Chapter 12
JEREMY’S CRUEL SMILE BORES INTO her, making her feel hexed. It’s as if he’s instantly turned her blood to poison; it feels sharp and foreign, pumping through her veins.
What is he trying to do here? How does he know?
Leroux scoffs, still maintaining an unruffled exterior as best he can, but Wren remains dubious at best. “There is a never-ending list of missing people in New Orleans. You’ll have to be more specific than that,” he says.
Jeremy flicks his eyes back to Leroux. “I’m sorry, Detective. I’ll try to narrow it down for you.” He looks up at the ceiling, as if counting in his head. “I think there are two so far. But a third one is due to disappear any day now.”
Wren rolls her eyes. “He’s using tricks like a carnival fortune teller,” she says, attempting to make eye contact with Leroux.
Leroux never takes his eyes off Jeremy. She can see him silently seethe. Like her, he is trying to understand where this information came from.
Jeremy tilts his head at Wren. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
She turns to face him again. “Please. Suddenly you’re Zoltar. Try these tactics on the roaches.”
Jeremy laughs, leaning back. “Wow, look at you. That kind of snark belongs in the prime-time slot.”
Wren shoots him a look.
“You’d be ratings gold,” he continues, sliding his tongue between his teeth.
Wren sucks in a breath, turning to Leroux. “Ready to leave?” she asks flatly.
“You’re really no fun, you know that?” Jeremy asks, a hint of disappointment lacing his tone.
He drops his head all the way back, looking up at the ceiling.
“It’s not a tactic,” he says before looking at them again.
“What would it even get me? I’m just trying to connect the fucking dots for you two twits. ”
“Why would you do that? Out of the goodness of your heart? I don’t think you even have one,” Wren spits out.
“Boredom? If it gets me out of a cell to look at you for an hour, why not try to play nice?” he says smugly.
“What do missing girls have to do with Philip Trudeau?” Leroux asks, trying to switch the direction of the conversation. He’s desperate and it’s showing. Both he and Wren are rattled. It’s impossible not to be.
“Everything. Missing girls in New Orleans have everything to do with him. I told you, he’s not in Massachusetts,” Jeremy says.
Wren’s heart pounds in her chest. She doesn’t want to believe him.
He’s a beautiful liar, after all. She tries to force her brain to quickly logic this whole thing out, but she can’t silence the part that wants, needs, to know more.
Jeremy could be making lucky guesses to pad his own lies, or he could be telling the truth with nothing left to lose.
“You’re saying Philip Trudeau is in Louisiana?” Leroux asks.
Jeremy lets out an exasperated sigh, as if they are wasting his precious time. “Have your little birds heard from him lately, Detective?” he asks.
Wren can see Leroux’s neutral expression break, but he quickly transitions into an amused chuckle. “I think you’re full of shit,” he says.
Jeremy shrugs, letting his eyes trail over to the door for just a second.
Despite knowing this is all intentional, that he wants her to follow his unspoken directions, Wren looks to where his gaze has wandered.
She catches a glimpse of a guard. He stands just outside the narrow window, periodically glancing in at them.
She studies him for a second, wondering what Jeremy is doing and why he is drawing her attention to this man outside.
After a moment, she sees Jeremy and the guard briefly lock eyes before the guard turns away, trying to conceal the silent interaction.
“Why would he come to Louisiana?” Leroux asks.
Jeremy picks at his nails. “He’s been doing this kind of thing for a while. You know that, Detective. You’ve done your homework.”
Wren glances at Leroux, finding it hard to mask her confusion. She can feel herself being pulled into Jeremy’s dance, but she makes an effort to resist. He’s trying to sow discord between them. His manipulation tactics are generic, but he’s skilled, and that pumps up his success rate.
“Rose, I have no idea what you are talking about. We have nothing on Philip Trudeau,” Leroux says.
“Sounds to me like the last desperate flailing of a dead man.” Wren doesn’t believe him, and that scares her.
It’s all starting to feel like John may be keeping her in the dark.
If he let her walk into this without possibly vital information, looking like a fool, she will never let him hear the end of it.
Wren’s eyes flick over to Jeremy. She studies his expression like a painting.
He just stares at John, not moving and not saying a word, for what feels like an eternity.
For a second, she wants to stop all this, to stand up and ask to leave.
