Stranded

“You wanna know about Jack.”
    “You know his name?”
    “Don’t know if that’s his real name, but that’s what he was going by.”
    “He told you about a woman he murdered. Is that right?”
    “Actually he told me about quite a few.”
    Gwen tried to hide her surprise. She held his gaze. Criminals were good liars. Was Otis playing with her?
    “He told you he murdered more than one person?”
    “That’s right.”
    The lopsided grin didn’t budge.
    “How many people did he claim to have murdered?”
    Otis looked up at the ceiling as though he might find the answer there. He thought about it for a few seconds then said, “Probably about thirteen or fourteen. Course it’s been more than a year since me and him talked.”
    Gwen swallowed, hard. Maggie and Tully believed this killer had murdered others, but more than a dozen? This wasn’t what she had expected.
    “Did you find another one of ’em?” Otis asked. He sat forward, his brow furrowed, not just curious now but offering her his confidentiality.
    “Yes. We think so. She had on orange socks.”
    This time Otis’s smile flickered and he raised one of his eyebrows, as if all of a sudden he had tasted something bad but he didn’t really want to complain. Finally he shook his head.
    “I don’t think it’s one of Jack’s.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “You see, Jack said he did all kinds of things. Different ways, what have you. So there wouldn’t be no pattern.” His tongue poked out and wet his lips.
    Gwen waited.
    “Last time that pretty little thing with the orange socks … you see, she had those on. Or that’s what Jack said. She was wearing those. He didn’t plan that.”
    “What if he put orange socks on this one?”
    Otis looked to the ceiling again and when his eyes came back down he was shaking his head. “Why’d you think he’d do that? That don’t make no sense at all. See, Jack likes to change things up. That’s why he sometimes does doubles.”
    “Doubles?”
    “I guess he travels a bit. Said he gets bored. Likes a challenge or what have you.”
    Gwen’s mind raced over what she knew about Gloria Dobson and Zach Lester. She couldn’t remember anyone saying that they believed the killer took on both intentionally. Lester’s body had been so viciously decimated it had been presumed that he had gotten in the way of the killer’s real target: Gloria Dobson. Was it possible he had planned it that way? That he wanted to take on two victims at the same time?
    “So where’d you find this one?”
    Gwen hesitated. In a day or so the location would be all over the news, so there wasn’t a reason to keep it secret. But she knew criminals could draw facts out of their interviewers, lead them to drop enough details that they could cleverly manipulate and spin them back. She hadn’t gotten anything out of Otis that would help Maggie and Tully. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to give Otis anything more than he had given her.
    Instead of telling him where they had found the last victim, she simply said, “We believe we’ve found his dumping ground.”
    She watched his reaction, trying to see beyond the silly grin.
    “Which one?” he asked.
    Gwen’s stomach flipped. Again, was it boyish charm or was he just a very good liar?
    “Are you saying he has more than one?”
    She showed him her doubt, even a little impatience. And she saw that he noticed.
    He laughed but it was a nervous laugh. Then he sat back, putting some distance between them, like perhaps she no longer deserved his confidentiality. He tilted his head again to look at her, studying her.
    “That first reporter I told about the girl in the orange socks, he didn’t believe me. Warden Demon—that’s what we call him and I know he’s probably watching and listening behind that glass and I don’t even care if he makes me pay for telling you that—he didn’t believe me either. You decide you believe me, you come back and maybe we’ll talk some more.”
    The entire time he said this, his tone remained gentle and polite. He didn’t sound angry, though his words certainly were. The grin hadn’t left either. Then Otis pushed away from the tableas far as his shackles allowed and he stood up, finished with her. Immediately a guard came through the door.
    “The dumping ground is someplace in the Midwest,” Gwen told him, calling his bluff, giving him just enough rope to hang himself. She didn’t want to come back here and put herself through