21. Chapter 21

21

T hey did manage to pull their boxer shorts back on in case rescue arrived to find them naked and stinking of sex, but they didn't bother with any other clothing. Quinn found it more comfortable lying down on the floor of the van and Zane mirrored him until they ended up in the same position they'd been in before desire took over.

"Confession time," Quinn said. His eyes slid shut. "I didn't want you on my study—"

"Knew it." Zane smirked.

"But do you know why?"

"Because you were worried you wouldn't be able to resist my charms and you'd end up riding me in the back of a prison van?"

Quinn cracked an eye open and found Zane grinning at him.

"I remembered that front page…of you…naked. I was seventeen." He bit his lip. "And I was going through a confusing time, realising I liked men more than women, then there you were, standing on that deck with the sun on you, completely naked, and it was the front page of every newspaper. I bought one and took it home."

Zane hummed. "And what did you do with it?"

"I took it upstairs and hid it under my pillow for two weeks. Then one night, I couldn't sleep, so I got it out and…" Quinn's cheeks were burning.

"So what you're trying to tell me is, I made you come before I actually made you come?"

"Yeah. You did. And I read the kiss-and-tells about you from men and women, and I found them such a turn-on, and I thought about you a lot. Had these fantasies in my head about you, what you'd be like, what you'd do to me, and what I wanted to do to you."

"You didn't happen to fantasise about riding me, did you?"

Quinn scrunched up his face. "I did…"

"Did it live up to the fantasy?"

"It did."

Zane's smile was pure smugness. "That's what I like to hear."

"I went to university, moved into halls there, went out, met people, eventually met Damon." He hesitated. "I'll be honest, I forgot all about celebrity Zane Black. I was busy. It barely even registered when you got arrested or what for, and years later, I got the go-ahead for this study. I didn't even know you were at Greenwood."

"Why didn't you want me on your study?" Zane murmured.

"It was uncomfortable knowing what I used to do with your picture, what I used to fantasise about, and meeting you as a killer." Quinn took a deep breath. "It left me feeling uneasy, and that first day when we met, I still thought you were one of the best-looking men I'd ever seen, even though I know I shouldn't."

"One of them?"

Quinn shoved him. "Trust you to fixate on that."

"I can't help it."

"I wanted to stay professional, I really did, but you…you got under my skin, and what happened with Mackie, afterwards when we were in the segregation unit, I couldn't help myself."

"I couldn't help myself either," Zane said. He closed his eyes. "You were vulnerable at that moment, and I took advantage."

"You didn't."

"I did, Quinn. It was me who pushed this into more than it should've been."

"Do you regret it?"

"No," Zane said firmly. "I don't regret you. I might one day."

Quinn's brow twitched. "One day?"

"In a few weeks, I might, when memories won't be enough. I might wish I'd never signed up for your study…or kissed you that day in the cell. You might have the same wish."

"I won't."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I let myself be drawn to you knowing you were a killer, knowing my research suggested you might have been even worse than that. I still fell for you."

Zane raised his eyebrows. "And what did your research suggest?"

"You're a psychopath."

"Psychopath." Zane nodded. "That's the label you've given to me."

"That's the label you gave to yourself."

"It's your study, Quinn."

"I don't believe in my study, not when it comes to you."

Zane widened his eyes. "If all your tests say I'm a psychopath, then—"

"You said the right things, you answered the questions in a certain way, ticked boxes, and completed tasks, and they all indicated you had the personality traits of a psychopath, but I believe it to be false. It doesn't match the Zane Black I've got to know over the past six months."

"Your feelings for me are affecting your judgement."

Quinn's chest swelled with fire. "I think you knew what I was after. You knew how to answer to get that label."

"I hate labels."

"But you wanted that one."

Zane pressed his lips together.

"You knew from the very beginning, and that makes all your results invalid."

"You can't pick and choose whose results to believe and whose not to."

"You said you used to attend your friend's psychology seminars at university. You recognised the tasks, didn't you? You'd seen some of them before. You knew how to answer, all apart from the one that was mine, where your results were chaotic. You didn't know what I was looking for in that test, didn't know whether to be fast or slow."

When Zane didn't say anything, Quinn continued.

"You said the right things while the session was being recorded, but before I'd started the tape and after I'd stopped it, you expressed an interest in me. You felt genuine. You asked about myself, you were concerned over Damon having keys to my house and the scratches on my hand from Mars, not to mention Mackie's growing obsession with me."

Zane smirked. He sat up fast, keeping his back to Quinn. "I did all that to get what I wanted out of you, which was sex."

