Page 21 of So Insane

Of course, he couldn’t let her escape. She had trespassed. She had defiled this place. Still, a part of him wished that he could show mercy. It was truly impressive when one of the outsiders managed to find their way out of his dwelling place.

He listened a moment longer to determine her route, then turned around. He didn’t hurry. He had no reason to. He knew the tunnels intimately. He could have worn a blindfold himself and been perfectly fine weaving his way through the web of paths available to him.

He walked toward a ventilation shaft and hoisted himself upward, shimmying through the narrow hole and working his way toward the surface. He was a few yards from the entrance when he detected another smell and stopped.

A dog. Not a coyote, but a dog. Dogs gave off a cleaner odor, closer to that of an outsider than that of a coyote.

The police were looking for him. Well, not him, specifically. They had no way of knowing who he was. They were looking for the killer, however, and if he shimmied out of a ventilation shaft and walked back into the caverns via another entrance as he planned, they would deduce who he was easily enough.

He made a noise halfway between a growl and a click, a sign of irritation. The noise was soft enough that not even the dog would have heard it, but it was the dog’s nose and not his ears that he needed to be wary of.

He fell silent and let his ears and nose work. There were two people with the dog, a man and a woman. They spoke to each other, but even with his sharp ears, he couldn’t make out what was said.

He focused on the other sound, the footfalls of the trespasser. She was moving quickly, more quickly than he had anticipated.

He would need to hurry after all.

He shimmied his way back down the shaft. When he reached the tunnel, he began to sprint, weaving his way through the mine toward the natural caverns where the trespasser was nearing the surface.

He found her just as she reached one of the cave network's many openings. She cried out with relief, and the dweller growled again. If she alerted the police, it would mean real trouble. He rushed her, and just before she left the cavern, he grabbed her and pulled her back. She opened her mouth to scream, and he slammed her head into the cave wall. It made a sound like a pumpkin splitting, and the trespasser fell silent and slumped. He wrapped his arms around her and dragged her deeper, heart pounding.

He fell silent again, listening and sniffing. The dog and his handlers remained where they were. He detected no sign that they had heard him. Slowly, he relaxed, and when he was certain that he wouldn’t be followed, he stood and dragged the trespasser deeper into the dark.

CHAPTER NINE

“What’s the hardest part about being an agent?”

Faith considered the question before she considered the question. Dr. Franklin West, at first glance, looked like the stereotype of a psychologist. He was warm, kindly, pleasant, good-looking but not particularly attractive. He projected exactly the kind of caring, fatherly demeanor that a medical professional should.

That didn’t necessarily mean she couldn’t trust him, but it didn’t tell her much about who he was behind the soft smile and gentle eyes. She decided to try a probing question of her own first.

“What’s the hardest part about being a therapist?” she asked.

His smile widened slightly. "Establishing trust. Patients tend to be very wary and closed-off when they first meet me. Unfortunately, that makes my job very difficult if not impossible to do. The problem is that trust is not something that can occur immediately, not at least to the degree necessary to address one's mental health. So, I find that I spend more time getting to the point where my patients feel they can trust me than I spend getting to the root of the problem."

“So you’re saying you can’t help me if I don’t talk to you,” she summarized.

“I’m saying that, and I’m also saying that I understand if it takes a while before we reach that point. I am a complete stranger to you, and I’m asking you to share vulnerable secrets.”

“So if I don’t tell you what the hardest part of my job is, you won’t hold it against me?”

"I won't hold anything you tell me against you," he replied. "That's not my job. I'm not a judge or a jury. I'm most certainly not an executioner. I'm a medical professional here to determine if you need help with your mental health, diagnose the problem or problems if they exist, and work with you on a plan to solve those problems. However, as I said before, to do that effectively, we need to trust each other. I need you to answer my questions completely and honestly, and you need to believe that the advice I provide is intended only to help you. Otherwise, we risk completely missing the point, as it were."

“So we should work on establishing that trust, then,” she said, “before we get into the ‘point.’”

“Of course,” he said. “So what will it take for you to trust me?”

She smiled wryly. “If I answer that, then you’ll just alter your behavior to meet my expectations.”

His smile widened again. “So what it will take for you to trust me is for me to reveal myself as trustworthy without needing input from you.”

“Essentially, yes.”

“Well,” he said, “that leaves us little room for anything other than pleasant small talk. Which I am perfectly willing to engage in. However, in order for me to trust you, I need to know that you’ll reciprocate.”

“Meaning that since you answered my question, I need to answer yours.”

“Essentially, yes,” he replied.

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