"Protected is not the right word," she said, sniffing behind the dish towel.

"I don't get it. Was there ... s.e.xual abuse?" I couldn't believe how presumptuous I was becoming, how much nerve I'd suddenly garnered in the face of adversity. To just blurt out something so sensitive like that bordered on brutality.

Tears pushed past her lashes and flowed in rivulets down her cheeks, answering for her.

"And he protected you the best he could. How can you turn your back on him now?"

"I told you, protected is not the right word."

The end of my patience was rocketing toward me. Why would she not want to help him? I saw how much he'd worried about her, how he'd risked his life that night just to stay with her. He could have run away, gone to the police, turned his psychotic father in to the authorities and been free. But he stayed. For her.

"What is the right word, then?" I asked, a caustic edge to my voice.

After a long moment of thought, she looked up at me, her green eyes shimmering in the afternoon sun. "Endured."

Okay. That threw me. "I don't understand. What-?"

"My father"-she interrupted, her voice cracking under the weight of her words-"my father never touched me. I was simply the weapon he wielded to control Reyes."

"But you just ... implied there was s.e.xual abuse."

Her gaze lifted to mine, her green eyes almost hostile at what I was forcing her to say. "He never touched me. Me. I didn't say there wasn't s.e.xual abuse."

I sat blindsided, stunned into silence a full minute, absorbing what Kim told me, turning it over and a.n.a.lyzing it in my mind. It was painful even to contemplate, like the thought itself was a physical ent.i.ty, a box covered in razor sharp shards of gla.s.s, slicing through my fingertips every time I tried to open it.

"At first, he used animals to control him."

Refocusing on her fragile face, I stumbled back to her.

"When Reyes was little, he used animals. If Reyes misbehaved, the animals paid the price, suffered because of him. Our father learned early on he couldn't control him otherwise."

I blinked, allowed the words to sink in despite my sudden reluctance to hear them.

"Then my mother, a drug addict who ended up dying from complications due to hepat.i.tis, gave him the ultimate weapon. Me. She dropped me on his doorstep and never looked back. She gave my father power over Reyes. If he did not obey the man's every command, I went without dinner. Breakfast. Lunch. And eventually water. On and on, until Reyes gave in. Our father had no interest in me whatsoever except as a tool. Leverage over my brother's every move."

I sat speechless, unable to comprehend such an existence. To even imagine Reyes so helpless, a veritable slave to a monster. My chest tightened and my stomach knotted and I felt my breakfast edging back toward my mouth. I swallowed hard and took several deep breaths, disgusted with myself for making Kim relive horrors I could barely imagine.

"But you have to understand how Reyes is," she continued, unaware of my predicament, "how he thinks. What I've just told you is the truth, but the way he sees it, our father hurt me because of him. He took the burden onto his own shoulders all those years, carried the weight of my well-being like a king shoulders the welfare of his people."

I fastened my jaw shut to keep my chin from quivering.

"He told me that no one would ever hurt me because of him again. How can he think that? It was just the opposite. My father hurt him because of me." After she wiped at a tear, she leveled a hapless gaze on me. "Do you know why I'm telling you this?"

Her question surprised me, and I shook my head. I hadn't thought of it.

"Because it's you."

I did my best to focus, to get past everything she was telling me and listen.

"From the time Reyes was little, he's had seizures. Sometimes they would last for over an hour. When he came out of them, he would have the most bizarre memories. Memories of a girl with dark hair and sparkling gold eyes. I knew the minute I opened the door, it was you."

He had memories? Of me? My pulse quickened.

"He said he saved your life once. Said a man had taken you into an apartment." She leaned forward. "In case you've ever wondered, you weren't going to make it out of that apartment alive. The man was going to do what he wanted and then smother you. He'd done it before."

A jolt of anxiety rushed through me. "Reyes knew I was in danger?" I asked, finding my voice at last.

"Yes. Another time, he only thought you were in danger, but he said your stepmother was yelling at you in front of dozens of onlookers. You were scared and mortified. Those strong emotions are what caused him to seize. He was so outraged when he got there, so worried about you, he said he almost cut your stepmother in two just to teach her a lesson. But you begged him in soft whispers to let her be."

With the images of that day swimming in my head, I said, "I remember. He was so angry."

"Later, he learned how to find you without the seizures. He would go into a trancelike state just to see you, just to watch you." She smiled, remembering happier times. "He called you Dutch."

Shaking visibly, I released a long, labored breath. Every word she spoke only evoked more questions, an even deeper lack of understanding.

"If Reyes learned to control what he is, to harness the power he had and to use it, why didn't he ... stop your father?"

She shrugged. "I don't think he believed it."

My brows slid together. "I don't understand."

"In Reyes's mind, it was all a fantasy. None of it was real at that time. Even you were a fabrication of his imagination, the girl of his dreams. But I knew what he did was real. When we got older, I started to research some of what he had imagined, what he'd done. Everything he told me actually happened."

The intelligence sparkling behind Kim's eyes belied the soft-spoken, meek woman I'd met earlier. She'd learned to hide what she was. What she was capable of. Admiration welled inside me. I would've loved to be friends with her in a different life. Under different circ.u.mstances. Then again, anything was possible.

"Do you know ... do you know what he is?"

The question didn't surprise her. "No. Not at all," she said, shaking her head. "I just know he's special. He's not like us. I'm not even sure he's human."

I couldn't have agreed more. "What about his tattoos?" I asked. "Did he ever tell you what they mean?"

