Deja Who (Insighter #1)(6)

Leah was probably safe from Chart #6116 but it wouldn’t do to take that for granted. The lady in question had by now swung her legs over the couch, sat up, and puffed a hank of hay-colored hair out of her eyes.

Leah thought, not for the first time or the twentieth, that evil hid beautifully. Because Chart #6116, Alice Delaney, was gorgeous: tall and shapely, generous in the hip and bust, shoulder-length curls she could not stop touching, freckles, big blue eyes, and skin the envy of an Irish milkmaid. Quite bright, too: IQ 139. The best schools. The best food. The best homes. Chart #6116 was in her prime, and knew it, and took pride in knowing it, and looking it. “Is that why I’m having nightmares all the time? Because of who I used to be? How come not before? I’m not a kid anymore, f’God’s sake; isn’t this stuff supposed to pop up in your childhood?”

“Usually,” Leah admitted. “But as we discussed, major life changes can bring past issues to the surface.”

Her patient waved that away with a long-fingered hand that was beautifully manicured. “Nothing like that’s happened to me. So why now?”

“Because now you’re afraid of going to jail,” Leah replied, smiling. “You’re wiggling like a beetle on a needle to get out of it, and I’m the ace you preemptively tucked up your sleeve.” And if I had a dime for every time I met a patient this way, I would have three dollars and thirty cents.

“What?”

“As I said. You’re afraid of getting caught.”

Leah waited, betting on I don’t know what you’re talking about or a variation on the how dare you! theme.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Not bad. Not especially imaginative, but not bad.”

“What?”

“You despise children. They’re too noisy, they refuse to sit still, they never do as they’re told. Or they will, but only after they’ve been cajoled a dozen times. Their parents are lax, you are essentially surrounded by brats.”

“None of that’s against the law.”

“No, it’s simply how you justified your crimes. You’d take their toys, their silly treasures. Useless things that the children would miss. You liked knowing they looked everywhere. You loved it when they cried. Somewhere in your house you have a sizeable stash of worthless junk that you gloat over.”

“That’s not—”

“The stealing escalated to assault.” She didn’t need the chart, which she closed and set on the low table to her left. “You’d catch them, slap them. Push them, kick them. Never in your own neighborhood, of course. You’d drab yourself down as much as you could bear—unflattering ponytails, I would guess, or wigs. Ugly clothing that hid your figure. Padding to make you look puffier than you are.

“But even that wasn’t enough after a while. It wasn’t enough to make them sad, to make them hurt. You had to make them gone. So you escalated to murder one. You keep a list, don’t you? The children you don’t like. The ones you have decided have wronged you, or don’t like you, or ones you loathe though you’ve never met—they’re all the same under it all, don’t you think? Just a bunch of whiny brats.”

She was staring, which Leah was used to, so she continued. “You keep a list of names along with skim milk and chicken breasts and whatever new dry cleaner you’ve decided to terrorize this month. And you’re pretty confident you didn’t leave any crumbs. It isn’t difficult to kill a child. It can be to hide the crime. But you took care. Even so, you’re not entirely confident. Are you?”

Still staring. Well, that was all right. Better than screaming, or throwing things, or stabbing.

“So!” Leah gave the chart a brisk pat and straightened in her chair. “If there’s ever a trial, your well-paid defense douche can claim that you felt remorse, you knew you were sick, you tried to get help, all those poor children, you tried to stop yourself, society’s to blame, yak-yak. When sleep won’t come, it is only because you’re thinking about how awful ending the games will be. When you have night terrors, they’re not about your victims. They’re about being locked up. About never getting to have fun again. Never being the center of attention again. In prison, you’d just be another inmate. That’s what makes you sweat. It’s hard to know which is worse some nights,” Leah finished. “Isn’t it?”

“You’re not—” #6116 had frozen in mid-tousle, and now peered up at her through rumpled bangs. “You’re supposed to help me.”

“No. I’m supposed to find your truth. That’s what you paid for; that’s what you’re getting. And your truth is, you were a bad person then, you are a bad person now, and I imagine you’ll be a bad person in the next one, too. That last is just my opinion. That you get for free.”

“No. None of that’s—it’s all lies. You’re trying to trick me.”

“No. You tried to trick me. That’s how people like you get caught. It’s not enough to hurt and kill; you need to make a game of it. In all your lives, you considered children to be things, property, yours to do with as you liked. You knew it was wrong then, you know it’s wrong now. You don’t care. Hurting them . . . it’s just too entertaining. Yes?”

There was a short silence, and Leah waited expectantly. Maybe #6116 would go the entitled route: You can’t talk to me like that. Or something victim-y: I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.