Olivia placed the tape recorder upon the mahogoney table protected with a thick layer of plastic, almost as thick as the handcuffs on the prisoner's feet. Olivia felt safe though. There was a guard standing at the door and more watching from the tinted window. Security would be watching through the camera in the corner of the room. For a hot summer day in Southern Florida and for a prison, it was well air-conditioned. She was told it was one of only 10 in that state so generous.
The prisoner was dressed in a dark green uniform. He had dark hair and green eyes that were narrow and piercing like some great predatory cat. They instantly made Olivia uncomfortable.
"You have been informed of your rights concering this interview?" she asked.
He nodded.
"You did not want a lawyer present?"
He shook his head. She hoped she would get more out of him and hoped this interview wasn't a huge waste of time. She had been working on this case for months now and realized she was getting desperate coming into the prison systems to interview criminals in the hope it might clue her into something she had overlooked before. Perhaps something in the murderer's psyche. She had never liked psychological profiling. To her it had always seemed like things that could be guessed with general knowledge and crime statistics. But the serial killer had killed another girl, leaving her chained in a bath tub to slowly drown just like all the other women. His total body count was at least 5 victims in the last year.
"What is your name?"
"Rick. Rick Sutner."
He recited his case number and prison number and then Olivia began asking the uncomfortable questions right away. She did not believe in wasting time.
"You confessed to raping half a dozen women, didn't you, Sutner?"
"Yes," he said with a slight chuckle.
Olivia was surprised he was so forthcoming, "Why?"
“I make them squeal,” he had said the first time she interviewed him. “But never my name. They don’t see my face either. Only my cock as I slide it inside them. Then they can pretend I am their boyfriend or husband or the most recent quickie they had in the bathroom of that bar last weekend. I don’t care. I just like the look on their faces when they realize I am inside them and have made them mine. It is too late to run or hide and fighting is useless. I have gotten what I wanted. I have been inside them already. Nothing like the feeling of power I get when that realization hits them.”
She was repulsed by his detail but told herself she needed this sort of information. She needed to get inside her murderer's head. All of the women he had murdered showed signs of sexual assualt.
"How do you choose your victims?"
"I hunt for them over a period of time. As I'm driving or walking I'm always scoping for them. Oppurtunity presents itself, and until then, a man selects potential ones by a feeling. It can take days, weeks, months. Others have told me that it takes them years sometimes. When you find your victim, you know it. In a strange way, it's kind of like being in love."
He flashed a smile as he took out a cigerette and asked the guard to light it.
"Where did you get that?" the guard wasn't pleased. "You know the rules by now. No smoking in here only in privelaged areas."
"But I have been such a good boy," Sutner had a wounded look on his face.
"So you use a mask," Olivia ignored his antics. "Why is that? You confessed to your crimes. You didn't seem to care if you got caught."
"The mask spooks the girl and makes me feel like a super villain in those old comic strips, that's why."
Olivia began asking him more questions until he interrupted the interview, "You are the detective working on the Tub Man case, aren't you? Sometimes I'm allowed to watch the news. I seen your face before."
She was startled and did not know what to say. Then he chuckled and fixed his gaze upon her. “When all this is over, I am going to rape you.”
Her skin crawled when he made that sordid promise to her, but she forced herself to show no reaction. She knew her suspect’s and Rick’s mentality. They fed off a woman’s fear and made it their drug, more so than the forced sex. In fact, sex was the furthest thing from their mind, or so she had concluded. The only difference between the man she had arrested and Rick was that the other had made his victims suffer as much as he could in their final and terrible last hours on this earth. Rick let his victims live out the rest of their lives with their fear. They were both sick fucks, just to a different degree.
That was why she said and did nothing. There was no indignant name calling or threats or pathetic pleas. She wasn’t certain, but she supposed any of those options would satisfy him. Instead she stared back, eyes like onyx stones.
"I liked to hunt my victims along trials and empty parks," Sunter said. "Sometimes parking garages. I knew to avoid cameras."
He nodded at the camera in the room.
"You think you can understand and indentify with this killer?"
"I never killed any of my broads, but we are both hunters and at least he belives in using the bodies before he destorys them. Still a terrible waste if you ask me."
Olivia did not think she could stomach much more today, "I think we are through here."
The guards escorted Sutner away. As he left, he winked at Olivia, "Hope you catch him before you see me again."
