“You gotta work for the truth,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m not going to just give out answers.”
“Then why do you think they will help you?” I ask, genuinely curious. What does she think she’ll gain from this?
She wiggles her eyebrows. “You know, that little lover boy of yours had a sweet spot for me.”
My skin crawls and I know right away she’s talking about Alastair. She never cared for Vinny, and the feeling was mutual. “Yeah, pity,” I spit out.
Mom scowls. “You don’t know anything.”
Jensen nudges my leg, and when I glance at him he makes a motion with his hand for me to continue.
“Did he ever talk about me?” I ask, folding my arms. Mom’s frown deepens. “Like when you two were off together.”
“What do you think we were off doing?” she suggests. “Flirting? Smoking?” She tries to tap her chin, but the cuffs won’t let her, and it makes her irritation spike. “Killing?”
“How many times were you off killing?” Jensen asks, jumping on the question. She glares at him, and he stares right back. “Come on. Porscha. You wouldn’t bring it up if it wasn’t already happening.”
“You don’t know what we were doing,” Porscha sneers, but she’s glaring at me instead of him. “I could’ve been sleeping with him for allyouknow.”
“Sex with a minor is your defense?” Jensen asks, interrupting us. Her attorney leans in to speak with her and she shrugs him off. “That’s not a good look if you want a jury to like you.”
“I don’t need them to like me,” she says, shaking her head. “Enough people do. I havefans. What do you have?”
“Alastair has fans,” I argue, but my skin is crawling. I’ve never even considered that a possibility, but now it’s all I can focus on. I’m sure she’s making shit up to get under my skin, but fuck me, it’s working.
“No,” she counters, wiggling her brows again. Every single thing she says has a body movement to go with it, and I realized how animated she is now. Thinking back, it was never this bad. It’s like she suddenly wants to make a show out of everything. “I have fans. The Slayers, that’s what they callthemselves, right? You have no idea how much those fans love a female serial killer.”
I look over at Jensen again, but his face gives nothing away. I don’t like watching the reports on the case, especially after I’ve heard how screwed up everything is lately. Jensen speaks before I need to come up with a response. “Fans or not, you aren’t going to get out of here because a few more people in the crowd find you interesting. You’re a social experiment gone wrong, proof that women can be cruel too. It’s not the complement you think it is.”
“Isn’t it, though?” she asks, titling her head. She looks between us, twisting a little, and then a smile blooms across her face. She’s really enjoying this. “I had so many psych students who wanted to know about the secrets of the mind, so many pretty heads I filled with my truth.”
“We’ve looked into all of your teaching positions, the locations you lived, all of it,” Jensen says. “You haven’t left the impression you hoped for on all of your students.”
“But enough of them,” she coos. “Enough to matter. Nicholas and Gabirelle and Nancy and Betty and George-”
“Unless you’re planning on giving us something real, we’re leaving,” Jensen says forcefully, interrupting her.
“I’ve given you all sorts of things,” she says with a laugh. “I gave you back Alastair-”
“You didn’t give him to anyone, he escaped,” I snap.
“I gave him somewhere to escapefrom,” she argues. “To taste freedom before you cart him off to Death Row. Death Alley is what they call it here. It’s the area wheremycell is, even if I don’t have a conviction yet. I’m only good for five deaths so far, right? I don’t think that’s enough to go all the way to Death Alley, is it?”
I glare at her. “Is everything a game to you? You can’t look in your journal and reference shit on how to act anymore, so you went the other way and lost your fucking mind?”
That seems to trigger her, and I jump in my seat when she tries to leap across the table at me. The restraints keep her in place, but the surprise that dances across her attorney's face makes me wonder if this is the first time she’s lost her cool during an interview.
Jensen grabs my arm gently, helping me to my feet. “If you can’t speak reasonably during your visits, we won’t bother your daughter again. If all you wanted was to insult her we could’ve skipped this entire visit.”
Mom grins, her green eyes narrowing to slits as she stares at me. “You’re a dead girl walking.”
Her words echo in my head, reminding me of my nightmares.Dead girl, dead girl, dead girl…
I shake away the thoughts, and with it Jensen’s hand. “What did I ever do to you to make you hate me so much? I know with the way things happened, everything pointed to Alastair being the one trying to kill me, but you… you had a hand in it, don’t deny it.”
I step back towards the door, and I can hear it opening behind me. I’m just repeating things I’ve always known, but hearing her voice stirs up my memories.
That seems to be all I’m living through these days. Memories.