She wants to drive back to her empty house and try to maintain whatever semblance of a life she has now, because this feeling of dread is too much.
Jeremy finally breaks the silence, shaking his head and sounding completely unbothered. “Hey, if you want to let your ego get in the way of bringing these missing girls back home, fine. You’re the one who has to sleep at night.”
She’s inside her own thoughts now. Her desperation for this to end is almost too much. She can barely hear him—his words sound like faraway whispers.
I should just get up and leave.
But she doesn’t. She stays rooted to her chair, fiercely wishing for the experience to stop feeling like torture and start feeling like progress. It doesn’t, and Wren feels closer to the void than ever.
Leroux scoffs. “Ya know, I do have trouble sleeping sometimes, but I think it may be this heaping load of freedom that I have.”
“A burden, I do remember,” Jeremy answers sarcastically.
Wren wonders why she even came here in the first place. Richard is dead, and nothing will change that fact. Nothing Jeremy says will make it better, but everything he says does have the potential to somehow make it worse.
Another silence draws out, and the guard at the door looks in again, darting his eyes around the room. Wren looks at John, silently urging him to take the lead while she manages her internal crisis.
He takes the cue, leaning forward and rubbing his hands together. “Why don’t you just spell it the fuck out for me, Rose. No more riddles. Stop wasting my time.”
“There!” Jeremy slaps the table in front of him, and Wren jumps in response. He throws her a snide smile before continuing. “That’s the fire, Detective! I was worried I’d lost you.”
Leroux and Wren stare at him, expressionless.
Jeremy rolls his eyes. “You are probably too late, but if you have a chance to save them, it’s likely they will be somewhere religious or sacred. It will be a place of worship.”
“And why is that?” Leroux asks, letting disdain seep into his tone.
“He’s a celebrated pastor, but you would never clock it just by looking at him.
” Jeremy pauses, thinking for a moment. His eyes flick back and forth as he contemplates a scene.
“Well, his house had a stupid amount of crosses all over the walls, but he never seemed to bring them into any other aspect of his life.”
Wren suddenly drops back into the conversation, perking up her ears and wondering what he’s getting at. “That doesn’t really answer Detective Leroux’s question,” she says.
Jeremy snaps his head in her direction. His expression doesn’t change. “Well, there’s got to be one place where he unleashes all that zealotry outside of church, right?”
“And you think he’s unleashing it upon young women?” Leroux leans back in his chair again and crosses his arms.
“I think that I have known him our entire lives and have some experience in this area of expertise, yeah,” Jeremy answers, eyeing the guard outside the door again. The guard notices, and something unseen passes between them. He immediately opens the door, signaling that the interview is over.
“All right, time to get him back,” he says gruffly, unshackling Jeremy from the chair.
Wren throws her hands up in protest. “Whoa, wait! We have twenty more minutes!”
The guard, whose name is McCormick according to his uniform, pulls Jeremy up, but he does it gently. Sure, he makes it seem like he’s using the kind of aggression you might use on a known serial murderer, but it’s clear to Wren that it’s for show.
“Sorry, folks, time to leave,” the guard says flatly, not even bothering to look at them.
Leroux shakes his head. “We were approved for this time. Put him back in the fucking chair.”
The guard laughs, pausing only to click new cuffs around Jeremy’s wrists. “You have zero authority in here. Piss off.”
He gently—too gently in Wren’s opinion—wraps his hands around Jeremy’s upper arm and begins to move him toward the door. Despite their protests, the last thing they see before the door swings shut is Jeremy’s grin.
“What the fuck was that?” Leroux yells, slamming his chair back and crossing the room to look out the window on the door.
Wren stays seated, looking around and trying to understand how Jeremy was able to make an early exit happen.
“Did you notice the way he and the guard were communicating?” she asks.
Leroux stops raging for a moment, turning to face her. “Communicating how?” he asks.
“There was something different about this guard,” she says. “The way he handled Rose. You ever see a guard be that delicate with a prisoner before?”
“No, I guess you have a point.” He rubs his hand over his head, his face still red with anger. “How did I miss that?”
“It was a pressure cooker in here, and he just kept turning up the heat.” She sighs, rising out of her chair. “I only noticed because I couldn’t take it anymore and started trying to block him out.”