"You do, do you?"
"It always upsets me to see someone in my former hunting grounds picking off MY deer."
Olivia turned to the guard, "You said he would be cooperative. And he is also one of the best behaved here?"
"For the most part," he answered. "It's not often you get a prisoner that confesses. Sex offenders and rapists are never popular among other prisoners, but he is clever and friendly. I get a bad feeling about him though."
"Me too," Olivia muttered.

Olivia walked out of the police station, breathing a huge sigh of relief and then felt an inner warmth. She was proud of herself for the first time in a long time. Years of hard work had finally paid off. The killer would be brought to justice and the latest girl that he had abducted had been saved in time. The woman had thanked her personally. Even though they had only exchanged words, for some reason, they meant more to her than she could put a value to. It seemed that nothing could dampen her spirits.
“Congratulations on the case,” one of the cops had followed her. “Not only did you catch the bastard but Miss. Taylor was recovered alive and unharmed. That would have been his tenth victim to our knowledge. Maybe if he bothers telling us his story, he’ll fess up to more. Let’s hope not. There is absolutely no way that monster will get anything less than the death penalty or life in prison. No less than he deserves.”
“Truth be told, I may never have caught him without Sutner’s tips. I shall have to thank him before he is locked away for good himself,” Olivia replied.
“You mean Rick Sutner?” the cop hesitated. “You won’t find him there. He is a free man now. I thought you had been told.”
Olivia stopped in her tracks, “What? But how?”
“The DNA never matched up to him. Instead, it matched to one of the men we arrested ages ago for other crimes, robbery and home invasion among them. Then Sutner recanted his confession. We had nothing to go on. We couldn’t hold Rick any longer lawfully.”
“But he told me that he raped those girls,” Olivia was puzzled. “I don’t understand. He explained…certain…details. Did he lie about which women he raped? Have others come forward?”
“No. There is absolutely no case against him.”
Olivia shook her head, “You let a confessed rapist out on the streets? I do not care if there is no physical evidence of his crimes. Maybe he killed his victims and their bodies simply haven’t been found yet. Maybe they are alive but are too afraid to report it. You cops know how many assaults go unreported. What if he… what if he rapes again?”
“Then he’ll leave evidence this time and we’ll lock him up again. I am sorry, but some big fish came and took the case out from under us and he hired a damn good lawyer. They claim that he made his confession under duress, that someone else made him confess. We were promised that he is under 24-hour surveillance-“
“That is not good enough!” Olivia snapped. “He bragged about raping half a dozen girls. Bragged! With a smile on his face.”
The cop shrugged, “Maybe he is a slimy, experienced criminal that outsmarted the system. Maybe he is full of shit. I guess we will never know.”
With that he walked away. Olivia was reeling. She had thought nothing could dampen her heightened spirits. Now the pendulum was swinging violently in the opposite direction. Rick Sutner was out on the streets! That announcement put fear in the pit of her stomach. She remembered the way he had always looked at her with that dangerous light in his eyes.
It was much easier to show no fear when he was safely behind bars, though or even the few times when they had been in the interview room. He was handcuffed and weaponless. There were security cameras and guards watching, ready to pounce on him if he made any moves. And the one time he had kissed her, he was tazzed in a heartbeat. By her. Then the guards collected him.
It was a new game now. He was a free man. He might have his mask and knife back. He might be waiting for her in the shadows, waiting to make good on his promise. But even if he wore his mask, she would know exactly whose face was behind it. She could say his name. She could identify him in a line up. So he risked getting caught this time for certain. Unless he silenced her forever. Unless he used that knife not only to threaten and cow his victims, or to cut off her clothes as he said he had done to the other girls. No, more likely he would simply slit her throat once he was through.
She bolted back inside the station, “I think I need to be placed in a witness protection program!”
“Why? You caught the killer.”
“Not because of the recent case, damn it!” she slammed her keys and her fist upon the counter. “I am talking about Rick Sutner! You let him walk free and now he is going to come after me!”
“He won’t. We all know he was sweet on you, but his every move is being tracked. He was informed if he came within a certain distance of you, he would be arrested immediately. You just solved an extremely terrifying case. It is tough enough hunting a serial killer on a person’s psyche. It’s doubly trying knowing the details of his other crimes. But don’t let it get into your head, Olivia. Go home. Watch a feel good movie. Curl up with a loving boyfriend. Get some sleep.”
