Seized. Elizabeth Heiter
to fear him, the man who’d been dubbed the “Nail Bomber” because of the materials he used.
He was antifederalist and anti-anyone-who-wasn’t-white. Sending her—a biracial federal agent—was her boss’s way of telling Cartwright that he didn’t call all the shots. The idea was to piss him off enough to get him to brag. He’d told prison officials that he had a copycat, and the FBI wanted to find out if it was true.
The other reason the head of BAU, Dan Moore, had sent her was that she was on his shit list.
Interviewing felons, even felons who claimed a copycat was contacting them, wasn’t usually a BAU job. But the file had crossed Dan Moore’s desk and apparently it looked like yet another suitable punishment for her refusal to follow orders three months ago.
She’d never been his favorite person; she was too young, too female and too poor a team player. He’d always treated her like the newbie who needed babysitting, but lately, it had gotten much worse. Lately, she felt as if she wasn’t even on the team anymore.
Worse, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be. And that was something she’d never questioned, not since the time she was twelve years old and her best friend, Cassie, had gone missing.
“I have nothing to say to you,” Cartwright muttered for the third time in the half hour they’d been having this little staring contest.
“You told two guards you had a copycat, Lee. You said you wanted to talk to someone about it. I’m here. Talk to me,” Evelyn pressed, trying to sound earnest.
The truth was, she felt discouraged. She’d already asked the warden about Cartwright’s incoming mail and his visitors. Since the only person who visited him was his mom, and his mail had never been flagged as suspicious, she was pretty sure his request was more about attention than a real threat.
But someone had been setting off explosions in the Montana wilderness about an hour away. There was no indication these had anything to do with Cartwright—he used a distinct method for creating his bombs, as telling as a signature, that local law enforcement hadn’t found this time.
The current explosions were a nuisance, but they’d happened far from anyone. And the reality was, this area had several groups with fringe militia ties, and explosions like the ones in the wilderness had happened before. Cartwright’s claim of a copycat was unlikely.
Still, he’d been convicted of hate crimes and murder. If there was even a tiny chance he was telling the truth, someone had to check it out.
That someone shouldn’t have been her. There was no reason to fly her across the country when there were perfectly capable agents here, and the case didn’t need a profiler at all.
And she was tired of the bullshit assignments when there were plenty of real cases she could be profiling.
Maybe, if she could ever get back to those legitimate cases, she could figure out whether she still belonged. Maybe it would tell her if, after finally unraveling what had happened to her best friend when she was twelve, she had any drive left for profiling.
Cartwright did nothing but snarl back at her, the muscles flexing in his prison-pumped arms.
Evelyn held in a sigh and leaned forward. “Who’s been contacting you, Lee?”
“I’m not telling you shit.”
Frustration built up. He should’ve seen her—exactly the kind of person he’d love to target at one of his bomb sites—and wanted to brag about the copycat. They hadn’t expected him to hand over a name, but they had expected him to taunt her with whatever he might know. Assuming the threat was real, which seemed more and more unlikely.
This complete refusal to talk was surprising.
“What’s your copycat planning to target? If he’s really copying you, he doesn’t seem to be doing a good job.” She tried to appeal to his vanity and his need to prove himself at the same time.
Cartwright scowled at her. “Forget about it.”
“Did you teach someone how to make a bomb?” she asked, leaning back in her chair. She tried another route. “It’s not like you used the most sophisticated method we’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah?” he barked. “Have you tried it? Packed in all those nails...?” He cut himself off and smirked at her. “My method was just fine.”
“But not so complicated that you’d need to teach someone else to do it, right? I mean, they could just figure it out on their own?” It probably wasn’t true. Cartwright had used easily accessible materials to create his bombs, but they’d been sophisticated in the detonation. The FBI hadn’t seen anything quite like them before—or since.
“Whatever,” he said. “I didn’t ask for you. I got nothing to tell you.”
“Why? Because there is no copycat?”
“Believe what you want.”
“I believe you’re wasting my time,” she snapped, bracing her hands on the table and leaning forward again so she could glare at him.
In that instant, he lunged toward her, shooting out of his chair and driving his elbow at her face.
She leaped back, cursing herself for not properly gauging the distance he could move while tethered to the table. But she wasn’t fast enough and his elbow clipped her cheek. It sent her flying backward.
She slammed against her chair, then tripped over it, falling onto the ground, her head slamming the concrete floor.
Behind her, she heard the guard wrestling with the locked door. Cartwright’s grating laugh sent fury racing through her veins.
She should’ve expected it. Cartwright had nothing left to lose. Thanks to a lenient judge, he’d avoided the death penalty, but he was never leaving this place.
She got to her feet before the guard had the door open, and resisted the urge to react. Instead, she righted her chair and sat back down as though everything was fine, waving the guard off. “Does it bother you that this is the worst you can do? Is that why you’re making up claims of a copycat?”
His face flushed an angry red and a vein in the center of his forehead popped up. “Get out.”
“If you’re not making it up,” she challenged, ignoring the way her cheek throbbed, “then prove it.”
“I didn’t make any damn claim to the Zionist...” He cut himself off again, blew out a noisy breath.
But she knew what he was going to say. Zionist Occupational Government. It was what a lot of fervent antigovernment groups called the federal government. She tried not to roll her eyes.
“I have nothing to say to you,” Cartwright finally finished.
She stared at him a minute longer, but a year and a half as a profiler—or behavioral analyst as they were officially called—told her she didn’t have anything to gain here. Her six years before that as a regular special agent told her she needed to find a real case.
“Nice talking to you, Cartwright,” she said, the sarcastic response so different from the way she would’ve handled an interview like that three months ago.
Cartwright just sat there, jaw and arm muscles flexing in unison, and Evelyn stood and motioned for the guard.
The keys jangled in the lock again for so long Evelyn was glad Cartwright had only winged her with his elbow. Eventually the door opened and the guard beckoned her forward.
She moved to his far side, practically sliding along the wall as he led her down the hallway, past a row of cells. They were in the supermax portion of the prison, filled with lifers, which made them especially dangerous. But the inmates were a lot less likely to lodge spit—or other bodily fluids—at a guard they had to deal with every day than a visiting federal agent.
Luckily for her, the guard was six feet tall and as broad as a small car,