"Why bother when you claimed you could have sex inside if you wanted?"

"Because I wanted it with you. It was more of a challenge, more entertaining."

"Look me in the eye and say that. Tell me that's all it was."

Zane stood up. He swayed and slapped his hand to the side of the van to keep his balance. "I think you've let your feelings get in the way—"

"No. I think you have." Quinn got off the floor. "You broke that door down because you thought Virgil might hurt me. You pulled me behind you."

"Quinn," Zane growled. "Stop."

"Turn around and tell me you don't care about me."

"I…I can't."

"When I spoke to Virgil about his conviction, I saw his bloodlust. I saw Harris's disgust and Richard's anger. When I spoke to Noah, I saw his regret and his pain, but with you, there was nothing."

"I told you, I can't remember what happened that night."

"There was no confusion in your eyes, no desire to find out the truth. You accepted a murder charge, a murder you couldn't even remember committing."

"There was evidence. Their blood. My house. Their clothes. My house. Motive. Opportunity. I'm here—"

"Because you choose to be," Quinn finished. "That's what you told me. Because you choose . There are no cameras here, no officers, no recording equipment. It's just you and me, and I'm asking you to tell me the truth."

Zane hung his head.

"Did you kill Danny and Jessica Saunders?"

Zane cursed under his breath.

"Please. You've lied, whenever that tape has been on, you've lied, but right now, I'm asking for the truth."

"No." Zane scrubbed his hands over his face. "I didn't kill them."

Quinn slumped into the wall behind him. He gaped, mouth opening and closing as he thought of a follow-up question. Zane's head snapped up at the sound of a siren. It got louder. Quinn scrambled to his feet and clutched Zane's hand.

"Then why? Where are they? What happened?"

Zane shook his head.

"Tell me." Quinn tried to turn Zane around, but he refused. "Why won't you look at me?"

"I can't." Zane exhaled.

"You're in prison because you want to be… Is there not a part of you that doesn't? That wants out?"

"Yes, Quinn. There is now, but I haven't decided what to do about it—"

The door to the back of the van swung open. Quinn released Zane's hand as Cleo jumped up the two steps. She eyed them, drenched in sweat, wearing only their boxer shorts.

"Are you hurt?"

"No," Quinn said.

"Come on," she said, backing out. She waved her hand, encouraging them out of the van. She wasn't the only officer; Clint and Simon were both there, and at least six police officers, speaking into their radio receivers.

The breeze was heaven on Quinn's skin, and a cool bottle of water was pushed into his hand. Zane gulped down his own bottle, given to him by Simon, but did not look at Quinn.

He handed the empty bottle back, then Simon told him to turn around so he could be cuffed.

"Virgil," Quinn gasped. "He—"

"He got picked up about twenty minutes ago. Was sat on a bench at the side of the road, didn't even try to run."

"Is anyone hurt?" Quinn swallowed the lump in his throat. "The bus?"

"Was thankfully a learner driver. There were only two people on board, and they were both taken to hospital for minor injuries. No one was seriously hurt during Virgil's escape."

"Let's go, Zane," Simon said, leading him over to an awaiting car.

Quinn tried to catch his eye, but Zane didn't look back.

"Thank God you're alright," Cleo said, wrapping her arms around Quinn. She squeezed him tight. "Ewww."

"What?"

"You're sweaty as hell." She glanced back at the van. "Sorry we took so long. It's hidden away here behind that hedgerow, and Virgil wasn't cooperating." She pulled him towards a different car. "Come on, the governor wants to speak to you."

Quinn didn't tell anyone about Zane's revelation in the prison van.

He didn't kill Danny and Jessica Saunders.

But that brought up so many more questions.

Why did he lie?

Why not fight the conviction?

Where were the married couple?

Despite Virgil's escape, the governor allowed Quinn access to the prison one last time for him to debrief the participants. Rather than the prison being condemned for losing a prisoner, they were congratulated for their swift and confident handling of the situation while assuring the public Virgil was back behind bars.

Noah and Tony were both relieved to be told Quinn's study didn't indicate they were psychopaths. Harris and Richard were unbothered after learning they scored high enough on Quinn's criteria to be categorised as psychopaths. Richard's brain scans weren't as dramatic as Harris's, but they still supported Quinn's hypothesis.

Harris had frontal lobe damage from blunt force trauma, which showed up on the MRI and was the result Quinn had been hoping for with every participant when he'd first penned the study.

Virgil's brain activity had stunned the neurologist. Cleo accompanied Quinn during Virgil's debriefing and stood silently at his side as Quinn went through his findings.

