Page 83 of Power of the Mind

I went across the street, glancing back to find Hilty’s receptionist gone. Standing beside the Jeep, I scanned the night, seeking signs of Diem as worry turned my stomach upside down.If he was caught, it would be my fault for falling asleep and not warning him sooner.

A minute passed, then another. As fret stirred my gut, a dark form appeared at the corner of the strip mall. He moved fast, considering his size, but instead of coming directly for me, Diem aimed for the streetlights half a block down and crossed there. I didn’t know why, but when he got closer, I noticed his arms were loaded with a stack of files. I had no doubt they were the same ones we’d seen Hilty take from Rowena’s the previous night.

“Great,” I said when he was closer. “So not just B&E but theft too. My mother would say you’re a bad influence.”

Diem grunted and thrust the pile into my arms. “We’re not stealing the files. Put them in the Jeep.”

“Oh, I see. Was Dr. Hilty inside? Did he say we could have them?”

Diem deadpanned.

I winked to take the sting out of my words, and my eyes caught on a dark smear on Diem’s forearm. “Whoa. Is that blood? Are you bleeding? Did you cut yourself?”

Diem scowled at the injury, muttered something like “It’s fine,” and tugged the beanie off his head. He scrubbed his shorn scalp and seemed indecisive. The man looked like he’d come out of a sauna. The bit of hair he had was soaked, and beads of sweat trickled down his temples. His hands shook.

“Give me a minute.” He unearthed a crumpled pack of cigarettes from the back pocket of his jeans. Removing one, he tossed the rest of the pack on top of the stack of files and growled, “Donotgive these back to me under any circumstance.”

He marched away, rounding the corner of the shawarma restaurant as he lit up.

I pocketed the cigarettes—I didn’t have a death wish, so if the guy wanted them back, he would get them—and got in thepassenger side of the Jeep while I waited for the brooding man to return.

Across the street, Hilty’s receptionist rushed from the building carrying a box and a full garbage bag. She glanced warily along the street in both directions as though worried the stranger who’d approached her earlier might be stalking somewhere nearby. Satisfied, she aimed for a nearby dumpster and tossed the bag and box inside.

Rushing to the car, she popped the truck, grabbed two more garbage bags, scanned the street again, and flew back to the dumpster to dispose of them.

As she returned to the car at a much slower pace, she must have remembered I’d mentioned being parked across the street.

She froze, her gaze landing on Diem’s Jeep. Even from a distance, I could tell the woman was ready to run for her life. Like paralyzed prey, she didn’t move, squinting into the dark as though trying to tell if I was watching.

I offered a friendly wave, but the windows were tinted, so I didn’t think she noticed. With one last scan of the street, she hustled to the outdated car, quickly inspected the back passenger tire, kicked it a few times for good measure, and got in.

She was gone before Diem got back.

We didn’t return to the office right away. Once Diem was calmer and the air conditioning had cooled us both, we went through the files in the vacant parking lot across from Hilty’s office.

“I have to put them back tonight,” Diem said when I suggested we take them with us and go through them at our leisure. “I’d have looked at them while I was inside, but then you called.”

“What are they?” I scrutinized the contents of the first folder.

“Client files. At least, that’s what I gleaned. I didn’t get a chance to thoroughly look at them.”

“There are a lot more than I thought.” At a guess, there were at least a dozen.

Diem grunted.

His forearm was coated in a layer of drying blood. It continuously drew my attention under the dim interior light of the Jeep, but when I suggested he let me take a look, he told me no—rather, he snapped that he was fine. I let it go. I needed to choose my battles.

We were both exhausted, running on little or no sleep. After the previous night’s drama, I couldn’t blame Diem for being on edge. Despite his clear inability to cope with all that had transpired, he’d still agreed to do more investigating.

The task ahead was daunting.

We agreed to divide the pile and snap pictures of the pages inside each folder so we could read them the following day when we were more alert and our brains were sharper.

A few things stood out when we started picking through the individual files. One, they were all photocopies, not originals. Two, all of them had a sticky note attached to the front with a personality summary written in cursive pen. And three, of the twenty-some-odd files, close to half were marked with a Sharpie, bold letters spelling a single word:

DECEASED.

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