can you see that?”
He glanced across the street at some young thugs. “Perhaps we should enter your vehicle. It appears less hazardous.”
She followed his gaze and sighed. “I swear by the gods that I’ll take you out if you try anything.” Although, since he had several inches and a good twenty-five pounds of muscle on her, she’d be hard-pressed to carry out her threat in that enclosed space.
“Understood.” He walked to the passenger side of her car and waited for her to open the door. He let her get in first, which satisfied her because she could watch every move he made folding himself into her compact vehicle. Nothing suspicious came to light.
Once they’d both settled in, she put the key in the ignition, locked the doors and pulled her jacket loose so she’d have access to her firearm. “Tell me how you identified what weapons I carry.”
He shrugged, his shoulders stretching the black nylon jacket he wore. “Not important.”
“It is to me, friend.”
“Again, you call me ‘friend.’ This pleases me.” He smiled, and a warm light entered his eyes.
Was this man mentally defective? Or did he just not understand Galactic Standard? If Standard wasn’t his first language, did that make him alien? “I don’t mean ‘friend’ like that. The weapons? Now?”
“They are apparent to me. I cannot explain it any other way. I also sense your heart beats ninety times per minute, your skin temperature is one degree below normal and your system has not yet processed the toxins you have just ingested.”
Now that creeped her right out. She wanted to demand proof, discover his secret, but she wasn’t sure how long she’d have to talk with him. Better to skip to the important stuff. “You said you could tell me about the dead women. How are you acquainted with them?”
He cocked his head again, studying her. “Surely you are aware the announcements have been made regularly on your news channels.”
She hit the steering wheel with her left fist. “Of course I am, you idiot. I want to know why you have information the media doesn’t.” As his gaze flickered away from hers, she wondered if her perp sat only eight inches away.
“Because I do.”
Jaco would have slammed this guy’s head on the table by now. Pity she didn’t have a table handy. “Well, good for you.” She counted to ten, wishing she had X-ray vision, or ESP, or whatever the hell this guy had that let him see into her.
And less to drink, apparently, because she still felt a little fuzzy. Not wise when dealing with a perp.
“All right. Let’s try another way. Tell me about the changes made to the women.”
Although the lizard-nature of the changes had been made public, no details had been released.
Let’s see how Mr. Smart Guy handles this.
Staring out the windshield, he took a deep breath then answered in a monotone. “The females change from their cell structure up. The skin will first mottle, then become rough and dry and finally develop a certain kind of texture, not unlike scales. Once the cell structure differentiates, other parts of the body begin to change. Reproductive organs alter last.”
As he spoke, Kylie fought to keep her face impassive, but her mind reeled. He described exactly what they’d seen. Exactly. She nodded, just enough to encourage him, and reached for her pad. “Do you mind if I take notes?”
“No.” He watched her hands.
Yeah, I bet you’re jumpy now, pal, aren’t you?
Where had she left her handcuffs? Maybe in her bedroom at home. Pretty sure there wasn’t a set in the car. Damnation.
“How does that change take place, exactly? You said at the cellular level. But what mechanism? Blood-borne? A hormone?”
“A retrovirus.”
Dr. Astrid had been right. She took one calm, forced breath, her heart racing. Bet he knew that, too. He certainly appeared jumpier. Back off a little. She scanned the street outside. No one seemed interested in their conversation. “Did you tell me your name?”
He studied her, a sparkle of curiosity in his eyes. “I did not.”
“Right. So what’s your name?”
“Griff.”
“Griff.” She nodded and wrote that down. “Griff what?”
“Griff.”
Did this fool think she wanted to play games? “I got that. What’s your surname?”
“Sur-name?” he asked. “What is that?”
Her insanity theory gained ground. The easier to catch you up, my dear. “A second name. A family name.”
“I have no ‘family.’ Only my brothers.”
She groaned. “Okay, your brothers are family, right? What’s their last name?”
“None of them are last. We are all equal.”
“Moving on,” she growled. The pleasurable effects of the mind-altering substances started to wear away. The windows closed, the air seemed stale and filled with his musky, sharp scent. “Address? Do you live with your brothers?”
A sad expression crossed his face. “Not at all. I have been cast out.”
Good, good. One more piece of the twisted psycho puzzle. Her serial murderer perp belonged to the majority race. Check. A younger man, judging by the smoothness of his face. Check. Isolated from his family, perhaps because of their discovery of his acts. Check.
The checklist faltered on the issue of brains. Serial murderer tended to have above average intelligence. Although in discussing the physical changes, he’d sounded well informed. Maybe his language skills just weren’t up to par, like a non-native speaker.
Most psychopaths presented as suave, too, and assured of their own superiority. She eyed the man sitting next to her, folded up into the small front seat of her vehicle. Not so much. Huh.
A ray of moonlight shone in, illuminating his strong fingers. She dwelt on their possibilities then returned to her interrogation. “So where do you live?”
“I move from place to place.”
“No home?”
He shook his head. A drifter could do a lot more damage, certainly, but without somewhere to take the vics to alter them, his crimes became much harder. Unless it could take place on the street.
“This transformation you described, how long does it take, usually?”
“A complete transformation? Perhaps seven days. Ten. But none have succeeded. Not yet.”
She squeezed her trembling fingers on the pen to keep from losing her grip. If that wasn’t a confession, she didn’t know what it was.
The perp needed a home or at least a workshop to wait ten days for the horrific mutation to take place. “Let me ask you, Griff, in the event we wanted to talk with you again, how would we find you?”
“I would find you.”
Yeah, that’s just what she wanted. Griff stalking her.
Thrilling to the possibility she might have just broken this case, she said, “Griff, I’ve got a better idea. You’re more knowledgeable about this than anyone I’ve talked to. I need to stop by the office to pick up a file to read before bed.” She started the car smoothly. “We’ll stop down there, so you can share your information about these poor women.”
She reached for the gearshift. The passenger door flew open, and he fled. Her reflexes kicked into delayed action. By the time she jumped out onto the pavement,