Virgil didn't look up from the table the entire time. His wrists were cuffed at his back, and he leaned forward in his chair.

"Thank you for taking part," Quinn finished, then he stopped the tape recorder.

"You were right," Virgil murmured.

"About?"

"Me not having a plan." Virgil lifted his head. There was a glint in his grey eyes, and he stared through the glass. "But next time, I will."

Two officers came into his side of the room and dragged him out.

Cleo squeezed Quinn's shoulder. "What was that about?"

"When he escaped. I told him he didn't have a plan to find Luca…"

Cleo shuddered. "That sounded ominous."

Quinn shook his head and glanced down at the desk at the last sheet. "Just Zane to go."

"I'll get him." Cleo smiled, then disappeared out the door.

Quinn tidied his sheets into a neat stack, needing to move. He bounced his foot on the floor, watching the door Zane was about to appear through.

It took fifteen minutes, and then he was there. Quinn's breath caught, and he curled his toes in his shoes as Zane stepped across the room.

Cleo shut his door.

There were deep bags beneath Zane's eyes.

"How are you?" Quinn asked. "After the van?"

"Better. You?"

"Confused."

Zane lowered his gaze.

"What you told me—"

"I'm here for my debrief, Quinn, that's all."

"But Zane—"

"That. Is. All."

Quinn sighed. "Fine. My study was to determine whether those labelled as ‘psychopaths' had damaged or underactive brain function in areas said to control emotion, empathy, impulses, and decision-making. I hypothesised that an MRI scan on violent psychopaths would show limited reactions in the Amygdala, Prefrontal cortex, Paralimbic structures and slash or the Ventral striatum."

Quinn paused, waiting for Zane to nod. He did, and he continued.

"The first part of the study was to find psychopaths. As there's no ‘official test', I used studies and theories from other psychologists, including Hare's twenty-two trait framework. I came up with a checklist of forty traits. Anyone scoring above thirty, I deemed from my research to be a ‘psychopath'. You scored 31 points on the test, thus suggesting you have psychopathic traits and behaviours and making you ideal for the MRI and the secondary phase of the study."

Zane bit his bottom lip. "31…"

"The neurologist studied your brain activity while at rest and while reacting to visual stimulus, then audible stimulus. Your brain activity was completely normal with good functioning in all of the areas I was interested in. There is no sign of damage, underactivity, or disease, and you have a healthy brain."

"I see."

"The results of my study mean I have to reject my hypothesis and accept the null hypothesis. There is no link between violent psychopaths and reduced functioning in the Amygdala, Prefrontal cortex, Paralimbic structures and the Ventral striatum."

"Wait," Zane said, frowning. "Your hypothesis…"

"It was wrong."

"Based on my results?"

"Yes."

Zane widened his eyes. "But what about the others?"

"The results as a whole are not conclusive, and I have to reject my hypothesis."

"What if you take mine out?"

"I can't pick and choose which results I want included. I had four participants who had passed my psychopath test. Two of them had limited activity in at least one of the areas of the brain I stated. One participant, according to the neurologist, had overactivity in those areas, and one participant had perfectly healthy brain function."

"What happens now?" Zane's eyes darted away. "With your study? What happens?"

"Nothing, it's…it's meaningless." He shrugged. "It happens, Zane. Maybe if all four participants had results which supported my hypothesis, more research might have been done with a bigger sample, but as it stands…there's nothing groundbreaking here. There's no link, which means, according to my study at least, there's no potential indicator."

Quinn slipped his papers back into his folder.

"Thank you for taking part in this study."

He stopped the recorder.

"What are you going to do now?" Zane asked.

"Well…" Quinn sighed. "I'll have to find myself a job to keep my house, but first I'm going to visit my mum, spend some time with her. I think you were right when you said I'd spent too much time with killers, and it was affecting me." He took a deep breath. "What about you, Zane? What are you going to do now?"

Zane lowered his gaze. "I guess I'll go back to my cell…"

Quinn got to his feet. "If that's what you choose , I wish you luck."

"Quinn…" Zane lifted his head. His eyes were red. "What if…"

He bit his lip, stopping himself from saying more.

"What if?" Quinn pressed.

"I want to choose something else…"

"Then I wish you luck with that too, but don't take too long deciding or that choice might get taken away from you…"

Without looking back, Quinn left the room. He kept going, passing through gates and doors until he was outside in the sunshine. He paused by his car, hand to the roof as he breathed, then glanced back at Greenwood Prison.

"Goodbye, Zane Black."