Page 59 of Master of Lies

“Shhh. I’m working it out. Don’t bug me.”

“It’s just a dream, Freya,” I said. “Dreams are irrational. It’s just the brain vomiting out the stuff it can’t process.”

“Dreams can be garbage, yes. But they can also be high-level problem solving on a subconscious level,” Freya said. “Some of mine have been. Don’t discount them right away. Let’s analyze this one. Think about the elements of the dream.”

Shit.So she was going to fuck around with my subconscious mind, too? She was unzipping stuff, poking around inside where she had no goddanm business. “Let’s not and say we did,” I said grimly.

But there was no stopping this woman. “There’s Mickey, making that gesture toward his face, for one—”

“He did that because they cut his tongue out. Nothing to analyze there.”

“Indulge me, Jed.” Her voice was gentle, but stern. “There’s the mask, with Boer and Micky both. Boer’s face under the mask, with no skin. That strikes me as an important—”

“It strikes me as disgusting,” I said. “I think my mind added that in just for cheap shock value. Standard nightmare bullshit theatrics.”

“Don’t be bad-tempered. Did you see Boer’s eyes yesterday?”

I squinted at her. “Freya. He was wearing a mask. Remember?”

“I mean, through the eyeholes, Jed,” she said, impatiently.

“To be honest, I was more focused on his trigger finger. He was holding a fucking gun on you, so excuse me for being distracted.”

Freya snorted under her breath. “Fine. So yesterday, when he nabbed me, I happened to notice the skin around his eyes, through the eyeholes of the mask.”

“Well, I didn’t, so clue me in. What about it?”

“It looked swollen, kind of purple,” she said. “His eyes looked bloodshot.”

“Maybe he has insomnia. Or he drinks. Who the fuck knows.”

Freya shook her head. “It looked like he’d been punched in both eyes.”

Huh. Interesting. “Where are you going with this, Freya?”

“Nowhere yet. I’m just groping. Let me bat it around for a while. No bad ideas in brainstorming, remember?”

“Is that what we’re doing?”

“It would be, if you would play along,” she said, her voice sharp. “What was Mickey supposed to give you when you got out? A flash drive, you said?”

“Yeah. Mickey was an accountant for this mob boss in Vegas, Adriani. Boer partnered with him, so Mickey gathered some dirt on him. Info about his new identity, his money, things that would be useful for finding Boer, and putting him in jail. There was someone on the outside who was holding it for him.”

“But Mickey didn’t tell you who,” she said.

I shook my head. “He didn’t have a chance,” I said bleakly.

“Maybe he did,” she said.

I stopped breathing for a moment. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

“Well, he kept gesturing toward his face, right? And there’s the mask. Boer had a mask. In the dream, Boer’s face had no skin. It’s all about the face.”

“I wouldn’t wonder about that. His tongue was cut out,” I said.

She made an impatient sound. “Think about it. I had a friend who had her eyes done, and she had swollen, bruised eyes for weeks afterward. Just like Boer’s eyes. What’s the point of wearing a mask? You know who he is, what he looks like. Unless he’s wearing his mask to hide his new face. And Mickey knew he would be.”

Sudden excitement buzzed inside me. “Holy shit,” I said.

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