“I have no one to go home to.”
“Shame.”
That seemed to be all she would get from those she had hoped would protect her. Promises and looks of pity. She was too flustered to keep arguing, and she knew it would be fruitless to do so. She stormed out, fingering the tazzer in her coat pocket. It was her only real comfort at the moment. None of the cops followed after her this time.
She hesitated. Should she drive the four hours to her parents’ home? No, she did not want to get them involved. She did not feel she had any friends intimate enough to call at this ungodly hour and ask to crash on their couch. Even worse, all these people that cared about her would probably ask for reasons. She would have to tell them everything. She did not care to. She could call her ex as a last resort, but she would have to swallow her bitterness, be told off, or he would beg her to hook back up with him. Best not to go down that road. She had finally gotten over him; she did not want to bring up all that emotional baggage on top of this.
Finally she resolved to stay the night in a hotel. She got in her car and drove into the city. She was forced to park in a parking garage. She almost turned around to drive home. Maybe she just needed the safety and comfort of her own bed. Why would a hotel bed not be cold and strange? But it was past 3 am now. She was tired and still scared shitless.
Besides a few other cars, the garage seemed empty. There were no sounds and not a soul in sight. It was not too dim. It would only take a few paces, an elevator ride, and she would be alone and safe. She began locking her car door.
Suddenly, someone tapped her on the shoulder, “Fancy meeting you here, Olivia.”
“What the fu…”
Rick was grinning back at her sporting his leather coat and chain jeans. She instantly reached for her tazzer, but Rick pressed against her, using his own weight to force her against the vehicle. She bumped her head on the window hard enough to see stars and be temporarily stunned. Rick reached into her pocket, plucking up the tazzer and cell phone and tossing them well away and underneath several cars.
“Not this time, sweetie,” he said, gripping her wrists.
“Get the fuck away from me, Sutner!” she growled, still clutching her keys with a death grip. “The cops will be here any second! You have violated a protection order coming near me! Forget assaulting me!”
“You realize that I am here to congratulate you like a normal guy, right? And you were going to taze me. Again.”
“How did you-“
“Find you? Get out of jail? Prevent the cops from tailing me here? Which question should I answer first? Fuck that, I was congratulating you! You found the killer! And saved the girl, I heard. Congratulations! I see that my tips helped. I am glad.”
“Yes, for once in your rotten life, you may have actually done some good!” she snapped. “But don’t think you have redeemed yourself in my eyes!”
“Did some good now?”
“LET GO OF ME, SUTNER!” she roared.
“Come on, baby,” he said. “Stop fighting.”
His tone made her pause. It was rather… tender. And then it occurred to her that he was not wearing his mask. That was no surprise. She knew him. What surprised her was that he was not carrying his characteristic knife. He was unarmed. He was taking a great risk.
“Get off of me and let me go!”
“Not yet.”
Again, she was confused. Was he really going to just… let her go?
“I will not be your next victim!” she insisted.
“Next?” he chuckled. “I have a secret. Want to hear?”
“You…you never raped anyone, did you?”
He stared into her dark brown eyes and cocked his head evasively, playfully, “What do you think?”
“Who the hell are you?” she demanded. “You lied throughout each one of our interviews. You lied about everything except for the tips I needed. Why? And if you are not really a rapist, then what are you?”
“A cop,” he sighed.
She looked up at him, lips slightly parted in a look of astonishment, “A cop.”
He found her expression irresistible and traced her lips again and leaned in to place a kiss there. She had half a mind to shove him away, but she was intrigued, and part of her hoped for more.
“I have made a career of going under cover. I’ve been a drug dealer, a gang member, a strangler, as well as a rapist. I infiltrate the criminal world; even have friends and informers among them. I sometimes go into the prison systems. All to help people like you catch the real bad guys.”
“So you happened to be working this area by coincidence?”
He smirked, “Not really.”
“If you were not assigned to work here, what are you doing here?”
“I came here for you, Olivia. I took a liberty and made a false confession instead of taking a vacation like my friends in high places wanted. I had heard of cases like the one you were working on. I did my homework among my friends in low places. I did it so that I could get closer to you.”
