“I made you something to eat.”

“I don’t want anything to eat. I want you to let me out of here.”

“You get used to the cell,” Adrian says. He starts scratching at a sudden itch on the side of his head. “And I’m going to try and make it more comfortable for you. See all of this?” he asks, spreading his arms and encompassing the small view. “I brought these things from your house, all your serial killer memorabilia, I brought it here so you could have your own collection nearby because I know how important it is to you, just as you are important to me. It’s still all yours,” he says, “I don’t want it, I want you to still have it. If you think about it, we’re not that unalike really. You collect serial killer memorabilia, and . . .”

“And you collect serial killers. I get the point.”

“I am so lucky to own you,” he says, hardly hearing what Cooper said at all.

“You don’t own me, you crazy son of a bitch,” Cooper says, the defiance in his voice is annoying.

“Don’t be mean,” Adrian says, then remembers that of the two of them, it really is his job to be the calm one. After all, he has had days to think about this, and Cooper has only had a few minutes. This is going to be quite an adjustment for Cooper. He can’t just expect the man to wake up and accept it. “You should eat,” he says, hoping the change in topic and the food he made will hasten the bonding they have to do.

“Listen, Adrian, Adrian, I can’t stay here. This isn’t going to work. You’re going to see that soon, and then you’re going to let me go, but by then it’ll be too late and the police will lock you away and . . .”

“You need to keep your strength up.”

“Jesus,” Cooper yells, and bangs something against the window that looks like a shoe. “Doesn’t anything get through to you?”

“Stop with the questions,” Adrian yells, and before he can stop himself, he kicks out at the coffee table, sending the sandwich he’d made all over the wall and floor. The lantern hits the floor, flickers for a few seconds but doesn’t go out, just rolls across the ground sending shadows moving over the walls.

“Great, just great,” he screams, “now look at what you’ve done? That’s it—that’s it—no more lunch for you today. Now you go hungry,” he says, and he kicks at the coffee table one more time, picks up the lantern, and heads upstairs. He wanted nothing more than to make a good impression, a lasting first impression, and he’s failed, all because of Cooper.

“You can’t keep me here,” Cooper shouts out from the basement.

Adrian stops at the door and looks back down at the cell. Cooper is staring up at him through the window. “We’ll make it work,” he says. “Soon we’ll be friends. I forgive you for making me make a mess.”

“You’re delusional.”

“I’m. Not. Delusional,” he says, biting down on each word. Why do people always think he’s crazy? He’s had to deal with that his whole life and he’s sick of it. He looks down at his feet, at his polished shoes. He cleaned his shoes as part of his attempt to make a good impression, and now he isn’t even sure why he bothered. Did he not clean them enough? Is that the problem? The right one is scuffed up from kicking the coffee table. The fifteen dollars he paid last week for his shirt and tie from the thrift store is looking like a waste of money. He flicks the hair out of his eyes. He can feel the tears starting to come. This has gone nothing like he expected.

He slams the basement door on Cooper’s shouts, angry, embarrassed, wondering if it wouldn’t just be easier to set fire to his collection the same way he set fire to his mother.

He races down the hallway and up the stairs to the first landing, his hip hitting the wall and the radio bouncing off his belt onto the floor. He wouldn’t really set fire to Cooper, that’s just his frustration talking and trying to convince him to do something stupid. He bends down to pick up the radio and is relieved it hasn’t broken. He rewinds the tape a little and can hear Cooper’s voice, then rewinds it the rest of the way so he can record over it. He doesn’t want to hear any of the conversation.

If he wanted to, he could give Cooper the gift he got for him to smooth things over, but he wanted that to be a surprise for tomorrow. He quietly opens one of the bedroom doors in case Cooper’s gift is sleeping, and she is. There are other, perhaps more appropriate rooms for her, but he liked the idea of keeping her more comfortable, of giving her a bed. Her hands are bound to the rails of the bed in the same place he tied them two nights ago. Her skin is flushed and the skin around her lips is dry and has chipped and there’s a plastic drinking straw hanging from her mouth. There’s a pitcher of water on the floor next to her that he helps her drink from, but unfortunately there’s no bathroom in here and he didn’t want to risk untying her all the time for her to urinate, so the room smells from where she’s soiled herself, and the smell reminds him of his days at school, which makes him smile, but then reminds him of the day he got beaten into a coma and the smile disappears. The girl is no more than twenty, he thinks; he isn’t sure of her name and the time for asking was before he glued her lips together around the straw, but he had to do the gluing before she could say mean things to him. She looked the type that could be pretty nasty if she wanted to be. Right now she just looks unhealthy, and he doesn’t think Cooper will be happy with his gift covered in sweat and urine, and he’s going to have to do something about it. Probably he’ll just hose her down and leave her naked. Cooper will like her that way.

chapter nine

Donovan Green leaves me the car he arrived in—a rental—and catches a taxi. The rental is a white four-door sedan about a year old. It tells me Green knew I would take on the case, that he knew I had no car, and from the moment he realized his daughter was missing he knew he would be contacting me if she didn’t show up. If there had even been any doubt, he would have decided that Fate or Destiny played a part in this—his daughter going missing thirty-six hours before I’m released from jail—there has to be something in that, and thank God it wasn’t the other way around, otherwise, instead of coming to me for help, he may have come to blame me for her disappearance. He’s given me a thousand dollars in cash for expenses with the promise of more if I need it. The cash is to smooth any wheels that grind to a halt along the way. He’s given me the gun he threatened to shoot me with last year. It brings back memories. I hide it beneath my wife’s side of the mattress. He’s given me a photograph of Emma when she was ten years old, taken at her birthday party. He’s asked me to carry it with me until I find her. He wants that photograph burning in my pocket as a constant reminder to find Emma, as if I need reminding. I fold it into my wallet. And he’s told me how he thinks Emma would react. She’s a smart kid, he said, one who wanted to study psychology because she thought she was good at figuring out what people thought. He said no matter what the situation, she would adapt and she would survive it. I just kept nodding the entire time hoping he was right, but knowing there wasn’t a lot a young girl like Emma could say to talk her way out of the situation some sick bastard has put her in.

He’s also given me a photograph of Emma taken a month ago. She’s an attractive girl. Last time I saw her she was lying in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of her body. She was awake and didn’t know who I was. I didn’t go into the room, just stood outside it arguing with her father, telling him I was sorry. Her black hair is hanging to her shoulders, framing a face with an easygoing smile, the kind you love to see on any attractive girl, but the kind you don’t see on many of them. There’s no doubt that smile could break some hearts. Her eyes are squinting a little on account of the sun, the background a park or a backyard somewhere.