“It doesn’t bother you that someone else thinks they could live up to you?” Ruby asked innocently.

If anything, his cavalier attitude toward this, his lack of distaste for less skilled copies, only supported her theory. He wasn’t shocked because he already knew. Was he protective because the copycat truly was his protégé?

Vallejo shrugged.

“Mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery.”

“It’s also how Renaissance painters trained their apprentices,” Ruby replied. It would be so much like Vallejo to envision himself as the da Vinci of death. He always had been high on himself, as if taking human life elevated him to the level of God.

He looked appropriately smug at the comparison, his smile less drawn. From her, it must have sounded like a compliment.

“What, have I accrued some kind of celebrity status in my absence?” Vallejo asked.

Ruby wasn’t about to dignify that with a response. She deigned to think how many podcasts made deep dives into his crimes. The public held such a sick fascination for true crime, when it came at a safe distance.

“Did you like to brag, Vincent?” she asked. “Did you find the kind of audience that wanted to listen?”

“I did teach, if you recall. Lecturing is my gift,” Vallejo replied. “Alas, no worthy students here. I can’t think of anything more useless than teaching someone serving a life sentence.”

Ruby folded her hands together on the tabletop, her head tilted slightly.

“That must be so frustrating for you,” she said, “to have no one worthy to pass your wisdom onto here.”

Vallejo’s smile turned sharp.

“Don’t patronize me, Ruby,” he warned.

“Why would I?” she asked innocently, “I’m just curious what lengths you would go to be the teacher again. How would you go about it? What are the important details you would feel the need to impart?”

Wound patterns, for example. Vallejo never had a type the way other killers did. He did not leave a trail of dark-haired, round-faced women that resembled a neglectful mother. As much as she hated to admit it, there were pieces of his cases she could never pin-point the importance of. But they had to be important, or else why would Vallejo take the time to do them?

She had always suspected the man had a drive to be original, to contradict everything the FBI ever learned from interviewing past killers. No pupil of his could ever hope to achieve that level of creativity, so of course Vallejo would encourage them to copy him.

“Whose name do people remember? Yours? Does anyone outside the FBI remember who arrested me? No. They never do. They don’t even remember the name of that agent who was massacred. Asher Carnes?” Vallejo said, drawing out the syllables of the name, “doesn’t stick in the mind.”