“You are crazy! Who puts themselves in prison for…”
“I was a juvenile delinquent in my youth. It’s pretty obvious already, but I’m no church choir boy. I did not get along with my family or my classmates. In order to get attention I would burn my neighbor’s shrubbery, put tacs under their cars, fuck around with girls in their fancy neighborhood pools. Stupid shit like that. But it made me an enemy of the system. After spending my first serious time behind bars as an adult, I told myself I didn’t want to become like the monsters they keep locked in those cages. My cell mate tried to kick my ass but I showed him I might be lean and pretty looking, but I knew beforehand how to make a weapon out of just about anything. I injured him and got put in a cell alone, thank god. But I decided I could help make the real criminals pay. So I made the enemy of my enemy my friend. I gave the guards tips and didn’t care if the others said I squealed. I stopped a lot of fights and prevented a lot of bloodshed. The system began to appreciate me. So you could say I’m used to prison. The one here is much nicer than the ones I’ve been in. Prison life is boring but at least there’s a routine, more than I ever had elsewhere, and there’s plenty of time to relax,” he chuckled.
He looked at her but there was still confusion and a little horror in her face. It was not easy shattering the image he had planted of himself in her consciousness already.
“But the real reason I put myself in this particular prison is because I love you, Olivia. I have a long time now. I lived in your last apartment complex before you moved here. Two years ago. I developed feelings for you. I was below you. I heard some of your fights with your ex among other things. Those walls were super thin. I learned a lot about you that way. More than he ever did, it seems. You never noticed me and I could not approach you. You were still living with him and were working all the time. When you finally left your boyfriend and moved I thought that would be the last I saw or heard of you until this case started making news and I heard your name mentioned. That was when I pulled some strings, signed that confession, and helped you on the case. I think we both benefited well in the end.”
She was shocked. She would have never guessed at all of this. She also felt guilty she had never recognized him.
“But why the elaborate act?” she asked. “If you really are such a normal, nice guy underneath that persona then why not just ask me out on a date? You could have approached me and at least said hello while I was going through that hell with my ex. A fresh face might have started to gradually win me over.”
“I heard the things you said to him, Olivia. You were so set on trying to make it work with him. You would have told me to fuck off.”
She grudgingly thought to herself he was probably right. It did not help that her ex had been training to be a cop himself. If Rick had approached her and told the truth about his profession she might have written him off based on that bias alone.
“Well,” she said, “why not after the break up?”
“Do I look stupid to you? It would have been horrible timing and you did not give me nearly enough time. As soon as you resolved to leave him, you did not go back for a millisecond. You packed up and left that night and I had no clue where.”
“Did you look for me?”
He laughed, “Do you think I’m a stalker?”
“Well when you did find me by ‘accident’ why not approach me and ask me out on a date? I was over my ex by then and you are attractive enough without the act. I might have said yes.”
“If you had thought I was some normal guy, I would not have been of any help to you on the case. You would not have started looking to date casually or seriously when you were so overworked still. You only came to me in the first place to get your criminal profile from another rapist. My tips and advice would not have seemed nearly as credible without the act. I am not a rapist, but I have been around their type. I understand, regrettably, some of their fucked up fantasies. Plus I don’t like to blow my cover if I can help it. As an undercover cop and infiltrator, I am rarely normal and have to keep up my walls and defenses.”
“Truth be told, I was attracted by that dangerous side of you,” Olivia confessed. “I’m very relieved you are not a monster. I would not go so far as to say you are a ‘nice’ guy, but you are nothing like you pretended to be. And I wanted you. Every time you threatened to rape me, I was strangely flattered. I was not afraid of this,” she grabbed him and gave him a playful squeeze, “I was afraid you would put a knife in me instead. And if you had approached me as a nice guy, I might have suspected that down the line you would hurt me like my ex.”
“Sometimes the guys that say and do all the right things in the beginning expose themselves as the real pretenders. Most assholes are really just assholes. But sometimes there are the guys that make clumsy mistakes and pretend to be bad guys. Bad guys that are secretly romantics. Like me.”
“So you were pretending to be a bad guy? And that is supposed to be charming?” Olivia said sarcastically.
“You know now that is not the real me.”
“I know nothing but lies, Rick! Is that even your name?”
“Rick is my first name. My last I am not supposed to reveal. But I’m through with lies with you, Olivia. It’s Letty.”
She was silent for a long while.
“Are you OK?”
“Yeah. It’s just a lot to take in.”
He got up and helped her to her feet, collecting her clothes for her. She tossed the ripped blouse into the nearest trash can. Rick put his jacket about her instead.
