Chapter Text
Over this odd world, this half the world that’s dark now, I have to hunt a thing that lives on tears.
Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs
The dark was like looking into the abyss; Ryan could feel it looking back. His hand on the wall came away wet and sticky, smelling of the salt on pennies. He was familiar with the blood on his hands. He touched his tongue to the palm and it tasted the same as it always had.
A rustling whisper of shifting fabric alerted him to movement in the absolute dark and Ryan automatically looked around for the source of the sound. There in the deep blackness, he felt the heat of a body draw close to his back and smelled him. It was a scent he knew like the blood on his hands. A subtle, soft combination of expensive soap, the dusty acids in old paper and good scotch whiskey. There might be blood under his fingernails, or just as easily not, but if it was there, it would be Ryan’s blood.
“Joe?”
Instead of an answer, hands closed on Ryan’s waist. Something burned in the dark, a striking match with a dull orange glow lasting only a second, followed by the smell of burning tobacco. Ryan knew what was coming and closed his eyes in the dark, waiting for it. When the first touch of heat burned the back of his neck, he let his breath out and didn’t jerk.
“Does this hurt?” Joe whispered in his ear.
Ryan bit down on his bottom lip and nodded.
“Would you like me to go deeper?”
The cigar was smoldering against his skin. Ryan moaned and Joe pressed it in. The fire hissed and the pain was exquisite. He couldn’t help it anymore, he jerked.
And came awake, alone, to the sound of his cell phone, lost somewhere in the bed, ringing. He sat up, fighting his own hangover as he pushed up from the mattress, and it stopped about the time all the blood surged to his head to pound in his temples and behind his eyes. He took a few breaths, rubbed his eyes and tried to shake the dream off, and the phone started ringing again. He reached across the bed and found it under a flap of the comforter.
It wasn’t a number Ryan recognized, so he ignored the call and tossed it aside.
Joe was still in his head. Ryan could still feel the burn on the back of his neck stinging. There was a scar there. There were many scars there, small and round as distant moons, across his shoulders. The most recent one was nine and a half years old. The burning was a phantom pain, just like the smell of him that lingered in his nose. So familiar that Ryan would know it in the dark if he were struck blind and Joe never said a word.
He thought more and more about Joe as the date of his execution drew near. He had been having more nightmares and dreams in the last year than he could remember having in a long time. He drank more, if that were possible.
It would be soon now. Soon, and when it was over, maybe the dreams would go away. Or maybe they’d just get worse and never stop until he went mad or drank himself to death.
Ryan pushed himself up from the bed and dragged himself to the bathroom to pee. While he was in there, the phone started ringing again, but he ignored it. While he stood in the open door of the refrigerator and drank a bottle of water, it started ringing again. He turned his head and glared toward the bed.
Whoever it was, they wanted to talk to him pretty fucking bad. Maybe it was important. Maybe it was his sister. Maybe something had happened. Maybe she was dead.
Probably not.
He closed the refrigerator door and finished the bottle of water. Then he picked up the television remote and turned on the TV, not interested in watching it, just wanting the background noise to fill up the silence.
…he was a professor of literature…
Ryan looked around at the TV. Across the bottom of the screen, beneath footage of a helicopter, in capital letters four inches high that screamed from the television, Joe Carroll’s name leaped out at him.
JOE CARROLL PRISON ESCAPE
No. It was impossible. It could not be true. He was still dreaming. This was the nightmare.
So far, five guards are confirmed dead…
Ryan changed the channel, but it was there, too.
SERIAL KILLER AT LARGE
…from prison early this morning. As you may recall, Joe Carroll was convicted in 2004 for the murders of fourteen young women…
And there was Joe. Joe’s smirking, handsome face looking back at him from the screen. Ryan stared, in the back of his mind listening to the echo of Joe’s voice, “Does this hurt?”
…who attended the university where he was a professor of literature…
The phone rang again. Stunned, Ryan answered it. “Hello?”
He despised Agent Jennifer Mason almost from the moment she opened her mouth. She was arrogant and she resented his presence in a way that bordered on rudeness. Ryan was hung-over and didn’t want to be there in the first goddamn place. He was doing them the favor.
And Agent Mason didn’t seem to know who Sarah Fuller was when he asked about her. Or maybe she just didn’t think it was important.
Ryan walked into Joe’s cell with her right behind him, watching everything he did, and threw his bag down on the bed. It made a heavy sound; hard mattress. The cell had been Joe’s living quarters for years, but there wasn’t much of him left behind.
“He’s scheduled to be executed next month,” Mason said. She was feeling him out.
Ryan crouched down beside the bed to look at the books stacked up on the floor beneath it. “The twelfth,” he said. Did she think he didn’t know? That he hadn’t been thinking about it every day for years?
Poe, Faulkner, Hawthorne, Melville, Shelley, Byron. All the old favorites were there, stacked up like books on a shelf, with no dust upon them.
