s.s about helping anyone. He was in it for what he could get out of it personally. She kept her feelings covered by saying, "I know, deep inside you are truly remorseful. You wouldn't have helped us this much if you weren't. I hope that we can help you come to terms with what triggered the change in you, so we can help you move on."

If Dalton truly loved anything, it was talking about himself. He responded, eagerly, "I've been thinking about that. My dad made me help slaughter cows at the ranch. Do you think that had anything to do with it?"

Cattle ranchers slaughter cows every day and don't turn out to be serial killers. Rainey knew Dalton was looking for an excuse to blame his behavior on someone else. She ignored his question with her own.

"Did it excite you s.e.xually when you partic.i.p.ated in the slaughter?"

"No, that's sick. I didn't like it. Too much blood."

Dalton was lying, again. Rainey interviewed his parents and siblings after his arrest. They reported that Dalton asked to partic.i.p.ate at a very early age. He always got excited during slaughter time. He was extremely happy and agreeable afterwards.

"But Dalton, your murders were b.l.o.o.d.y. Why do you think the blood didn't bother you then?"

Rainey watched as Dalton began to reminisce about his crimes. He visibly became more relaxed, sliding down in the chair, getting comfortable. He looked beyond Rainey, acquiring a glazed over quality to his eyes. Rainey knew he was reliving some young woman's death, reveling in it, becoming s.e.xually excited as he did. She had no choice but to let him.

After a moment, Dalton began to speak. "When you chop off the head, the heart still beats for a while. It's just a muscle. Without the brain, it has no idea that it's supposed to be dead. The blood pumps out of the neck in spurts, like the body's gettin' off, you know. It settles down to oozing in just a minute or two."

Rainey didn't react. He was trying to get her to show fear or horror, his favorite emotions from a woman, but that would turn the game they played. He would then focus all his energy on terrifying her and be less likely to tell her anything of value that she and her team didn't already know.

In the same tone she would use in a casual conversation, Rainey asked, "Did you do anything with the blood? Your mother told me she found you with blood smeared on your face and hands after a slaughter. You told her it was something you saw on TV, some ancient ceremony to thank G.o.d for his gift of the beef. That wasn't true, was it?"

Instead of being upset that Rainey knew this about him, Dalton smiled. "She came up after I had put my clothes back on. I was twelve. I had been running naked in the pasture, covered in blood from head to toe." He laughed at the memory and then continued, "I was walking to the river to wash off my body when she found me. I had to make something up. She's so religious, if I told her it was in the glory of G.o.d, she would have let me cut her head off."

Rainey carefully worded her response. "So, what you said earlier about there being too much blood, that wasn't true either. Come on, Dalton. I thought we were beyond your lying to me. I want to help you, remember?" Rainey paused, and then began again. "You were the All-American kid, with the idyllic life. Tell me when it changed. When did you know you were different, special?"

Rainey was leading him to the first murder. Dalton no more wanted help than he wanted to be in prison. If he could, he would leave today and begin killing tomorrow. A true psychopath, when asked if he would like to be cured, would say, "Cured from what?" Dalton didn't think there was anything wrong with him. He couldn't care less about the victims or Rainey. They were all the same, just things that crossed his path. Remorse was a foreign concept to Dalton. His ego, however, was inflated. He believed himself to be smarter than anyone he met. He believed he was steering the conversation he was having at the moment. Rainey let him think that and fed his ego, keeping him off balance enough to show her his real thoughts.

Dalton took the bait. "I knew early that I was smart, around nine or ten, I think. I found out pretty young that I could talk my way out of stuff. People are really stupid, you know. Like my mom, I could tell her anything and she believed me. Dad wasn't so easy to get around, but then mom would convince him he was wrong. I kept my secrets to myself, so no one ever suspected me."

"Your secrets, like why you covered yourself in blood?"

Dalton was distracted by his own thoughts and answered without thinking. "I did that with the girls, too."

This was new information. Rainey took advantage of Dalton's willingness to talk about it. "So this part of your ritual came to you early, before you actually started killing the women you raped?"

"Yes, the blood on my skin felt empowering. It did the first time I saw myself in the mirror after we killed some cows. I didn't want to wash it off, but they made me. It looked like war paint, you know."

"Did you smear your first victim's blood on you? Was it more powerful than the cows blood?"

