'Think of it in these terms, then. For him, this is all probably like one of those movies where everyone's trapped in a mansion with hollow walls, where he has complete freedom of movement even though we think the doors are all lock—'

'You're saying we should try to draw him out?'

'No,' he replied. 'My point is that he sees us—all of us—as innately deceived by a consciousness that is at once dim, deluded, and ad hoc. He sees us as crippled by our evolutionary inheritance, our reliance on selves and rules and purposes. He thinks we're waging war from a dreamworld.'

Disney World.

Just thinking about it filled him with a vague, aimless worry, like that twinge of manly inadequacy you feel when shaking a hand more callused than your own.

'So he's underestimating us? Do you think we could exploit this somehow?'

Thomas rubbed his face, waved a hand. 'No. Look, agent, I appreciate that your job requires you to squeeze something practical out of whatever I say, but I'm thinking out loud as much as anything else. Let's just try to brainstorm for a bit, okay?'

From her expression, Thomas expected some kind of angry retort, but she seemed to catch herself. 'I'm sorry. It's just that this case—'

'Is important to you, I understand.'

She pursed her lips. 'I was going to say that it's unlike any case I've worked before. I've never been so… freaked like this. Your buddy-boy has a way of crawling under the skin.'

Thomas scratched his head. 'Probably because that's exactly what he's doing. It's a truism to say that most psychopaths have their own peculiar logic, something that makes them tick, something that we can puzzle through.'

He watched the scenery fall through his reflection in the passenger window. He spent a listless moment imagining Neil and Nora 'ticking' in his bed.

'But for Neil?' Sam prompted.

Thomas glanced back at her. 'It's reason itself he's murdering.'

As a psychologist, Thomas knew well the unspoken agreements that governed so much of what passed between people. At some point, mentioning Neil simply ceased being an option for either of them. His end of the bargain was easy enough to figure out: who wanted to talk about the best friend who had banged his wife? But for Sam, Neil was the only reason to talk—why she would collect a paycheck at the end of the week. And yet, here they were trading jokes and childhood anecdotes, discussing everything but Neil.