Paige recognized it as a simple piece of boundary testing or assertion of dominance, a way of Nadia saying that she could do what she wanted, and there was nothing the doctor could do to stop her.
“Nadia, we’ve spoken about this,” Dr. Spiel said, pulling back. Nadia seemed to enjoy the effort it took him. She obviously liked embarrassing people.
“Did we? I don’t remember. And I feel I would remember if we did. I have an exceptional memory.”
Paige could see the note of exasperation on Dr. Spiel’s face.
“Yes, Nadia, we did.”
“No we didn’t.”
She sat down on one of the chairs without waiting to be asked, crossing her legs, and giving Paige a look so direct that it was uncomfortable. With a lot of psychopaths, Paige wouldn’t have looked away, but with Nadia, she made a point of doing so, letting her have the small victory that someone with NPD would probably need.
“Who are they?” Nadia asked. She acted as if she were in charge of the whole situation. “I didn’t ask to see anyone.”
“They’re with the FBI,” Dr. Spiel said.
Nadia instantly looked bored. “Why would I want to speak with the FBI?”
Paige tried to come up with something quickly. If this patient decided that she didn’t want to talk to her or Christopher, then the two of them would have come out here for nothing. Maybe they would be able to talk to a different patient, but Paige doubted it, when Dr. Spiel had already warned them against disturbing his patients.
“We think that your insight could really be invaluable,” Paige said. “Without your help, we might never be able to solve this.”
She wasn’t appealing to any sense of altruism from this patient because she doubted that there was anything there to appeal to. But she could make Nadia feel like helping made her the most important person in the room.
“What can’t you solve?” Nadia asked, looking vaguely interested.
“There’s a man killing people. People who have insulted him.”
“Why should I care about this man?” Nadia asked. “What’s in it for me if I help?”
Paige found herself trying to think of something that might catch the killer’s attention long enough to get her to help. She wasn’t in a position to offer Nadia her freedom, or even better conditions. There was one thing she realized that she could offer, though.
“I’ll make sure that the press hears that you were involved,” Paige said. “I’ll make sure that everyone knows we only caught this guy because of you.”
That seemed to catch her attention.
“What do you want to know?”
“What was it like for you, when you killed? What made you want to do it?”
Nadia shrugged. “It was easy. Why wouldn’t it be easy? They weren’t anybody important. The stupid thing is that they put me in here for it. It wasn’t like I did anything wrong.”
Did she actually believe that? Possibly, if she truly thought that she was the only person who mattered.
“Do you know how they treat me here?” Nadia said. “They make me talk to idiots, and they ignore me all the time. They act like I’m ordinary.”
It was one thing knowing that this was the way a narcissist thought, but it was quite another to see it in person.
“Why did you tell people about what you’d done?” Paige asked. That was a part that had caught her attention about Nadia’s crimes.
The killer shrugged, though, not answering.
“You wanted people to know, didn’t you?” Paige said. “You needed them to know, so it didn’t matter that you were confessing to a crime.”
“It wasn’t really a crime,” Nadia said. “I explained all this to my lawyer, but he didn’t get it right in front of the court. The police told lies about me.”
“Can we focus on the man we’re trying to catch?” Christopher said.
It was a mistake. Nadia glared at him.
“This is boring now. I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Take me back out of here.”
She said it as if she were in complete command, but Paige suspected that there was no way now that she was going to change her mind.
“Nadia,” she said.
“No, we’re done here.” Nadia stood up and headed for the door. The orderly who had brought her there moved to intercept her, and Dr. Spiel looked over to Paige as if wondering what he should do.
“Let her go,” Paige said. “It’s obvious that Nadia doesn’t know anything that might help.”
“I do,” Nadia snapped back. “Of course I do. I know plenty of things that might help. Like… how is this guy letting people know what he’s done? How is he making sure people know it’s him? You see, I know more than all of you.”
Paige signaled to the orderly to let her go from the room.
“Well, that was a waste of time,” Dr. Spiel said, as Nadia left. “And now I’ll have to deal with an agitated patient, for nothing.”
“On the contrary,” Paige said. “I think that we’ve learned something very useful indeed.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Back at the FBI field office, Paige did her best to explain her idea to Christopher, sitting across from him in a small side office, trying to show how it might work.
“I think there’s a chance that the killer might try to find a way to boast about what he’s doing,” she said.
“Based on a conversation with a completely different killer? Can you generalize from one to another like that?”
Paige could hear the skepticism there, but she wasn’t about to let it stop her.
“If this were some academic study, no,” Paige said, “but here? I think Nadia was a useful source of inspiration, at least.”
“Are you going to tell her that?” Christopher asked, cocking his head to one side. “It seems like she wants the attention.”
“That’s my point,” Paige replied. “Some serial killers send notes, or try to taunt the police. I think this one needs more attention than that.”
“So you don’t think the fleur-de-lis ornaments will be enough for them?” Christopher called up a photograph of one of them. “I feel like we should be looking deeper into that side of things. Maybe if we can find out where they were made, that might lead us to him. Someone buying a bunch of iron fleur-de-lis ornaments can’t be that common.”
“But it’s also not the kind of thing someone would keep records of,” Paige pointed out. “Unless he’s having them custom made.”
“Maybe he is.” Christopher shrugged. “Either way, it’s our best piece of physical evidence. I want to at least check.”
Paige was surprised that Christopher wasn’t just going along with her idea. Previously in their partnership, it had seemed that he’d been ready to follow along with most of her ideas. Why was this one a step too far?
“I still think though that the ornaments won’t be enough for him,” Paige said. “We went to see Nadia to get a real feel for what a killer with NPD might be like. Do you really think someone like that would settle for a cryptic calling card?”
“Maybe, if they thought that it proved they were cleverer than anyone else, able to leave clues and still not get caught.”