Chapter 4 #4
“Don’t give me too much credit. He does know the right buttons to push with me.” She looks down at her hands and notices she is soothing herself again, rubbing them together tightly.
Leroux scoffs, rolling the window down and letting smoke billow from the side of his mouth. “He went for the lowest-hanging fruit. Strip him of his plans and his fail-safes and he’s just as powerless as some loser still living with his mother.”
“Yeah, except this loser killed his mother and took the house.”
“I don’t think Norman Bates is the comparison most of these guys are striving for, Muller.”
She laughs, letting her head fall back into the headrest. “You’re right.”
Leroux’s phone rings, and he answers it. After listening to Maya ramble out a long series of sentences, he asks, “A nun? You want me to talk to a nun?”
Wren’s eyebrow raises, seemingly of its own volition. She perks up, gesturing and mouthing What the hell? to him.
He shakes his head at her, a small grin crossing his face as he listens to more of what Maya says on the other end of the line.
“Got it. Okay. I’ll head over there to see what I can get from her.”
He hangs up, not looking over at Wren.
“Care to share?” she asks.
“You know how I’ve been investigating those two missing girls? Apparently they were staying in Resurrection House. It’s run by a Sister Agatha Moreau, and our incomparable Officer Rodriguez just got her to agree to talk to me.”
“Only Maya could charm a nun she’s never met.” Wren chuckles, not surprised.
Leroux nods, stifling a laugh himself. “So I guess I’m meeting Sister Moreau.”
“Well, hey, answers come in the strangest places.” Wren looks out the window, watching the landscape pass by like watercolors running together on a canvas.
“Yeah, my only concerns are how much she actually knows these girls and how much she will be willing to share. I haven’t met a lot of warm, fuzzy nuns, but maybe that’s just my experience.”
Wren shakes her head, looking back at him again. “I’ve heard about that place. It seems like the staff actually cares about the young women who stay there. Maybe she’s going to surprise you.”
He takes a drag of his cigarette, blinking to wake himself up in preparation for another hard interview. “Yeah. I guess I should listen to you sometimes, huh?”
“I’ll ignore that,” she says dryly.
For a moment, a nice quiet settles over the inside of the car as they both retreat into their minds, probably treading similar paths of thought.
“So you think you’ll want to talk to Rose again? Think we can make this worth it?” he asks suddenly, stealing a glance her way.
Spotting him in her periphery, she keeps her eyes on the window. “We have to get some answers,” she says softly. “He feels threatened because he knows we have something.”
“He feels threatened because Trudeau got him put away and he’s looking down the barrel of death row.”
She nods, starting to feel things coming together in her mind. “We have to use that,” she says, looking at him now.
Leroux nods along, flicking the cigarette out the window. It bounces behind them like a little firecracker. Wren always hates it when he does that. “We have to make him think he’s playing the game,” he says, his voice sounding far away.
“Exactly,” she agrees. “He’ll spill because he’ll need to feed his starving ego.”
“He’s going to try to throw any grenade he can. You need to be able to dodge them.”
“I know. I’ll be ready next time.”
“Well, just in case, I’ve got your back. I’ve been waiting for a reason to knock his ass out anyways.” He grins, trying to cut the tension and pull them out of the morass into which they both find themselves sinking.
Wren chuckles and closes her eyes, letting her head fall back to rest again. “Me first.”
They settle into a comfortable silence as the car makes its way down winding back roads.
For days, she played through the entire scenario.
She imagined every outcome, every feeling she could, in order to try to anticipate how the interview might go.
She tried to predict how it would feel to face him for the first time, how she would feel when it was all over.
It felt different but somehow the same. His rancid energy was exactly as potent as she remembers, but seeing it chained up was interesting.
Being on a leash made Jeremy bolder somehow, but the cracks in the armor were obvious to her, and seeing him shackled to the floor, a prisoner of his own ego, stirred up something strange in her gut.
His clean-cut appearance is fraying at the edges, the rotten interior beginning to push its way out to the surface.
His greatest weapon has always been his smarmy charm; his physical appearance played a vital role in his success.
Inside a prison, he’s limited, a jungle cat with clipped claws.
Jeremy might thrive in stressful situations, but even the strongest walls will fall with enough pressure.
If they push him far enough, he will come apart—a lesson learned from Pastor Philip himself.