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“I’ll get them for you. Tomorrow.”

“Now.”

“You said tomorrow.”

“That’s what I said before. Now I’m saying tonight. Where are you going, Rien?”

“Can’t a guy go out for the night?”

“With a bag full of medical supplies and a syringe in his pocket?” His eyes darted down to my shirt. “Take it out.”

I pulled the syringe from my pocket and put it down slowly on the floor.

“Vale—”

“I don’t want any more lies. Get back inside.”

I turned around and went back into the house. He closed the door behind him.

“I got some bad vibes off of you last time we chatted,” Vale said, his eyes sweeping the house. “So I thought I’d come over a bit sooner and make sure you weren’t going anywhere. Lucky me, huh?”

“I’ll get you the teeth, Vale. By tomorrow.”

“See, I want them now.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

I sighed. I couldn’t lie to him forever.

“There’s a girl.”

“A girl?” Vale cocked the gun.

“Not Mrs. Steadhill. The wrong person came.”

“The surveillance tapes showed—”

“She was an actress. Pretending to be Mrs. Steadhill.”

“Alright.” Vale looked like he was trying to sort the whole mess out in his head. “Okay. So the rumors were true after all. Susan is somewhere out in the world, maybe dead, maybe not. Where is she?”

“That’s who I was going to go looking for,” I said. I hoped he would let me go. Give me some time to figure out how to deal with it. Even if the best way was to run away from Los Angeles entirely.

“Where’s the girl?”

“She doesn’t know anything. She’s innocent.”

“You didn’t kill her yet?”

I leveled a gaze at him.

“I’m not that much of a sick fuck, Vale.”

“Right. You’re such a bleeding heart. You know what this means?”

“I know what it means.”

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