“I would like to date you in the normal sense and do this again, Olivia. I don’t mind getting to know you better. And you deserve to know who I am.”
“This is so backward,” she said.
He gave her a mischievous look, “I told you I would rape you. Maybe later.”

The Tower Card

The Tower Card
I came from accross the ocean, from the land of Egypt. It only made sense that Samantha would be intrigued by the idea of a tarot reading. The ancient Egyptians had believed in divination. They would draw sticks and discern what the gods had in store for them through random chance. There was meaning even in the random. Especially in the random. I stared from across the room, tucked away upon a shelf. For a long time I had been placed in the trunk of her car. There was no other place for me and I brought back painful memories. The fact that I was alone like her was too sharp a reminder.
"Tarot readings do not predict the future," Salem, her coworker told her. "They help you reflect upon your present problem or event. It predicts how you might deal with it, what you fear, and how others perceive you."
Samantha nodded, nervous but excited. She wanted to believe in the sentimental and the mystical but was torn with logic and reason. Both had let her down.
The first card was drawn. The Tower card. Salem's eyes became wide and a smile crept upon his lips. He was not young but wizened with bulging borwn eyes, giving him a slightly crazed look. The Tower symbolized a great and violent change, a resetting. I had witnessed this recent upheaval. I had been with Samantha for over 7 years and in those years nothing exciting had happened. She had dated the same boy from high school for that long, Andrew. She had moved with him to college. She had made love to him and only him. Her universe was set around him.
Until he came home and told her he was not attracted to her anymore. There was no other solid reason even though she looked and looked for it like an archeologist scrapes the snad for clues, reconsturcing past lives and buildings. She was trying to cling to her own life. Shouldn't that have been easy enough? She left the apartment, grabbed me and all her other possessions, and left for good. She left behind a dog they had adopted together and was broke. She lived with a handful of women and changed her major. She had been forced into this change but there was no turning back now.
More cards were drawn. The 7 of wands, the 8 of wands. All of these cards represented creativy and the end of a cycle. 7 years.
"This is the card that represents what others think of you," Salem announced and drew the Lover.
The Lover. I once had a lover 7 years ago. The little Egyptian boy hand made us with paint, string, and leather. Two camels, which was me and my lover. Samantha had ridden on her share of camels by then. She saw the two of us together and thought of her new boyfriend. Her whole trip had been a dream come true but lonley. Andrew was at home and would not be able to experience riding on a camel with her. But she could bring him one and keep one for herself forever. She placed my lover on the bedside of her own lover.
"When we share a bed, they can share the mantle peice too," she said as she kissed him. When they moved in together, she brought me with her. They slept in the same bed for a year all the time. But Andrew had not brought my lover. The promise was forgotten. She began to sleep alone more often. I was always alone. And after he left, another came to her bed for a night. The boy she had secretly loved for the last year but was too ashamed to admit it. I never saw him again.
"This card is what you fear," Salem explained and drew the Fool. "This could mean you fear appearing foolish or acting foolish. It could mean you fear lustful habits."
Samantha blushed. She must be thinking of the boy she had taken to her bed. She thought of the nights she slept alone because Andrew had stopped wanting to make love. She dreamed of the other, a dream so intense and evocative she was glad for once Andrew was not beside her. Again, the mystical and unexplainable kept nudging at her sense of reality. The dream came true almost exactly that night.
Even Andrew had begun to believe in the archaic and the mystical. In those last months they were together he read books about zodiacs and was supersitious at times, even though he claimed not to believe any of it.
"Maybe you are just bored, Samantha. Maybe you should date an Aries," he told her once. "I hear those men want it all the time because of their horoscopes."
"You think I want to make love because I'm bored?" Samantha blinked in dibelief.
"The final card." Salem drew the Chariot card. "It means you will come to the end of the cycle, your life will change, but you will be victorious."
Almost six months later, Samantha was preparing to graduate. She had a loving boyfriend, a lifelong friend named Charles. The boy she brought to her bed was still a treasured friend. She only saw Andrew if she chanced upon him at a bar, drinking alone and bragging that the bartenders knew him by name now. I will never see my lover again. Perhaps my mate is lying in a dump. Perhaps it was never meant to be. As long as Samantha does not care, as long as she is happy, as long as she is victorious, so am I.