With his guard down, he answered her question. "Yes," he said enthusiastically. Caught up in the rush of just thinking about the blood, Dalton wanted to talk about it now. "You have no idea how it feels to let someone's blood pump out onto you. It was like electricity, cranking me up to a high I could not have imagined."

"Is that when you got your s.e.xual release, when their blood spurted on you from the neck?"

Dalton showed just a touch of his true s.a.d.i.s.tic self. His eyebrows lowered, he stared into Rainey's face. His right eye twitched. "Yes," he said, and that was all.

Characteristically, when they got to his activities after the beheading he grew cautious, evasive even. Rainey suspected he did things to the bodies after the girls were dead, but they couldn't prove it.

She asked, "Then why did you gut them, as you call it? If you had your release, why do that?"

Dalton's voice was cold, when he answered, "That's what you do to cows."

Rainey felt the color in her cheeks begin to rise. She couldn't let him focus on her steadily growing anger and disgust. She said quickly, "And you were completely naked, as I recall from your previous statements. You then took the head to the river and went 'swimming with it,' you said."

"Yes, but you don't actually swim in rapids. I tied a rope to a tree and around my waist. I waded out to let the water wash the blood off, then threw the head in."

"Why did you throw the head in the water? Was it to make the ID more difficult?"

The darkness crept across Dalton's face. "Yes."

Rainey pressed. "You knew there were other ways to identify them easily. So, there had to be another reason."

Dalton just stared back. His eye twitched again.

Rainey didn't press. The way he looked at her, she knew he threw the head in the water to get rid of the evidence of what he did with it after he killed the women. She wanted to crawl across the table and rip off what was left of his s.e.xual organs. Instead, she changed the subject. Dalton was more likely to give her something else, just to keep her from bringing up his necrophilia. These guys would admit to revolting crimes, but most didn't want anyone to know about what they did to the bodies after death. Even a psychopath knows those acts are unspeakable.

"Okay, I won't ask you about that. Let's go back to when you began to use the sword and the bible verses. You didn't do that with the first girl."

Dalton, so distracted by her interest in his post murder activities, slipped up. "I just lost it with her. I didn't intend to kill her, but she pulled my mask off and recognized me. Then she started saying how she knew me from being her church camp counselor and she knew about my...my not having any b.a.l.l.s and I just lost it."

"So, are you now admitting to killing Janelle White?"

Dalton realized an instant too late what he had done. His face flushed red. He glared at Rainey. His eye began to twitch. He glanced over at the guard with the black box. Rainey got Dalton's attention.

"Are you also admitting to being the masked rapist for the two years after that?"

Dalton continued to grow angrier. Rainey knew it was time to pull back.

"Okay, you don't have to answer that, but I have to tell you, if you talk about the rapes and how you went from s.e.xual a.s.sault to serial killing, people will want to listen. It'll buy you more visits from the BAU." Silence. "Well, what about the bible verses? Will you talk about that?"

The Dalton that spoke next was the scary Dalton, the pretty boy turned evil killer. In a flat tone, he said, "They claimed to be virgins. Virgins don't get in a truck with a stranger and go necking in the woods. They were s.l.u.ts. I gave them a chance to ask for forgiveness and then ended their lives before they could sin again. Isn't that what you want to hear?"

"No, that's what you want me to think. What I think is you specifically hunted virgins in retribution for those brothers who beat you half to death for raping their sister. Was she a virgin, Dalton?"

Dalton shouted, "I didn't rape that c.u.n.t. She wanted it. They all wanted it."

The guard in the corner took a step forward. Rainey put her hand up to stop him and kept at Dalton.

"Okay, we won't talk about that girl either. Calm down so the guard won't have a reason to push the b.u.t.ton on his little box." She waited a second then continued, "After Janelle, you went two years without killing. Why? What made you change your methods?"

Dalton breathed heavily, his eye steadily twitching; he was close to losing control. He didn't answer her.

"Was it the blood, Dalton? Did the blood from Janelle excite you? Did it scare you for two years, that you liked the blood, and then you couldn't resist the need anymore? The rapes weren't enough. You needed the blood for the s.e.xual release, didn't you?"

Rainey didn't care about the rapport she spent six months building with this creep. She hoped he rotted in h.e.l.l. She was on a roll and couldn't stop herself.

