“I suspected.”
“You knew and you didn’t tell me?”
“Cas, I have been trying, to the best of my ability, to keep you out of this.”
“Why?”
“These people are not to be trifled with.”
“I’m very good at trifling,” I said.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“Cas, believe me when I say that you are not prepared to deal with them.”
First Arthur, now Rio. Did everyone think I was a child? “I’ve already beaten them,” I reminded him. “Several times.”
“You have not been their focus. And you have been lucky.” He took a quiet breath. “Please, Cas. Stay out of this.”
I felt myself frowning. Rio had never made a request like that of me before. “You’re the one who told me to go consult with Tresting,” I pointed out.
“To be perfectly honest, I had no idea he would prove so competent.”
“So you tried to send me on a wild goose chase.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I told you, Cas. Pithica is far too dangerous. You now know part of the reason why.”
“So it’s true, about Dawna.” I swallowed against a dry throat. “She can do that—she did do that, to me.”
“Yes.”
“How much can she do?”
“She could make you believe black is white. She could make a mother kill her child and enjoy it.”
The words parsed in my head, but they didn’t make sense. “How?” I breathed.
“She plays on emotions. Expertly. Small influences, but her targets eventually feel and believe whatever she wishes them to.”
“Small influences that can drive people to murder?”
“For an act that defies her target’s psychology in the extreme, it is true that it would take her time, not a single conversation. Months, perhaps, depending on the person she targets.”
“But you’re saying even a strong enough person can’t—”
“Strength does not enter into it,” he corrected. “It is—I suppose you would say psychology. What you would call a weaker mind might prevail for longer, simply because it may be more comfortable with the mental contradictions her influence would produce. Or it might fold immediately. Each psychology is unique, and each will itself respond differently according to what she attempts.”
“And there’s no way to fight it?” I pleaded.
“None that I am aware of.”
I pulled the blanket from the bed up around myself again, wrapping it close. I still felt cold. “How can I know if I’ve been affected?”
“It is nearly impossible to tell, because you will rationalize whatever she has made you believe. You are concerned?”
“Of course I am.”
“Walk me through the course of events since I saw you last. It is not foolproof, but I shall tell you if I observe inconsistency.”
And it would be good for him to have my intel in any case. I took a deep breath and started with Courtney Polk going missing, then described my night with Tresting, finding the office workers, Leena’s abrupt change, and the meeting with Finch and Steve. Rio listened quietly. I shared everything, up to and including Tresting’s and my final conversation.
“I think that’s why I’m feeling so defensive,” I finished unhappily. “Unless Dawna Polk has been messing me up again. But he was so—he was so patronizing.” And since he had implied I was not only a thoughtless kid but one who went around killing people…“Rio, am I—do you think I’m green? Do I act like it?”
He seemed to think for a moment. “In some circumstances. You can be impulsive.”
I wanted to curl up in a corner and disappear from the world. So much for being good at what I did.
“You are young, you realize,” Rio continued. “I am given to understand that impetuosity is to be forgiven in youth.”
“I’m not that young!” I protested. “Stop making excuses for me. Tresting’s right. Part of my job—I hurt people. I can’t mess up and then call it a learning experience!”
“You are, perhaps, asking the wrong person about that,” Rio said. “I myself have learned many things by killing the wrong people.”
I picked at the hem of the blanket. As much as I trusted Rio, I didn’t want to be him. Didn’t want people like Arthur Tresting to think of me that way. Didn’t want to live with being that type of person. “Rio…did you do the office building?”
He barely hesitated. “Yes.”
“Off the text I sent you?”
“Yes.”
I swallowed.
“Cas, if it helps, they were not the wrong people.”
I thought about how young the receptionist had been. Whatever mistakes she had made, her youth had not excused her from Rio wreaking God’s vengeance.
“Cas?” he said.
“Did you learn anything?” I asked quietly.
“Yes. Many things.”
“You aren’t going to tell me what they are, are you.”
“I would hardly have gone to such lengths to keep them from you only to divulge them later,” he answered.
I thought of the shredded and pulped papers. “Right.”
“What you shared with me today is valuable also,” said Rio. “I shall put it to good use. And although I cannot say for sure, I do not believe Dawna Polk has influenced you further.”
“Oh…good. Thanks.”
“Of course.”
“Are you trying to take down Pithica?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And you want me to stay out of it.”
“Yes. Will you?”
I closed my eyes. I had no leads. Tresting wasn’t talking to me. Courtney was gone. Rio wouldn’t help me. I had no allies, and nothing to follow up on.
“All right,” I said.
Rio’s tone when he answered sounded awfully like relief, even though I knew that wasn’t possible. “Thank you, Cas. God bless you.”
Chapter 19
I hung up the phone with Rio and found myself with nothing to do. Giving up on investigating Pithica meant I had zero obligations. I still felt bad about dumping Courtney’s case, but between Dawna masquerading as her sister and Tresting’s evidence that she had killed Reginald Kingsley, it seemed clear she was as hopelessly snarled up in Pithica and its machinations as it was possible to be. Which meant I didn’t feel too bad.
So I’d go with the obvious decision. I would lie low here for a week or two until the bruises and cuts on my face healed, which would help change my appearance from the composite, and then skip town. I wondered where I’d go; no city seemed more appealing than any other. Chicago? New York? Detroit? Maybe I should leave the country. Mexico was only a short hop away.
I lay back on the mattress and stared at the ceiling, and the bigger problem hit me.
I was off the job.
I wasn’t working anymore. And I don’t do well when I’m not working.
The numbers simmered around me. I tried to avoid acknowledging them, instead staring into space and yearning for some alcohol. How had I not thought it necessary to stock some hard liquor in my bolt holes? Or even something stronger? The prospect of being stuck here for days with no liquid medication, with only myself against my brain…
I gave myself a mental slap. Idiot. You can last for a few days. It’s only a few days!
The quiet room seemed to mock me.
If I stayed here a week…one week was seven days—168 hours—10,080 minutes—604,800 seconds—
I became hyper-aware of every breath, each one counting out another one of those seconds before everything would collapse, before I would fall—no, not counting another second, counting another 2.78 seconds. 2.569 seconds. 2.33402. 2.1077001. 1.890288224518154…