But first, you and I must come to an agreement. If you'd like, I can make it easy and stop working on the case. You can return to your family." "But I would have to leave in the next couple days, wouldn't I? If I was to drop this case, how am I going to find my wife, or my kids?" "I'm going to work with you, Mr. Larson, and I'm going to make a lot of things right. I'll even help you solve your son's murder. I will help you find your son's killer. But I can't save your wife if you won't tell me what you know, and I can't save your son if you don't tell me what you know." "And if I do tell you? Then you go back on your threat and you let me go." "Then I'll give you time to go home to your family. That's the deal." "I guess it's worth a try," he said. "But no promises." "You have my word." "Now I have one last question. What was in the bag that brought you here to D.C.? What did you bring for me?" "I brought this." She held up the picture of her husband. "I want you to leave this picture with my son. The last picture I have of him. If I don't see him again, I want you to tell him what I've told you. Then I want you to leave. I don't want him to see me when I'm not myself. I'll talk to you again after he has the picture." "I understand. Just say what you need to say to him. I'll leave and let you have a moment with him." After Larson said he was ready, the door to the room opened and in stepped Sloan and D.D. "It's time," Larson told the two detectives. • • • They laid Larson on his side, D.D. to his back, her hand loosely cupping his chin. She watched his eyes flutter open, then shut. He was pale, her fingers sinking into softness. He'd gone on some type of IV fluids, she could smell the sterile hospital smell of his skin. He opened his eyes, he looked at her. Then he looked away. He closed his eyes, opened them, looked at her again, then looked away. He opened his eyes again, just a slit, then closed them. She could hear D.D. begin her questions, so Sloan said quietly, "Don't answer him. Give him time to get himself together." D.D. nodded, then looked back down at Larson's sluggish chest, his pale cheeks, and his shaggy lashes. "Why did you kill him?" she said softly, her voice so soft Larson had to strain to hear. "Did your son threaten to tell on you? Did you make him go up to the attic and threaten to kill him? Did you take his body up to the attic and take off all his clothes, just like you did to your wife?" Larson opened his eyes. "He wouldn't have told on me. He wouldn't have told on me. He was my son. . . ." He lifted his hands and gripped his own throat. "Answer my question. How did you kill him?" A long breath in. "No. It was the mother. She . . . she caught him with . . . with . . ." He cleared his throat, then licked his lips. "I knew I should have killed them all. . . ." "What?" D.D. frowned, then reached for her notebook. "I need more time," Larson said in a voice so low D.D. had to lean forward to hear him. "I have more questions, a lot of them. But I have to figure out what you're going to do with me. Please give me more time." "You will never see your wife and children again, Mr. Larson. That's not something that's up for negotiation." He closed his eyes again. "I was alone for too many years. I can make you leave. It's why I'm still alive. . . ." • • • With Larson out of it, D.D. stepped out of the observation room and paced the hallway. She had always prided herself on never using her cell phone as a kind of personal assistant. It was too invasive. Always. She checked her watch. It was after seven and they were due at the safe house at nine. She stepped into a nearby stairwell and called her commander. "Hey, boss, it's D.D. You ready to play 'Let's Pretend' tonight?" D.D. smiled as her boss cackled on the other end of the line. "Absolutely," she said. "I need your help." • • • Sloan and D.D. were still playing doctor with the former serial killer when they were interrupted by the arrival of two more visitors. One was D.D.'s commander, the other looked to be about fifty, salt-and-pepper hair, medium build. He wore a rumpled suit and held a small overnight bag, walking up the hallway fast, as if he'd run to get there. "D.D., Detective, I'd like to introduce you to Agent Robert McCormack." McCormack shoved the overnight bag at Sloan, who took it without so much as a thank-you, like they were on a first-name basis. "Pleasure to meet you," Sloan said, his teeth clenched in a wry grin. "I've heard a lot about you." "Likewise," said Agent McCormack. "McCormack's in charge of the crime lab for Washington, D.C., so this time around, we're running more of an evidence-gathering job. You are?" "I'm all yours," Agent McCormack said as he glanced down the hallway at Larson. "I'm sure," D.D. said with a smirk. "Let's get on that." They turned, walked the other way down the hallway, and joined the waiting crime scene. • • • Sloan got his bearings. They had spent the better part of an hour with the former FBI agent and the evidence and photos were ready to go. "No sense in sitting around," D.D. said, heading for the elevators. "Let's get this show on the road." "Agreed. I have no intention of doing much more than that. You might want to talk to the father. Try to get some sort of cooperation. For both you and Agent McCormack." "You think he's going to cooperate?" "We talked to the killer of his son, and he still lived to see another day. As to motive, the word 'revenge' has been bandied about a fair amount. And I can buy that. But who gave him the knowledge?" "I don't know. He just said he hadn't been alone in a long time." "Right," Sloan said. "Including when he killed his son." • • • D.D. didn't like Larson, and she liked D.D. even less. Sloan may have been just another FBI profiler, but for the first time in her career, D.D. wished she'd been assigned to another case. "So," Sloan asked D.D., "how was your Christmas break? Pretty quiet with your family?" "No," she said. "My dog ran away while we were gone. She still hasn't come back." D.D. got some stares from her peers—she'd been divorced since college—but for some reason, Sloan seemed to like her directness. "I'm pretty well versed in getting people to talk," he said. "You need to convince your father he needs to talk to me." "Do you want me to do this alone? Because, personally, I don't think either one of us is going to convince him." Sloan smiled. "Sure. That's why I brought you along. I've learned the best way to get people to talk is to have the proper attitude. Come on, Ms. Warren, let's make this visit a success. So, what's your father's name? And we need to know where he lives." "You're kidding, right? I told you, he's a cop. I'm not talking." "D.D., she's going to want to talk to me on my own," Sloan told him. "She doesn't want a cop listening in. At least not now." "My father's not a cop. In fact, I'm pretty sure he's a judge. At least, he told us when we were very young that he was. But he didn't want us growing up thinking he had to make us listen to him all the time. So he never told us, and we didn't even really