"Or was it s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her dead head that did it for you? Or maybe it was because she was the same age as your little sister. Did you fantasize about your little sister, too?"

Dalton leaned forward. "I think about your blood on me when I m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e, now. It's the only way I can c.u.m."

Rainey didn't flinch. Instead, she laughed. "I a.s.sure you I'm not a virgin. Probably wouldn't do a thing for you."

With a spine-chilling smile, Dalton spewed out, "I fantasize about taking your head over and over. The look on your face...what I'd do to that pretty mouth... It's what gets me through my days."

Rainey knew they had reached the end of their conversation. Dalton was beyond answering questions, now. Something snapped inside Rainey, and with the knowledge that she would never have to see him again, she stood up. Her supervisor would reprimand her for jeopardizing any further communication with Dalton, but it did not stop her from telling him just what she thought. This was going to cost her a week's suspension and a trip to the Bureau psychiatrist, but it was worth the price.

"Dalton, before I leave there is something I've always wanted to say to you. I hope North Carolina gives you the needle. I know what you did to those women. I know why you did it. You are not special. You are a run of the mill s.a.d.i.s.tic psychopath and I will make sure that everything you've said will be evidence enough to put you to death. I especially will derive pleasure from telling the jury about your taste for dead body parts. Everyone is going to know exactly what kind of miscreant you are, Dalton Chambers."

Rainey gathered up the folders on the table. Dalton's expression changed to pure hatred. He screamed after her, as she began to leave, "If they take me there, I'll find you. I already know where your father lives. That's a nice little place there on Jordan Lake."

Rainey stopped and turned around.

Dalton continued his rant, "Yes, that's right. I have fans and they tell me things. I know all about you Rainey Bell. I'll get to you, one way or another."

Rainey gave Dalton her best smile. "The next time I see you will be at your trial, followed by your execution, at which I will most definitely be in attendance."

"They can't prosecute me there. My deal covered all my Virginia murders and the ones in North Carolina, too."

Rainey laughed. "Ah, therein lies the rub. You just told me you killed Janelle White. You took her from just across the North Carolina line. You may have killed her in Virginia, but the kidnapping occurred in North Carolina. You never admitted anything about the murder until today. It wasn't covered in your deal. North Carolina can indict you for felony kidnapping that resulted in rape and murder."

Dalton yanked at the chain around his belt. Rainey didn't flinch.

"Why wouldn't you admit to that one killing? We all knew you did it. Was it because she was so young? You knew your supporters would dump you if you admitted to killing a child. She was a young innocent girl, just barely thirteen, who did nothing but cross your path. If the guys in here know you killed a child, the target already on your back is going to grow exponentially. Dahmer lasted, what, nineteen months? You're going to die Dalton, one way or another. Too bad they don't use the guillotine anymore, it would be so fitting."

Dalton lost all semblance of control. "I told you I was going to kill you the day you shot me. You thought I forgot about that. I keep my promises. One day when you least expect it, I'm going to send someone after you. You're going to be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life. When you close your eyes at night you'll see me. I'm going to haunt your dreams..."

Rainey signaled the guard on the other side of the door that she was ready to be let out. He spoke into his radio and the door began to slide open.

Dalton continued to scream behind her, "You'll never forget me. I'll get you one way or another, you can bet on that, b.i.t.c.h. I have fans right now that want you dead. You're going to die just like those other wh.o.r.es."

Just before the door closed behind her Rainey looked at the guard in the corner. She nodded. The guard smiled. Rainey walked down the hall with Dalton's screams echoing off the walls, his body writhing in pain, as 50,000 volts jolted him from his chair.

Under her breath, she said, "Give it your best shot, a.s.shole."

PART II.

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be."

~Lao Tzu.

Chapter four.

Monday, April 4, present day.

Raleigh, North Carolina.

"Cease fire! Cease fire!"

Rainey shouted, but to no avail. The two women in front of her continued to pull the triggers of their respective weapons. The rounds came fast, one behind the other, disappearing toward the black silhouettes in their sights.

She tried again, louder this time. "Cease fire!"

The blonde stopped firing first. She turned her eyes back to Rainey just as the other woman fired her last round.

"That's it!" Rainey continued to shout, because she hadn't yet taken out her ear protection. "You two will not be shooting semi-automatic weapons. You are staying with the revolvers I gave you to begin with."