Chapter 28: Samuel's Past.

I received the number of the restaurant owner's son. While there was still some time before lunch was served, I decided to go outside and call him. Dialing his number, I waited for him to pick up. The phone rang, but he didn't answer. I tried calling his number again and again, but the call was not answered.

Disappointed, I headed back to our table, where some of the ordered dishes were already waiting. Samuel was sitting and drinking coffee, apparently waiting for me.

"Here you are, James," Samuel said.

"Yes, I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," I said.

"No problem. I saw that you were trying to call someone. Was it her?" he asked.

"What?" I uttered a sound and then understood. He meant Julia.

"No, I just know the owner of this place and, unfortunately, she fell ill yesterday and is now in the hospital. I wanted to get in touch with her son to ask about the possibility of visiting her," I said, a little sadly.

"You seem to know a lot of people," Samuel said.

"I was born here, not the whole town, but I certainly should know part of the town," I said.

"I see. You are a social person, I think," he said.

I looked at him questioningly. I had never doubted my communicativeness, but after his words, it seemed otherwise. Was it possible that I appeared to be an introverted person?

"Don't think that I thought otherwise," he said. "Besides the atmosphere in the house, I didn't see you socializing with anyone in particular." He couldn't understand if I was a sociable person or not, so he said.

"Are you trying to make my profile?" I asked him in bewilderment.

"I make them for everyone. That's the only way I can understand people I interact or work with. They help me understand not only criminals but also ordinary people," he said.

"I think that's not worth doing. We create criminal profiles in our work only because of a lack of data on them, and only this way we can roughly understand who he is. But ordinary people are not always as they appear superficially," I said.

"I've been used to evaluating people like that since childhood," Samuel said emotionlessly.

I looked at him. "My work at the FBI is only a necessity. I work here only because of a problem that arose in childhood," he said even more emotionlessly.

And I, looking at him, understood him less and less.

"In childhood," he said, pausing momentarily.

"In my childhood, a maniac kidnapped me and my friends. He didn't hit us or kill us. He simply didn't let us sleep, forcing us to play games, watch cartoons. He did everything we asked, except to release us or let us sleep," he said, before pausing again.

"It was as if he relished our helplessness. His joy overflowed when the youngest in our group fell dead. He stopped breathing. Many screamed, but I couldn't understand any of it," he said, pausing once more.

"So it went on for about five days. In the end, only the girl he had possibly abducted a few days before us and I remained. She held on with all her strength, and the joy in the maniac's eyes only grew. For him, we were literally toys," he said.

This time he remained silent for a long time, about three or four minutes. I watched him, not knowing what to say, as he seemed lost in thought, staring down. When I had just thought of something to say, he continued.

"I was released, or rather, I was the only one released. It had been over eight days since he had abducted me and my friends. The girl who had held on until then couldn't last another 20 minutes. She died, and only after that did the police storm in and catch him," he said, before pausing again for a few seconds.

"When he was caught, he gave a statement describing his feelings about the crime he had committed. For him, everything he had done was just freeing angels from mortal bodies. That's what he said. 'I was only freeing their souls, which were trapped in these mortal bodies.' He looked into the camera and said, 'Why keep angels on earth when they are awaited in heaven?'" he said. As he spoke, there was anger or disdain in his voice, which was visible even on his normally calm face.

"To this day, I cannot understand why we, why she, why all of this happened. What made him this way? Why did he think and act the way he did? That's why I'm here. I'm here only to understand the minds of these psychopaths. Psychopaths who have decided that they have the right to decide the life and death of others," he said, his tone calming with each sentence, eventually returning to his usual calmness.

I sat and thought, pondering what had happened over the past two days. Just yesterday, I had met him. Arrogant with deeply sunken eyes from exhaustion. With long and untidy hair and a disheveled suit. I was too outraged by his attitude towards the case.

But now I understand why he is this way. Perhaps this event made him less human, more calm towards unpleasant things, and calm towards everything else as well. That's why he studies everyone he sees. It's his first line of defense.

After thinking for a while, I remembered that he hadn't slept last night. So I asked him a question.

"Is that why you don't sleep at night?" I asked Samuel, my voice becoming calmer, as if talking to a son or friend.

He looked at me with the same expression on his face.

"Yes. I've tried to overcome it, but I couldn't. Fortunately, it helps in our work. I can spend more time catching the next maniac. And in the end, I'm able to question him in detail about everything. Perhaps that's what gives me strength for everything. After all, only in this way do I begin to understand more and more about the person who captured me and other children," he said.

I couldn't say anything else, just thought to myself about it. He had experienced a monstrous situation. He was lucky to survive, which can't be said about his friends. His feigned confidence and calmness were just a result of what he had been through.

That's how we silently waited for the steaks, and after eating, we headed to the workshop.