Free Next Victim by Michael Prescott

narcissism escalating to full-blown grandiosity. By now, he must think that no one could stop him.
    Maybe he was right.
    "So you grabbed her from behind…" Michaelson was saying.
    Hayde shook his head. "It’s not like I grabbed her"—he made air quotes around the verb with his free hand—"in a violent way. It’s just that it, you know, gets me hot. She sees me peel the tape off the roll, and I’m saying, ‘This won’t hurt a bit,’ which is just part of the act. Then all of a sudden there’s a gun in her hand and she’s yelling for backup."
    "You attacked her," Gaines said, his voice flat.
    "It was foreplay."
    "Foreplay."
    Hayde glanced at Gaines, then let his gaze drop to the bulging manila folder on the table, just out of his reach.
    At some point in the interview, Gaines had left the room for a minute and returned with the folder, which he’d set down with a hard thump. Tess had no idea what was in it—the thick sheaf of papers might be Mrs. Gaines’s recipes, for all she knew—but the folder was meant to convey the idea that the feds had compiled a mass of evidence and William Hayde was in serious trouble.
    Hayde’s stress level hadn’t risen measurably, however. And he did not seem unduly curious about the folder.
    "Look," Hayde said, looking only slightly embarrassed, "I don’t know what gets your rocks off, but this is what does it for me. And I didn’t think it was any big deal. Like I said, this is La-La-land, everybody to his brand of perversion, no questions asked. At least that’s what I thought. I’m starting to feel like I never left Colorado Springs."
    Michaelson picked up on that. "Or Denver, maybe."
    "Denver?"
    "It’s pretty close to Colorado Springs."
    "You spend a lot of time in Denver when you were in Colorado?" Gaines asked.
    "Yeah, I went to Denver now and again. On weekends or whatever. I like going to a city, getting some action."
    "Action like tonight?" Gaines pressed.
    "You the sex police or something? What’s your problem? Not getting enough at home? You two guys, you ought to shack up together. You make a cute couple."
    Neither man reacted. One of the cardinal rules of interrogating a suspect was to avoid a personality conflict.
    "I guess you thought you and Agent Tyler would make a nice couple," Gaines said.
    "Not exactly. I thought we’d make some nice coupling, if you see the distinction."
    "When she picked you up," Michaelson said, "did you think she was a whore?"
    "A hooker? The thought crossed my mind. But she never mentioned money."
    "I didn’t mean a hooker. I meant, did you think she was a tramp, a slut?"
    "What?"
    "That’s what I would think," Gaines said, "if some woman came up to me out of nowhere and started hitting on me. I’m not saying I wouldn’t be flattered…but I’d have to figure she’s pretty loose, if you know what I mean."
    "Lots of loose women in LA," Michaelson said. "Town’s full of them. They’ll fuck anybody that’s got a dick. They use their bodies like a welcome mat."
    Gaines nodded. "You act like a welcome mat, you’ve got to expect someone’s going to walk all over you. It’s just human nature."
    This kind of talk was a tactical move. Blame the victim. Imply that she’d had it coming. Sometimes a suspect would open up if he thought his interrogators were on his moral wavelength.
    "You two for real?" Hayde looked genuinely amused. "Slut, loose woman—did I go through a time warp when I came in here? Is this 1954 or something? Or are you guys charter members of the Joe Friday fan club?"
    Tess glanced at the computer. Voice stress remained low.
    Michaelson leaned forward, abandoning informality, and hardened his voice. "Let me be straight with you, Mr. Hayde."
    He had switched to addressing the suspect by his last name. It was a signal to Gaines to try the direct approach.
    "What we’re looking at is not just this one case," Michaelson said. "It’s a pattern. Your actions tonight are part of that pattern. Your actions eleven days