Chapter 21
Harper kept her hands visible, her movements slow and deliberate as she faced Dale Sutton across the empty warehouse floor. The gun in his hand wasn’t pointed directly at her—not yet—but the threat was implicit. One wrong move and this conversation ended with a bullet.
“You came alone,” Sutton said, though his tone suggested he didn’t quite believe it. “That took courage. Or foolishness. I haven’t decided which yet.”
“You said you wanted to talk,” Harper replied, keeping her voice steady. “So here I am. Let’s talk.”
“About what? The case you’ve been building against me?
” Sutton moved slightly, circling to the left.
Harper turned to keep him in view, her back never fully to the broken windows where she knew tactical teams were positioning.
“The DNA evidence from my patrol car? The employment history that conveniently places me in every city where murders occurred?”
“You knew we’d find all of that eventually. You’re too smart not to have anticipated it.”
“Flattery, Agent Sinclair?” Sutton smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I expected better from you.”
“It’s not flattery. It’s a statement of fact.
” Harper took a careful step to her right, subtly positioning herself where the teams would have a clearer shot if needed.
“You’ve been doing this for five years across multiple states without getting caught.
That takes intelligence, planning, discipline.
Most serial killers make mistakes much earlier. ”
His shoulders broadened at the false praise. “Most serial killers are impulsive. Sloppy. They kill because they can’t control their urges.” Sutton’s voice took on a lecturing tone, like a professor explaining a concept. “I’m not like them. Every kill was planned, calculated, purposeful.”
“Purposeful how?”
“You know how. You’re a profiler. You’ve studied my work.” He gestured with the gun, emphasizing his words. “Each victim was carefully selected. Each murder was a message.”
“A message to me.”
“Finally, someone who understands.” Sutton’s expression brightened with genuine enthusiasm.
“Yes. To you. Every single one. I watched you at that press conference in Nevada, explaining the profile, demonstrating how you could see inside a killer’s mind.
And I thought, here’s someone who might actually appreciate the artistry of what I do. ”
Harper’s earpiece crackled softly, so quietly only she could hear it. Silas’s voice, barely a whisper, said, “Alpha Team in position. Keep him talking.”
“The artistry,” Harper repeated, keeping Sutton’s attention. “You see murder as art?”
“Don’t you? The planning, the execution, the careful staging of each scene. It’s a performance, Harper. And you’re my audience.” He moved closer, his dark eyes intense. “Each body I left was a canvas. Each symbol carved into flesh was a message specifically for you to decode.”
“The interlocking circles. The geometric patterns,” recalled.
“You noticed. Of course you noticed. You’re brilliant at pattern recognition.” Sutton was warming to her now, the gun lowering slightly as he became more animated. “Those symbols aren’t random. They’re a language. My way of communicating with the only person who might understand.”
Harper’s mind raced, trying to keep him engaged while buying time for the teams to get into optimal position. “Then help me understand. Explain the language.”
“That would defeat the purpose. The challenge was for you to decode it yourself.” Sutton’s smile turned cold. “But you haven’t, have you? For all your brilliant profiling, you still don’t understand what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
She had to tread carefully, so he didn’t snap. “So tell me now. We’re here, alone. No more games. What were you trying to say?”
Sutton studied her for a long moment, dancing the line between wanting to reveal all and wanting to lash out for not getting the message.
“That we’re the same. You and I. We both hunt in the darkness.
We both understand that most people are sheep, oblivious to the predators around them.
The only difference is which side of the law we operate on. ”
She shook her head. “We’re nothing alike.”
“Aren’t we?” He moved closer, and Harper fought the urge to step back.
“You get inside killers’ minds, Harper. You think like they think, feel what they feel.
That’s your gift. But tell me—when you’re profiling a killer, when you’re understanding their motivations and methods, don’t you sometimes feel a connection? A recognition?”
“Understanding isn’t the same as relating.” Despite her mission, she would never align herself with someone so vile.
“Isn’t it?” Sutton’s voice dropped lower. “I’ve read about your cases. The bombers, the serial killers, the child predators you’ve caught. You didn’t catch them by thinking like a normal person. You caught them by becoming them, at least temporarily. By letting yourself into that darkness.”
