Page 132 of Power of the Mind

Still nothing.

Where was he going with this?

What did he mean, Hilty didn’t know? Didn’t know what?

Tallus was back in less than five minutes, huffing and puffing. “I hate stairs. Why… can’t you… have an office on the first floor? Or an elevator that isn’t… reminiscent ofThe Shining.” He blew out his cheeks and rattled his head. “Okay. I’m okay.” Then he flapped a card in my face. “Look. I knew it. I fucking knew it.”

“Knew what?” I took the card as Tallus stood poised with his hands on his hips as though it alone solved the mystery. Cheeks flush from exertion, chest still heaving, it was hard not to smile. The man had been a distraction since day one.

“Guns! The card.”

I stared at the card, at Tallus, and back at the card. Struggling to focus, I shook my head. “I’m not following.”

“Look at the handwriting.”

In flowing cursive, Sally had writtenMonday, September 9thon the card. That had been before we’d refused the appointment slot, insisting she immediately let us in to see Hilty.

I studied the writing and shifted my attention from the card to the spread of prints and back. “I’m still not—”

It hit me. I saw what Tallus saw, and he was right.

The character assessment notes, the ones written on sticky tabs, the ones we’d assumed Hilty had done for Rowena’s benefit, were in the same script as the appointment card. The doctor hadn’t written them. Sally had. And if Sally had written the character assessments, it wasn’t impossible to believe she had given the files to Rowena, not the doctor. In all likelihood, Hilty had known nothing about them until we’d shown up and stirred the pot.

It was why he’d spent a whole night in distress.

It was why the files he’d retrieved had been photocopies. The originals were likely stored in a locked cabinet in his office where he’d assumed they were safe.

It was why the only fresh ink on the pages themselves was the black Sharpie written by Hilty after he’d retrieved the stolen files from Rowena. He’d spent that long night researching his old clients and had discovered a haunting truth.

Almost half of them were dead.

Of course Hilty wouldn’t go to the police. He would be implicated. He had ties to Rowena. They werehisclients.Hisfiles. Plus, like us, he probably didn’t have a fucking clue how his psycho ex-wife was doing it.

“You see it now?” Tallus asked.

“Yeah.”

“We need to talk to Hilty.”

“No.”

Tallus threw his hands up. “Why? I feel like this is one of those times you’re being disagreeable for the sake of it. We need him on our side. He could help.”

“Slow down and think, Tallus.” The words came out too harshly, but he was good at this, and if he learned to slow the fuck down, he could be better. “What do you hope to learn from Hilty? Are you going to tell him we broke into his office and copied his files?We’rethe ones who will end up behind bars.”

Less haughty, Tallus conceded and paced. I dug through my desk, wishing I had a stray piece of gum kicking around. I couldn’t think straight. The cigarette craving I’d been trying to ignore itched under my skin.

Relenting, I grabbed the red rubber stress ball and squeezed it several times before remembering the tea I’d gotten from Janek. Fucking tea.

I threw the ball back into the drawer and went into the other room. I didn’t own a kettle, so I found a small pot and filled it with water, putting it on the hot plate I used instead of a stove.

Tallus followed, studying the stack of prints. He stopped by Baby’s terrarium and glared with hostility at the reptile stretched long against the front glass, not doing a thing to offend him except existing.

“Are we still good?” he asked the snake. “We had a deal, remember? She’s out of her log,” he said to me.

“She’s hungry.”

“Great. I love it when you starve a man-eating boa.” Tallus took a seemingly unconscious step back. “When does she eat?”

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