Chapter 5
The Devil's Bargain
Gary Ridgeway, incarcerated but far from broken, greets Angela with a chillingly calm demeanor. He senses her pain, her obsession, and sees it as an invitation. He doesn't offer a direct confession or denouncement of the copycat. Instead, he weaves a complex narrative, offering cryptic clues and distorted pieces of information. He speaks of the 'lost ones,' victims he claims were never found, never even reported. Angela, desperate for any lead, follows his breadcrumbs, but they don’t lead to the copycat. They lead her deeper into Ridgeway's own dark past, to forgotten victims and unsolved mysteries that predate the current terror, making her question the true nature of his game.
The air in the visiting room was thick, a stale concoction of disinfectant and desperation. Angela’s breath hitched as she saw him, not the hulking brute she’d half-expected, but a man remarkably… ordinary. Gary Ridgeway sat behind the thick, unyielding glass, his eyes, a startlingly clear blue, fixed on her. There was no menace in them, not outright. Instead, a disquieting calm, a stillness that spoke of a mind that had long ago made its peace with unimaginable horrors. He smiled, a slow, deliberate unfolding of lips that didn't quite reach his eyes.
“Detective Rodriguez,” he said, his voice a low rumble, surprisingly pleasant. “I’ve been expecting you.”
Angela’s hand, gripping the edge of the table, tightened. Expecting her? After all these years, after all the chaos he’d unleashed, he was waiting for her? The irony was so sharp it felt like a physical blow. She’d spent half her life running from his shadow, and now she was voluntarily stepping into its deepest darkness.
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