“Still the romantic,” he said. He hadn’t thought that prison would change Joe much, but he did wonder how it was he never got tired of reading the same trite old crap.
There was a drawing on the wall. Washed charcoal, black and white, of a lighthouse. Ryan gazed at it, thinking Joe had been so much better at so many other things besides writing. Thinking how like Hannibal Lecter it was, his talent for art, and how apt and unsettling the comparison.
His own book was on the only table in the room, behind the bed. Ryan picked it up. “Who let him have this?”
“Anyone could have,” Mason said evasively.
That is not an answer, he thought. He flipped it open and found the note Joe had left for him and read it with Mason’s eyes on him. There was Joe’s handwriting, his scrawling, half cursive, half print handwriting. As he began to read it, Mason began to recite it from memory and he stopped to look at her, suddenly angry.
She was playing with him. Or she was studying him. He was there to help, to consult, probably to capture their man for them all over again because he was the one who knew him best. Oh, how he knew him.
“Dear Ryan, I enjoyed your book. Have you ever considered a sequel? Best, Joe.”
She looked so pleased with herself. Ryan eyed her, thinking how it didn’t really sound like Joe. It wasn’t quite right; it was too concise.
“You never mentioned a note,” he said.
Instead of explaining herself, Mason said, “Any idea why he left that for you?”
Because he knew I’d be here to find it and he couldn’t help himself, Ryan thought. What he said was, “He enjoyed my book. It says so.”
She realized he wasn’t going to give her anything, that her game had backfired, and Mason suddenly looked a little alarmed. “I think he’s letting us know that he plans to kill again.”
Ryan picked up his bag and walked by her out the door. He gave her the note. “Yeah, that’s probably it,” he said, and kept going.
He had come all this way to help them catch Joe again and all this little girl wanted to do was fuck with him and play games. He was not in the mood for games, not where Joe Carroll was concerned, not anymore. If there was another reason why she had brought him to Joe’s cell, after it had already been searched and tested, then he couldn’t see it.
“Look, I read your file. I know you don’t play well with others…”
Ryan turned on her, his anger reaching for the surface. “You read my file?”
“Yes, I did,” Mason said.
“So, you know me, is that what it is?” Ryan snapped.
She didn’t know anything. Not about him and certainly not about Joe Carroll. If she did, Ryan wouldn’t have been there at all.
Mason stood there a moment, but then she backed down and walked away. They needed him. She couldn’t afford to pick a fight with him now.
Ryan stood listening to Mike Weston break down Joe’s psychology, thinking about the water bottle of vodka in his bag. He wanted a drink right then almost as much as he wanted to tell Mason to go fuck herself before he caught the next ride back to Brooklyn.
He wasn’t listening. He didn’t need some kid who still looked like he hadn’t graduated from college yet to tell him about Joe. Besides, the boy didn’t know anything that wasn’t public or part of their ill-informed profiling anyway. In nine years, Joe had never deigned to speak with a psychologist, and more than half of what he said to anybody else should never be believed.
“…It would go on to be a bestseller, but in its initial printing, it was a commercial and critical flop,” Weston was saying.
Ryan tuned in just a little and looked up as Weston passed in front of a screen, and there was Joe again, that same smirking mug shot staring out at him. Had Joe been thinking about the infinite number of times Ryan would have to look at that photograph through the years and remember when he smiled that tiny, almost not even there smile of his for the camera? He knew it was possible. The man was a sadist after all.
The picture flicked away and there were the dead girls. Well, the dead girls and Sarah Fuller, alive, but not for lack of trying on Joe’s part.
“This triggered his picquerism,” Weston said.
Ryan blinked. He looked down at the floor and didn’t say anything yet.
“The act of stabbing; slicing flesh for arousal,” Weston explained.
Stabbing, burning, cutting, whipping, breaking, bruising… for arousal. Yes, Joe had been interested in all of that, but what Weston was talking about was wrong. “That’s not accurate,” Ryan said.
Weston turned to stare at him, but Ryan was still looking at the floor. Still remembering.
Does this hurt?
“I’m sorry, would you like to say something, sir?”
Ryan blinked and looked up at him. He shrugged and shook his head. He didn’t want to say anything. He wanted to be miles away from there, still in bed and dreaming.
“By all means, if I’ve got it wrong, please correct me,” Weston said. He hit a button on the controller in his hand and the open cover of Ryan’s book replaced the dead girls. “Ryan Hardy.”
Ryan sighed. “Joe Carroll was obsessed with the romantic period. His lectures consisted of Thoreau, Emerson--in particular, his hero, Edgar Allan Poe.” He dropped his satchel bag on a fold-out chair. Director Franklin had said to educate them, so he would educate them. “And like Poe, he believed in the insanity of art; that it had to be… felt. He didn’t just eviscerate fourteen female students. He was making art.”
