Ryder turned to Dan and muttered, “We’re talking to a complete maniac.”

“But he does know what’s going on,” Axel said quietly.

“But I’m not telling!” Browne said, and his smile deepened.

There was a tap at the door. Dan saw Special Agent Andre Broussard through the small paned window high up on the door.

Axel stood. “Excuse me,” he said.

“I understand you’re not afraid to die, that you’re immortal,” Dan said to Browne. “But shedding this skin isn’t easy. I think you were ordered to send Jennie on to her immortality, but what you did was hack her head just about in two. Must have hurt like a son of a bitch. And she must have been so surprised...shocked, even.”

He thought he might have finally gotten through to the man, despite Browne’s efforts to display minimal emotion.

Dan went on. “Lethal injection is supposed to be the most humane way to execute murderers... Well, I’ve been in the viewing room for a lethal injection. It isn’t pretty. The body jerks and spasms as the organs fail and... Well, like I said, not pretty.”

“He will come for me, long before we reach that point. I mean, if you can even get anything on me. Really. Besides...well, whatever it is you can get me on for last night. People are going to doubt I could have killed anyone.”

Dan kept his own face impassive, yet he feared he knew exactly what Browne meant.

There must have been another victim during the night. The big man in the black coat and the slouch hat had probably struck again. There was something to the number six. If different killers were at work, anyone caught would have an alibi.

But Neil Browne still wasn’t getting off so easily. He’d been seen by dozens of people wielding a gun and threatening death.

Dan smiled and leaned back. “Pretty sure I’ve been right so far. Your new identities, they were stolen from the Baton Rouge couple, but live by the sword, die by the sword. So, before New Orleans, you were a lovely little group of six. Killing goats for fun when human beings weren’t on the agenda. But it was you and Jennie, we’ll say, and the Baton Rouge couple. Now there’s also the big he and one other. That one other would be...well, someone here. Someone in New Orleans planned the murders, and you think they’re all part of some cosmic grand plan. I think they’re revenge. Your big he wanted to kill Lou Delaney, and it just fell in with all this. You all started killing and believed you were immortal and special. And it became a game. But now, it’s just you and the big he and one other...unless Nathan Lawrence became part of your little group. You’re still short.”