“No, no. Those I remember. And they weren’t truly mine. I want mine—the ones I don’t remember. I found newspaper clippings of what I’d done, but there were no pictures. So disappointing.”

“Cops didn’t take crime photos back then,” I lied.

“No?”

I looked him in the eye. “No.”

“I see. In that case, I will settle for descriptions. Those who reported on my case were most stingy with the details. Not so much as a single word about precisely what I did, only the broadest hints. I want—”

“Detail,” I said. “I get it. But you won’t get it, because I don’t know the details, and the only offer on the table here is one I can provide.”

“Use your imagination, then. Tell me what you think I did to those girls. Or, perhaps, I’ll tell you what I think I did, what I see when I close my eyes.”

“Sure, let’s do that. You tell me what you think you might have done, and I’ll listen. You have an hour. At the end of that, if I’m still here, haven’t tossed my cookies or bolted out the door, you’ll tell me how you caught the Nix. And you’ll tell me while I’m casting a lie-detection spell.”

Disappointment seeped into his face, then hardened into a petulant scowl as he realized this deal wouldn’t be nearly as rewarding as he’d hoped. I might not want to hear his sadistic fantasies, but I’d listen, and I’d listen without giving him the reaction he craved. After all, they were just words, words unrelated to me, words not even grounded in fact, just the fantasies of a sick fuck who’d never have an opportunity to enact them.

“Never mind that,” he said at last. “I have something better. A game for two.”

“Let me guess. Hide-and-seek. And I don’t get to be ‘it.’”

A glimmer of confusion, then he smiled. “Yes, hide-and-seek, as you say. You will run. When I catch you…” His gaze slithered down me, eyes darkening. “I may do as I wish. And then I will tell you what you want to know.”

“Uh-uh. If you catch me, fine, we’ll do it your way. But if you don’t, you forfeit and tell me how to catch the Nix.”

He shook his head. “If that’s how you wish to play, then if I catch you, you forfeit. You allow me to do as I wish, and I tell you nothing.”

“Fine.”

He arched a brow. “You’re quite sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

“I’m quite sure you aren’t going to agree to my terms, and I don’t feel like pointless arguing. We’ll set a time limit,” I said. “The sun’s starting to go down, so let’s say that if you don’t catch me by—”