Ryan turned his head and looked right at Weston, who looked eager and a little bit thrilled by his presence. “He cut out his victims’ eyes as a nod to his favorite works of Poe. The Tell-Tale Heart and The Black Cat. See, Poe believed the eyes are our identity. The windows to our soul. To classify him as a picquerist would be…” Ryan smiled and ran his tongue over the back of his bottom teeth. “Too simplistic.”
Weston wasn’t offended by the criticism. On the contrary, he looked like he wanted to applaud. Thankfully, he restrained himself. When he came over to introduce himself and shake Ryan’s hand, Ryan realized something: If he wanted Mike Weston, he could easily have him. He could have him for nothing. His hero-worship extended that far, maybe farther.
Ryan wasn’t a hero, just a drunk who knew how to write a sentence. He didn’t want him.
Which did nothing to stop Weston from trying to impress him. Ryan didn’t want to be impressed. All he wanted was for Joe Carroll to go to sleep and never wake up on the twelfth of the next month and disappear forever from his life as he should. Weston could go back to worshipping his paper hero, and Ryan could drink his vodka, take off his tie and go back to bed. Alone.
2003
What happened between them didn’t start in a bed. Such things rarely did. It started in Joe’s study one night over case files, Edgar Allan Poe and drinks. Too many drinks, Ryan would later think, though he wouldn’t blame it all on being drunk. Joe had a way about him. A way about him that Ryan would still be struggling to explain to himself and to others years after Joe had been locked away. He looked at Ryan and not only saw him, but understood. What he wanted, what he needed, and how the two things were not the same. He saw how Ryan was, but also how he wanted to be.
Without a conscience to stop him, Joe used it against him.
Ryan didn’t look at the inscription when Joe first wrote it on the inside flyleaf of his book and passed it to him. He took it with thanks, thinking he would look at it later, then offered Joe twenty dollars and felt the first lick of desire settle into his alcohol-warmed belly when Joe laughed. It was a real laugh and Joe was watching him. Sometimes from the corners of his eyes, but not always. Ryan knew that look, and the feeling of eyes running over his skin in an admiring, covetous way. He didn’t often experience it in the presence of men and it took him a little by surprise to feel it while sitting across the coffee table from Joe.
He finished his drink and began packing up the books Joe had given him and his papers and files. Ryan didn’t hurry and he didn’t linger, but he was going to leave. He really was going to. He hadn’t slept in over 24 hours and he needed to or he’d be worthless. It was hard, though. Hard to think of sleeping and turning it all off for any length of time while the killer was still out there, maybe even picking his next victim.
Then, of course, Joe said something to him that changed his mind.
“I couldn’t turn it off if I were you,” he said softly. He watched Ryan with his eyes at half-mast, a product of a little too much of his good scotch. “Must be hard with friends and family and you’re running around trying to chase down the bad guy.” He frowned, thinking about it. “I imagine it uh… it gets quite lonely.”
He was right. Though he talked about it, Ryan never really did turn it all off and he was so lonely. His own fault, people said. People who knew him, like Jenny or Ty. That was his real curse, that was what Ty said anyway.
A little taken aback, Ryan looked at Joe and didn’t quite know what to say. It wasn’t a compliment, but it wasn’t pity. It sounded like sympathy or even empathy. Joe studied him, waiting for a response, but Ryan just looked back at him. He didn’t tell him he was wrong or that he was right, and when he said nothing, Joe’s gaze drifted away from him for a moment.
“But the pay-off, huh?” Joe said. He smiled, still just talking, still with that understanding, unspoken invitation for Ryan to speak up, to unload; confess. “You know, helping people. Saving lives. No, I think what you do… is quite remarkable.”
Ryan didn’t speak, but he was nearly embarrassed by it all. Joe was seeing him in a much whiter light than he deserved. The man he described, the motivations he spoke of with such compassionate understanding, wasn’t Ryan Hardy, it was the man Ryan Hardy wished like hell he could claim to be.
As Ryan remained silent on the subject, Joe hesitated. His eyes flicked away from Ryan, moving thoughtfully back and forth. Then he smiled and said, “One more, huh?”
It wasn’t quite a challenge, it was more persuasive than daring. It was seductive and Ryan didn’t really want to go home, a fact Joe had clearly homed in on through his hesitation to leave. Though Ryan had recognized the sexually appraising weight in Joe’s attention toward him, he liked the man. Liked him probably more than he had liked anyone in a very long time. Though he knew it wasn’t true, he thought one more drink wouldn’t hurt anything. One more drink could hurt a lot. A lot could happen in the time it took to finish one drink. Still, he didn’t want to go yet. His apartment was empty and dark, he lived alone and somewhere out there was a killer he hadn’t caught yet. So far, he was still a failure. He shouldn’t be allowed to lay down his head to rest.
