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In some ways, this was easier than Billy had expected it to be He had thought that asking deeply unpleasant questions and listening to another hurovel in despondent self-justification would be so distressing that he would not be able to sustain a productive interrogation Instead, he had a sense of power from which he drew confidence And satisfaction The ease of it surprised him The ease of it scared him

"They’re very nasty videos, Stevie They’re very sick"

"Yes," Zillis said softly "They are I know"

"Have you everwo, Stevie"

He raised his chin from his chest, but he wouldn’t look toward Billy "I’ve never hurt a woman that way"

"Never? You’ve never hurt a woman that way?"

"No I swear"

"How have you hurt them, Stevie?"

"I never have I couldn’t"

"You’re such a choirboy, is that it?"

"I like to… watch it"

"Watch woht? But I’m ashamed"

"I don’t think you’re asha, but always after"

"After what?"

"After… watching This isn’t… Oh, man This isn’t what I want to be"

"Who would want to be what you are, Stevie?"

"I don’t know"

"Name me one person One person ould want to be what you are"

"Maybe nobody," Zillis said

"How ashamed are you?" Billy persisted

"I’ve thrown the videos away Lots of times I’ve even destroyed them But then, you know… after a while, I buy new ones I need help to stop"

"Have you ever sought help, Stevie?"

Zillis didn’t respond

"Have you ever sought help?" Billy pressed

"No"

"If you really want to stop, why haven’t you sought help?"

"I thought I could stop on an to cry His eyes were still glazed from the Mace, but these were real tears

"Why have you done those things to the mannequins in the other rooy old Billy Wiles, got no zing, but give , what I did to the, you sure put a lot of tiy into it"

"I won’t talk about this Not this" He wasn’t refusing as

"I won’t"

"Does it make you blush? Stevie? Does it offend your tender sensibilities?"

Zillis cried continuously now Not wrenching sobs The steady, scalding tears of hu it isn’t the sa about it"

"You mean what you do to the mannequins," Billy clarified

"You can… you can blow my brains out, but I won’t talk about it I can’t"

"When you e with excite it to the about it are so different?" Billy asked

"Billy Billy, please I don’t want to hearabout it"

"Because when you’re doing it, then it’s just so you are"

Zillis’s expression confirotten to the quick of it Noton theSteve Zillis’s face in his perversion could be counterproductive

Billy had not yet gotten what he needed, what he had come here to prove He was si out on caffeine At tiun to wear off Because of exhaustion staved off with cheation cleverly enough

If Zillis was the freak, he was a genius of emotional fakery But then that’s what sociopaths were: voracious spiders with an uncanny talent for projecting a convincing i that obscured the insectile reality of icy calculation and ravenous intent Billy said, "When you do what you do to the mannequins, when you watch those sick videos, do you ever think of Judith Kesselman?"

In the course of this encounter, Zillis had been surprised more than once, but this question shocked him Bloodshot from the residual effect of the Mace, his eyes widened His face paled and went loose, as if he had taken a blow

Chapter 63

Zillis shackled to the bed Billy free on the chair but with a growing sense of being trammeled by his prisoner’s evasiveness

"Stevie? I asked you a question"

"What is this?" Zillis said with apparent earnestness and even the hteous affront

"What is what?"

"Why did you co here"

"Do you think of Judith Kesselman?" Billy persisted

"How do you know about her?"

"How do you think I know?"

"You answer questions with questions, but I’"

"Poor Stevie What about Judi Kessel happened to her"

"What happened to her, Stevie?"

"It was in college Five, five and a half years ago"

"Do you knohat happened to her, Stevie?"

"Nobody knows"

"Somebody does," Billy said

"She disappeared"

"Like in a irl, wasn’t she?"

"Everybody liked her," Zillis said

"Such a lovely girl, so innocent The innocent are the , Zillis said, "Delicious?"

"The innocent--they’re theI knohat happened to her," Billy said,to imply that he knew Zillis had kidnapped and killed her

Such a full-body shudder passed through Steve Zillis that the handcuffs rattled protractedly against the metal bed frame

Pleased with that reaction, Billy said, "I know, Stevie"

"What? What do you know?"

"Everything"

"What happened to her?"

"Yes Everything"

Zillis had been sitting with his back against the bed, his legs splayed on the floor in front of him Now he suddenly drew his knees up to his chest "Oh, God" A groan of abject ," Billy said

Zillis’s rew tremulous "Don’t hurt me"