Page 16 of Psychopath

He and Damon hadn’t broken up.

But the relationship was hanging by a thread.

Damon had left to stay with Eric to give Quinn space to think.

But Quinn thought he’d got the rawer deal. At every turn, the house reminded him of Damon, from his winter coat still hanging by the front door to the ketchup splatter on the wall after he’d squeezed the bottle too hard.

They’d been happy, or so Quinn had thought, but if they were happy, Damon wouldn’t have been unfaithful. He wouldn’t have got their mutual friends to lie about it, tripling the heartbreak Quinn felt.

The study. He nodded to himself, leaving the kitchen. He had to focus on the study.

Files and folders were stacked on the coffee table in the living room.

Each pile had a number, from one to seven.

It was a small sample size, but enough that the university was satisfied and had agreed to fund his study and pay him a wage. He had a doctorate in psychology and had always found the darker mind the most fascinating.

He laid a hand on Mackie’s pile. His dog-like attentiveness was a welcome relief to some of the others.

Harris, number two, reminded Quinn of Mars. He gave nothing of himself away, skirted around the main points, got Quinn to chase the conversation, and then right at the end, when Quinn was close to giving up, he smiled and gave Quinn the answer he was hoping for, bluntly and straight to the point. At the end of their time, it was Quinn who thanked Harris over and over for cooperating. Harris grinned, bowed his head, and would tell Quinn, “You’re welcome.”

Quinn needed Harris on the study.

He had already been assessed by another psychologist years before and scored highly on Quinn’s criteria. The interviews worked through a checklist of personality traits and behaviours. Anyone scoring higher than thirty was an ideal participant, and Quinn expected Harris to be one of them.

Then there was Richard, number three, who reminded Quinn of a snake.

His laugh left his lips in rushes, and he didn’t appear to blink. Quinn unconsciously blinked twice as much. He didn’t know whether he was overcompensating or whether he was trying to encourage Richard into blinking, but he couldn’t stop himself and spent a quarter of their sessions with his eyes shut.

Tony, number four, was big and hairy like a bear, and Noah, number five, reminded Quinn of a peacock with his pretty makeup all over his face and his colourful clothes.

Virgil, number six, was the most terrifying man Quinn had ever met. He was a shark in bloody water. The governor at Greenwood had made it clear Quinn couldn’t always have an officer with him in the room, they didn’t have the resources, but he made an exception for Virgil. He hadn’t threatened Quinn. In fact, the first day they’d met, he told Quinn he had no desire to kill him, but that was hardly reassuring when faced with a murderer like him.

Then there was participant number seven, late to the party and not for the first time according to the press, Zane Black.

He’d expressed his interest to Cleo that he wanted to take part, and after she begged and pleaded, Quinn allowed him onto the study in the zero hour.

Quinn had been hesitant because he…knew Zane Black from the papers. Long before he’d killed, before Quinn had gone through university, even college, Zane had been on the news, hanging out with rock stars, footballers, actors, people with money, and when Quinn was seventeen, discovering his sexual preferences, he saw a front page with a naked Zane Black that had woken a very visceral desire.

He’d kept the page underneath his pillow.

Teenage lust had taken over, and when kiss-and-tells from men and women got printed about Zane, Quinn found them a huge turn-on to read and picture in his head.

Lust went away.

Quinn started university, met guys and eventually Damon, and Zane Black was just another random celebrity who occasionally did something stupid or questionable.

Even when he was first convicted, Quinn didn’t pay much attention to him, focused as he was on his dissertation.

Fast forward three years, and he was doing a study at Greenwood that Zane Black wanted to take part in.

When he’d whipped off his T-shirt, he’d been all man, cocksure, and proud of his body. Quinn had been so startled, having got distracted by the label Zane had used to describe his dad’s unrequited love.

Pathetic.

The next thing he knew, a half-naked Zane Black was posturing in front of him for no apparent reason and Quinn felt like he had when he was seventeen. Shocked, confused, and oh so curious. He should’ve banned Zane from the study right there and then, but he hadn’t. He stuttered and blushed, and afterwards he’d let Cleo convince him to take a chance on Zane.

Quinn glanced over to Mars, who had curled up on the sofa. He wagged his finger at him. “But if he does it again, he’s gone.”

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