One more and he would go home, he told himself. Start anew the next day.
“Sure. Why not?” Ryan said.
Joe laughed, pleased, and poured them both another drink from the decanter on the table between them. Ryan picked his glass up and was lifting it to his mouth when Joe reached over the table, took hold of the collar of his shirt in one hand and pulled, drawing him close. Ryan had only a moment to think before Joe just dragged him in and kissed him. In that moment, Ryan could have stood up or twisted out of Joe’s grasp--it was, after all, only the collar of his shirt--but he didn’t. He realized what Joe was about to do and he let it happen. Joe pressed his mouth to Ryan’s and leaned out over the table to get close enough before he pressed his teeth to Ryan’s lips and nipped him. Surprised, Ryan opened his mouth and Joe slipped his tongue inside. He tasted like bitter whiskey and faintly of tobacco and something spicy. Ryan liked it and chased the taste of him with his own tongue until their tongues were stroking over each other and before he knew it, they were just kissing. Kissing like it might become something more than kissing if they weren’t careful. Kissing with intent, both of them. Ryan didn’t really consider what that intent might mean or lead to in those groping instants, but he knew, and still he didn’t stop or push Joe away.
The sound of the outside door opening and slamming closed broke through the near dreamlike surreal sensation of it all and alarm shot through Ryan like a bolt of electricity. He jumped up, yanking his shirt collar out of Joe’s hand as he stood, and wiped the back of his hand over his mouth.
“That would be Claire with the little one,” Joe said. He watched Ryan calmly from his seat on the couch and picked up his drink. He tossed back the scotch and put the glass back down before he stood, too. “Finish your drink, Ryan.”
Ryan looked at him, looked at his glass, still with his drink untouched on the table, then back at Joe. Joe smiled at him, his eyes mocking as he watched to see what Ryan would do now. Was he going to get mad? Was he going to be embarrassed?
The sound of Claire’s heels on the floor could be clearly heard out in the hall as she approached the study.
Ryan’s heart was beating a little too fast and his hand shook when he reached for it, but he leaned over, picked up the glass and drank his scotch while Joe watched him and his smile widened.
“Have lunch with me tomorrow,” Joe said.
Ryan looked down into the bottom of his empty glass. He shrugged and gave the glass to Joe as he nodded. “Sounds good,” he said. He met Joe’s eyes briefly and smiled. “Sure. Lunch tomorrow and maybe I can pick your brain a little more.”
“I look forward to it,” Joe said. “You know where my office is?”
“Yeah, I think I can find it,” Ryan said.
The door opened and Claire stood in the doorway. She smiled to see them there. “Hello, Agent Hardy. Still here?”
“We lost track of time,” Joe told her. “Agent Hardy was just about to leave.”
“You don’t have to leave on my account,” Claire said. She came into the room and went to the table to pick up the decanter of scotch. She sniffed it and made a face. “You lost track of time, did you?” she asked Joe, amused. “Are you sure you’re okay to drive, Agent Hardy?”
Ryan smiled and picked up his bag from the floor. He slipped the strap over his shoulder and hefted it. “Call me Ryan,” he said. “I think I’ll be all right, ma’am.”
Claire smiled back at him and she was so beautiful. “Call me Claire, please, Ryan.”
“All right… Claire,” Ryan said. He cleared his throat and turned his gaze back to Joe, who was watching them both with his eyes narrowed and curious. “Thank you for your help. Are you sure you don’t want your book back?”
“No, of course not. It’s been my pleasure,” Joe said. “My absolute pleasure. It’s quite exciting for me, you know. Horrible, but it’s not every day I get to help the FBI catch a killer. Though I can’t imagine how much help I’ve really been.”
“You’ve been a lot of help,” Ryan assured him. “Most of the time I just feel like I’m spinning my wheels. Things almost feel like they’re starting to make a little sense tonight.”
Joe looked pleased. “Well… any time.”
“I might take you up on that,” Ryan said.
Claire went with them as Joe walked him to the door and stood in the foyer with her arm around her husband’s waist as he shook Ryan’s hand and they said goodbye. She looked tired and ready to slip her feet out of her high heels, but she was still lovely and Ryan felt his eyes straying to her and lingering a bit too long more than once before he finally left. He also sensed Joe noticing it, without surprise or jealousy. If anything, he seemed a little bit amused.
At home in bed, Ryan lay awake thinking about Joe Carroll and how he had kissed him. He had brushed his teeth before lying down, but he imagined he could still taste the scotch as it had tasted between their tongues. Claire was beautiful, but Ryan was surprised to find himself wanting Joe more and willing to settle for her, even if just in his fantasies, only if he couldn’t have him. In the back of his mind, the small, muted voice of his conscience whispered to him that it was forbidden, but Ryan barely heard it before he fell asleep.