Double Cross

sight, out of mind?” he asked, and laughed. “Or maybe not, Doc.”
    Suddenly, the rope dug into my wrists as he tightened it, then knotted it off. Next he anchored it to an eye hook or grommet, something in the floor that I couldn’t see. The contraption kept me from standing, though, or even sitting up straight. That’s why Sampson’s frame was so hunched over, I realized.
    And it was all playing out
in real time
on the laptop across from me. I wondered how many people were watching this right now, and I hoped Nana and the kids weren’t among them.
    When he’d finished with me and then Bree, he retrieved his gun from Sandy and took his place at the center of the floor. He tucked the Glock in the rear of his waistband, then went into a half squat, hands clasped behind him like they were tied the same as ours.
What the hell was he doing now
?
    His face screwed into a terrible grimace. Then he sobbed loudly. He continued to sob.
He was acting
, I realized with a start.
Playing another part. Who was he this time
?
    He was definitely playing someone other than himself. Pretending to sob, to be sad. “Why are you doing this to me? I don’t understand. Please, just let me get up. I won’t run away, I promise. Please, man, I’m begging you.
I’m begging you
!”
    Suddenly the gun came out from behind Anthony’s back, and he pointed it
at his own head
. Now he spoke as DCAK: “You want to stay alive, Mr. Bell, you just keep on talking for me. Let me hear you say ‘A, E, I, O, U.’ ”
    “A, E, I, O, U,” he blubbered, in what I assumed was a pretty good imitation of Tyler Bell.
    “You closed Bell’s bank account yourself, right?” Bree asked before I got the chance.
    “And played Tyler Bell at the grocery store before that,” I added. That explained the milk and other duplicate food we’d found in the refrigerator back at the cabin.
    Anthony stood up straight again and turned side to side, showing off the beard, the nose, the heavy brow. “Pretty good makeup job, right? Took the molds right off Tyler Bell’s face.”
    “Jesus Christ.” Bree sounded more disgusted than anything. “You almost make me ashamed to be human.”
    “Wait, I’ve got another one for you. This is good shit. Check it out, Detectives.”
    He grew still for a moment. His face morphed into anguish, but
someone else’s
, not Bell’s.
    The posture turned crooked, the energy was less frenetic, and the voice—the one he’d used in our sessions—was deeper, southern, with a different timbre than the others.
    “Oh, Jesus, I killed my best friend. Matthew, man, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. What am I gonna do now?” His speech slowed as he went on, and the accent broadened until it had become a caricature of itself. “I ain’t nothin’ but a poor sumbitch of a vet with a shrink that don’t know Gulf War syndrome from German fuckin’ measles.”
    His eyes fell coldly on me.
    “I got it all on tape, Dr. Cross. Every one of our sessions on audio, with me right there under your nose. I took some pictures too.” He looked over at Sandy. “You and her. When Sandy tongue kissed you in front of your office and said she wished you’d met under different circumstances.”
    “I’ll tell you a secret.” Sandy replayed the moment between her and me from outside my office. “I wish I’d met you somewhere else.”
    I remembered the kiss and how Sandy had motioned me over to the curb, apparently setting up a photo op for Anthony.
    “Okay,” I said. “Now how about
why
?”
    “How about because no one else can do what we can do? No one! Or how about because we worked almost ten years in the
thea
ter and barely made enough money to pay the rent. Or ’cause we saw the shine you have, or used to have, and wanted some for ourselves.”
    He stopped and stared at me for several beats. “Is that what you want to hear, Dr. Cross? Does that help you put us into some little box that you can understand a little better?”
    I stared back. “It all depends. Is any of it the truth?”
    He laughed, and so did Sandy. “Nah. Not a word. How could someone like me not do well in life? I have money, and now I have fame. Even Kyle Craig is a fan, and we’re fans of Kyle’s. Talk about a small world.
    “Kyle Craig is a hero of ours, just like Bundy and Gacy. And Gary Soneji. When Kyle got slammed into ADX Florence, we figured out how to make contact. He wanted to hear all about what we were up to; we felt the same way about him.