Free The Third Victim by Lisa Gardner Page B

it, Danny?
    Silence.
    C ONNER: Do you bring a backpack to school?
    O’G RADY: I have a backpack.
    C ONNER: What did you have in the backpack today?
    Silence.
    C ONNER: Danny, did you have two guns in your backpack? Did you bring guns to school?
    Pause.
    O’G RADY: I guess so.
    C ONNER: Where did you get these guns? Are they yours?
    O’G RADY: No.
(pause)
My father’s.
    C ONNER: Did you take them out of a drawer?
    O’G RADY: The gun safe.
    C ONNER: The safe? It wasn’t locked?
    O’G RADY: The safe was locked. My father always locks the safe.
    C ONNER: Then how did you get the guns out?
    O’G RADY: I’m smart, all right? I’m very smart.
    Pause.
    C ONNER: All right, Danny. You’re smart enough to open the safe, get two guns, and bring them to school. Then what were you smart enough to do, Danny?
    Silence.
    C ONNER: Did you fire your guns at school? Did you start shooting in the hallway?
    Silence.
    C ONNER: Danny, I’m trying to help you. But to do that, I need to know what happened this afternoon. Those little girls and that teacher are dead, Danny. Do you understand dead?
    Pause.
    O’G RADY: My grandma died. We went to the funeral. That’s dead.
    C ONNER: And did your parents cry? Did it make them very sad? As sad as they were today? You saw your father cry, Danny. Do you understand why he was crying?
    O’G RADY: Yeah. (
barely audible
) Yeah.
    C ONNER: What happened this afternoon, Danny? What did you do? Were you just so mad, was that it?
    Silence.
    O’G RADY: I’m smart.
    C ONNER: Danny, did you kill those girls? Did you open fire on your classmates?
    O’G RADY: I’m smart. I’m smart, I’m smart, I’m smart!
    C ONNER:
Did you kill those girls, Danny?
    O’G RADY: Yes! Yes, okay? I’m
smart
!
    C ONNER:
Why,
Danny? Why did you do such a thing?
Sound of door bursting open.
    J OHNSON: My name is Avery Johnson, and I’m here to represent Daniel O’Grady. This interview is over.
    C ONNER: Why, Danny, why?
    J OHNSON: Don’t answer—
    C ONNER: Tell me why!
Why did you kill those little girls, Danny?
    O’G RADY: I’m scared.

    ON THE BOEING 747, Supervisory Special Agent Pierce Quincy finally took off the headphones and set aside the tape recorder. He’d listened to the interview of America’s newest mass murderer three times since taking off in Seattle. Now he took a moment to jot down his thoughts in a notebook he had hastily purchased at Sea-Tac airport. On the outside of the red spiral book he had written: CASE STUDY #12, DANIEL JEFFERSON O ’ GRADY. BAKERSVILLE, OR .
    The stewardess came up, took his empty cup to give him more room, and smiled charmingly. Quincy returned the smile automatically, then broke off eye contact before she would be tempted to start up a conversation. He was still preoccupied with schoolboys and the forces that drove them to kill.
    Over the years, Quincy had received many charming smiles from flight attendants. At the age of forty-five, he had dark hair that was graying at the temples, but he was tall, lean muscled, and well dressed. He also carried himself well. He’d been there, done that, knew where he was going, believed in always being polite, and had absolutely no patience for fools. He made his living flying to four different U.S. cities in five days and hunting down the worst predators the human race had to offer. And he had a direct, probing gaze that people found either deeply compelling or completely intimidating.
    Especially on business trips, when his briefcase was filled with crime-scene photos of some of the most brutal slayings on earth. After fifteen years in the business, Quincy was prone to shuffling the photos like playing cards, an act that made him both proud of his objectivity and saddened by his callousness.
    It had been pure coincidence that Quincy was on the West Coast when Quantico called about the Ba-kersville shooting. In theory, Quincy was on personal leave from his job of researching killers and teaching homicide-investigation classes at