Harper felt ice sliding down her spine because there was a kernel of truth in what he was saying.
Profiling did require a certain willingness to think like a killer, to understand motivations that normal people couldn’t comprehend.
But understanding wasn’t sympathy. It wasn’t approval. It wasn’t her.
“Bravo Team moving to south entrance,” came the whisper in her ear. “Two minutes to position.”
“You’re right that profiling requires understanding how killers think,” Harper said carefully. “But there’s a crucial difference. I use that understanding to stop people like you. To prevent more victims. You use it to create them.”
“Victims.” Sutton said the word as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. “Such a loaded term. They were participants in a grand design, Harper. Each one played their part perfectly.”
“They were people, Dale. Women with lives and families and futures. You took all of that away.”
“I elevated them. Made them part of something greater than their mundane existences.” Sutton’s eyes gleamed with fervor.
“Melissa Wagoner was a college student working toward a marketing degree. Forgettable. But now? Now she’s the first message in a conversation that spanned five years and six states. She’s immortal.”
Harper felt rage building in her chest but forced it down. Getting angry wouldn’t help. She needed to stay calm, keep him talking. “Is that what you told yourself? That you were doing them a favor?”
His eyes narrowed. “I gave them purpose. Meaning. Without me, they would have lived ordinary lives and died forgotten. Now their names will be studied for decades. Profilers will analyze my work, trying to understand the patterns. I’ve made them eternal.”
“You’ve made them dead,” she said flatly.
“Death is just a transition. The body is temporary. But the impact—the message—that lasts forever.” Sutton gestured around the warehouse, waving that gun around.
“This place, for instance. Abandoned, forgotten, slowly crumbling into the river. But now? After tonight, it will be remembered as the location where the great game finally reached its conclusion.”
Her stomach dipped. “What game?”
“The one we’ve been playing, you and I,” he said, his voice pitched a little higher, as if she should know exactly what he was talking about.
She did. “Hunter and hunter. Profiler and killer. Each of us trying to stay ahead of the other.” Sutton’s smile widened.
“And I’ve won, Harper. You’re here, alone with me, exactly where I wanted you. That’s victory.”
“Charlie Team in position at river exit,” whispered the voice in her ear. “Delta moving to main entrance.”
Harper shifted slightly, keeping Sutton’s attention focused on her. “If you’ve already won, why haven’t you pulled that trigger? You could have shot me the moment I walked in here.”
“Because that would be anticlimactic. After five years of building toward this moment, I’m not going to rush the finale.” Sutton began circling again, forcing Harper to turn to keep him in view. “I want you to understand first. To see what I’ve been trying to show you all along.”
“Show me what?”
“That you belong with me. Not against me.” Sutton’s voice took on an almost pleading quality. “You’re wasted working for the FBI, playing by their rules, limited by their ethics. You could be so much more. Together, we could—”
“I’m never going to work with you, Sutton. Never.”
“Even now, you don’t see it.” Frustration crept into his voice. “You have a gift, Harper. The ability to understand the darkness, to see patterns others miss. But you use it to serve people who don’t appreciate what you can do. Who see you as just another tool.”
“Better a tool for justice than a partner in murder.”
“Justice.” Sutton laughed bitterly. He lifted the hand holding the gun, pointing it toward a broken window.
“What justice did any of those women get? They’re still dead.
The families still grieve. All you do is clean up the mess after it’s made.
Reactive, not proactive. You don’t prevent anything. You just document the aftermath.”
“I stopped you.”
“Did you? I’m still standing here. Still free. Still in control of how this ends.” He raised the gun toward her slightly. “You’re here because I wanted you here. Everything that’s happened has been part of my design.”
“Delta Team in position,” came the whisper. “All teams ready. Waiting for your signal.”
Harper’s heart pounded. The teams were in place.
All she had to do was hit her panic button or give a verbal cue, and they’d breach within seconds.
But something held her back. Some instinct that said if she gave the signal now, people would die.
Sutton was too volatile, too unpredictable. She needed to de-escalate first.
“You’re right,” Harper said quietly. “You’ve been in control this whole time. You planned every detail, stayed ahead of our investigation, made me dance to your tune.”
Sutton’s expression shifted, suspicion mixing with satisfaction. “Go on.”