Chapter Twenty Seven

James Hayden sat up slightly, his wrists shackled to the hospital bed and his bandaged leg outstretched in front of him. He stared at the door blankly as Tara and Warren entered the hospital room. It was the same stare he had hours earlier but now his face was pale—drained of blood and energy from the injury he just endured.

For the first time, Tara felt a flutter of excitement, knowing that this man could very well be who they had been looking for all along. However, they still had not found the victims, even after sweeping his property, and Tara wondered where else he could be keeping them. But as she looked at him—his blank stare and bloodshot eyes—there was evidently something odd about him. It was his bizarre unpredictable behavior that made Tara feel that he was the one.

She walked over to the side of his bed, holding an evidence bag in one hand, and stood by him, looking down. Warren did the same.

“That was quite a spectacle you pulled back there,” Tara said.

Warren nodded. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you, you shouldn’t shoot at an officer?” he added.

James’s eyes continued to hold their gaze on the ceiling, his hands now clenched in fists by his side. He didn’t respond, and it was clear he wasn’t planning to, so Tara reached into the evidence bag, pulling out the wallets they found at his house.

“Do you want to tell me why you had these?” Tara asked, holding them out in front of him.

His eyes looked at them cautiously until they locked on what Tara was holding. For a moment a flash of fear crossed his face, until he struggled to sit up a bit straighter and his face morphed into something else completely—it relaxed, as if all the fears he felt left his mind.

“I’ve never seen them before,” he muttered.

His sudden change in behavior caught Tara off guard. She looked at him for a moment, trying hard to study his face—to understand him—but his face was so still, so emotionless. It was as if he almost believed his own words even though both he and Tara knew it was a blatant lie.

“James, they were in your bedroom,” Tara shot back.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I don’t know why they were in there,” he said.

He stared Tara dead in the eye without a flicker of doubt.

“Where are they?” Tara asked, growing increasingly impatient as she opened each wallet, pulled out the licenses, and flashed them in front of his face. She was referring to the victims; it was all they needed now—to find them.

He squinted his eyes, taking a hard look at the licenses.

“I’ve never seen those people before,” he replied again before moving his gaze to the ceiling, and Tara caught the corners of his mouth rise slightly as he discreetly tried to hide a smile on his face. This man is a skilled manipulator, and he knows it, Tara thought to herself.