Page 129 of Psychopath

“Then you stop replying to my messages, barely take my calls.”

“I’m sorry—”

“And last but not least, I find out you were kidnapped by some madman, driven into the woods and left to die on the hottest day of the year.” She dropped her book down on the coffee table. It boomed. “Now, I’d like you to tell me about what’s been happening these past six or seven months, starting with the study you were conducting that you didn’t want me to know about.”

He’d told her he got funding for a study from his university but had kept the details deliberately vague.

Quinn cringed. “I thought you’d get worried—”

“I found out from the news you’d been speaking to violent men inside Greenwood Prison, one of whom kidnapped you.” Her lips thinned. “I would’ve preferred to know the truth from the start.”

“I wanted to see if there was a link between violent psychopaths and damage to four areas of the brain which control empathy, emotion, decision-making and impulses. To test that, I had to find violent psychopaths, so I vetted criminals convicted of one or more murders at Greenwood to try to find out who was right for my study and who wasn’t.”

“And the one that kidnapped you, this…Virgil, was he a psychopath?”

“Maybe.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“No. I told you on the phone after it happened, and I’m telling you again now, Virgil didn’t hurt me. We were okay.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. Then opened them again with a gasp. “We?”

“There was another prisoner in the van when Virgil took it…Zane.”

“Zane Black,” she said, nodding. “I remember, the son of that billionaire. He was into some weird things and was always getting himself in trouble. Did…did he hurt you?”

“No.”

“Was he a psychopath too?”

“No. I don’t believe he was. He was…a good guy.”

“A good guy…” Her brow creased. “I remember all those articles being printed about him. He was violent and spoke in a disgusting manner to—”

“You shouldn’t believe everything that was written about him.”

She looked away. “Maybe not. But he did get charged with two counts of murder, Quinn, hardly the actions of a good guy.”

Quinn hung his head. He couldn’t argue with that. Even if he knew Zane wasn’t responsible, Zane had accepted the charges against him and pleaded guilty.

“Did you get the results you were hoping for?” she asked.

“No. It was only a small sample of participants in the end. I needed all of them to support my hypothesis to make any kind of waves, but they didn’t.” He paused. “If anything, it’s made me question the validity of ‘psychopaths.’ It’s a word made famous by Hollywood and glorified in newspapers, but what does it actually mean? What’s the specifics of it?”

She shrugged. “You’re the psychologist.”

Quinn smirked. “I guess so.”

“What happens now? With the university?”

“I imagine they will let me go, and I’ll have to look for a new job, possibly serving pints at my local pub.”

“And is that what you want to do?”

“Not really, but I’ve got to pay the rent and bills somehow. It’s all on me now.”

“Which brings me to Damon, why didn’t you tell me about him? He was such a nice young man.”

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