At about 9:30 that evening, we took latex gloves and flashlights and walked to the college. After a great deal of financial analysis, which he very kindly did not explain to me, Jarod had found what he wanted. Not who yet, just what, proof of the embezzlement my father had discovered. It had taken him one evening to find and analyze documents my father had taken weeks over. Once again I realized what a powerful brain there was behind the pain-filled eyes and silly grin.

            We walked through the faculty parking lot to the Bailey Building. No lights were on, and the back door was locked.

            “We should have gotten keys from Young John,” I grumbled.

            “No need.” With a smirk he pulled out of his pocket some long things on a keychain (not keys) and stuck a couple in the keyhole.

            “Those are illegal, aren’t they?”

            “Yes, they are.”

            The door was open, and we went in, went down quietly to the basement. The main door there was locked, too, but Jarod had it open as quickly as I could have done with a key. It was a bit creepier in the darkness barely relieved by the bluish beams of our flashlights.

            Jarod went first to the chemical supply cabinets. He unlocked them neatly and played his flashlight over the rows of bottles and things.

            “I suppose you know what they all are.”

            “Mostly.” He shut it up again. “How often do they do inventory of these cabinets?”

            “I have no idea. Why? Are you going to steal some?”

            “If I do, I’ll pay for them.”

            When we came to the room with the boxes hiding the secret room, he looked all around for signs that anyone had been there and found none. We moved the boxes again.

            “Stand in the doorway,” Jarod told me. “Aim your flashlight over at the chair. And if you need to, just leave, but I’m not stopping this time until I have what I need to know.”

            I nodded. I didn’t like that dark, tiny room with its ghastly history, but I was frankly curious about exactly what Jarod was planning to do.

            He stood in the little room and took a few deep breaths. He shone his flashlight all around the room.

            “I have embezzled money from the college and its students. Now one of the students is blackmailing me. I thought at first I could buy his silence with a one-time payment, but he kept coming back. And then I caught Doran snooping around. If he finds anything out, I’ll be ruined. I’m desperate—and angry. How dare some little know-it-all kid try to blackmail me? He thinks he has power over me? I’ll show him power. He wants to see me beg for his mercy. I’ll make him beg for mine. And Doran—he has to be got out of the way, made so that no one will listen to him. A pity about him, but he should have kept his nose out of other people’s business.

            “I ask Tim Morone to meet me down here, late on Thursday night. I tell him no one will hear us talk here. I have everything ready. Everything is planned, every detail. I’m a planner, detail-oriented. No detail escapes my notice, which was how I hid my financial dealings so well.

            “Now Morone is coming. He doesn’t know about this hidden room, until I tell him I have something to show him. He’s suspicious, but he precedes me in. I lift my weapon and swing it at him—not too hard. I don’t want to kill him, yet. I catch him as he falls, drag him to the chair, duct tape his wrists to the arms, his ankles to the legs, and his mouth closed. Then I wait for him to wake up.”

            He paused, breathing quickly, not the calming breaths he had taken earlier but excitedly, somewhat shallowly. I watched, fascinated and horrified. He wasn’t Jarod anymore.

            “He wakes up and looks at me. What a rush of triumph there is when I see his terror! He is in my power now. I own him, and I will squeeze him to get every drop of this delicious sensation. I tell him what’s in store for him and watch as he tries to beg through the duct tape. To give him a little taste of it, I take the syringe I have prepared, slip it under the skin of his arm, and give him just enough of my concoction to make him cry. Watching it is joy to me. Why haven’t I done this sooner? I thought my work and my financial games were enough, but they’re not.”

            I could see that Jarod was fighting it even as he spoke. Part of him was—somehow—slipping deeper and deeper into the killer’s mind, but part of him was fighting to stay separate. I didn’t know whether I should try to snap him out of it or not.

            “I watch until his crying has stopped, and then I give him something to knock him out for a good, long time. Then I go home and go to bed. The next morning I go about my business. I go to see Morone once and make sure he stays unconscious. I make it a point to go and see Professor Doran in his office as well. I ask him to look over something I’ve written; I give it to him in a file folder with several blank pages on top which he has to leaf through to get to the drivel I’ve written. His fingerprints are on those pages now.

            “Late in the evening I go back down to my victim, the little fly I’ve caught in my web. He’s not even Tim anymore, just a pathetic little animal in my power. He’s been trying to get free, but he’s failed. I give him a little more of my drug, and then I free one of his hands and tell him I won’t give him any more if he writes what I tell him to write. He writes the blackmail notes to Doran on the papers Doran left his fingerprints on—his handwriting is shaky, but it always was abominable. I take them in gloved fingers and fold them carefully. They’ll go buried in one of Doran’s desk drawers.

            “And then I give my victim more of my drug. He tries to scream, but the duct tape blocks the sound, and I—I love this feeling of—of power—”

            He was trembling where he stood, his fists clenched at his sides, trying to force words out, fighting himself desperately.

            “Jarod—Jarod—stop.” I didn’t know if he’d even heard me. I left my place and grabbed his arm. “Stop, Jarod!”

            I dragged him out of the room, shoved the boxes back into place, and pulled him out of the building, locking all the doors behind us. Outside in the cool air, he sank down on the steps with his head in his hands.

            “I hate getting into a sadist’s mind. I hate it—I hate it. I always have.”

            I gave him a little tug, and he sank his head down on my shoulder.

            “I only had to do it a couple times—and there was always a point past which I couldn’t go—”

            “It’s called survival,” I said. “Your own personality won’t let itself be subsumed in something so horrible. It means you’re strong.”

            “But I needed to go as far as the killing, planting the evidence—”

            “No, you didn’t. I know who you were describing.”

            He sat up and stared at me in the pale moonlight. “You do?”

            “Don’t you?”

            He said slowly, “I suppose I do.”