"No." Her posture relaxed minutely. "He just told me he'd always had them. Ever since he could remember."

"I know they mean something-I just can't put my finger on it." I pressed a palm to my forehead as if to stop my thoughts from racing so fast.

"Are you like him?" she asked, her voice completely matter-of-fact.

I took a deep breath and refocused. "No. I'm a grim reaper." Which always sounded so bad when said aloud. But she just smiled, wide and pretty. It took me by surprise.

"That's what he told me. You ferry souls to the other side. He said you sparkle like a newborn galaxy and have more att.i.tude than a rich kid with his daddy's Porsche."

I couldn't keep a hiccup of laughter from escaping. "Yeah, well, he's got a little att.i.tude himself."

She chuckled and folded the towel in her lap. "I think that's what kept him going. His att.i.tude. If he hadn't been so strong, I don't think he would have made it."

My heart ached with everything Kim had told me. I wanted him to be okay. I wanted everything bad that had ever happened to him to be erased. But how could it if he didn't wake up? "Can't you please try to stop this?" I asked, my voice desperate.

Her fingers ironed out the creases of the towel. She'd made her decision. "Charlotte, he's suffered enough because of me. I made him a promise. I can't break it now, not after everything he's done for me."

As badly as I wanted to argue, I understood her position. I could see the love on her face and hear it in her voice. What I had originally taken for disregard was, in fact, a deep and ardent loyalty. I'd just have to put all my hopes in Uncle Bob. He knew people who knew people. If anyone could get it done, he could.

I left in the same state of surreality I'd been swimming in for days. With the pa.s.sing of each hour, I learned something new, something amazing about Reyes. After searching for him for so long to no avail, the avalanche of information coming at me from all directions was a little overwhelming. Not that I was complaining. People dying of thirst don't denounce a flood. The enigma that was Reyes Farrow became more mysterious at every turn. And I planned to find out exactly how many turns the mystery held. The question remained, however: Could I do it in twenty-four hours?

Chapter Nineteen.

I may not look like much, but I'm an expert at pretending to be a ninja.

-b.u.mPER STICKER "Where are you?"

I'd just left the courthouse when Uncle Bob called. Sussman suggested I file a preliminary injunction against the state on the basis of the fabricated possibility that Reyes might be the only man alive with information on a serial killer in Kansas. I hated to pull the Hannibal card, but it was all we could come up with on such short notice. If granted, it would restrain the state from taking Reyes off life support only temporarily, but it would buy me more time. I needed another chance to talk to him, preferably without him getting too close. Without him touching me. Or looking at me. Maybe then I could get some solid intel. I wondered if I could restrain him somehow, tie him to the kitchen sink or something. I needed supernatural rope. Or handcuffs sprinkled with fairy dust.

"Where are you?" I asked back. Uncle Bob was so nosy.

"We need to get you prepped."

"Prepped? For what? Did I agree to get prepped?" I didn't remember agreeing to get prepped. I'd never even been to preparatory school.

Ubie exhaled loudly. It was funny. "The sting," he said, his voice exasperated.

"Oh, right!" Forgot about that. "I just filed an injunction against the state. Can you get it pushed through ASAP? We don't have much time."

"Sure. I'll call a judge I used to date."

"Uncle Bob, we want the person you call to actually like you and want to do you a favor."

"Oh, she liked me. Every inch."

I paused midstride while a quiver of denial shuddered through me, then continued my walk to Misery. "Thanks, Uncle B, I owe you one."

"One? Are you serious?"

"Um, are we keeping score? 'Cause if we're keeping score-"

"Never mind. Just get your a.s.s over here."

After reviewing the plan ad nauseam with our two teams, one on the tech stuff and one on the exterior of the premises, I ran back to my apartment to get dressed for the part. I worked mostly on covering the bluish bruises I was still sporting from my most recent adventures. By the time I strolled on-scene, I looked like an oppressed librarian with s.e.x kitten eyes and a pout that could make grown men cry.

Garrett stopped what he was doing and ogled me. I took it as a good sign, until he spoke. "You're supposed to seduce him, not audit his taxes."

Taking my cues from Elizabeth Ellery, I was wearing a red skirt suit with three-inch stilettos. Unlike Elizabeth, however, I had my hair pulled into a tight bun and wore gla.s.ses with thick plastic frames that screamed a.n.a.l retentive.

"Swopes, are you even male?" When he frowned in confusion, I asked, "Have you never had a wet dream about a secretary or a librarian or a German schoolmistress?"

He glanced around guiltily, making sure no one was listening.

"Bingo," I said in triumph, then strolled over to the surveillance van. Garrett followed, so I continued to rant. "Like Benny Price wouldn't suspect a setup if some hooch off the street dressed to entice him and get him to confess to murdering four people. Hmmm. That's a terrific idea. And if I were feeling slightly more suicidal today, we might have gone that direction. Look around you." I waited for Garrett to notice the two women down the block, clearly strippers, strolling into the club. "Those chicks are more available to him than tap water. I, on the other hand," I said, indicating my businesslike attire, "am not."

We walked to the van parked half a block away from the club and knocked.

I turned to Garrett and whacked him on the head just as Uncle Bob opened the back doors. "Major in sociology, remember?"

He shrugged, semi-agreeing, when Uncle Bob took my hand and lifted me inside. Skirt suit and stilettos. Probably not the best clothes to wear to a stakeout. I was a little worried Garrett would try to give me a boost again by grabbing my a.s.s. Then a little disappointed when he didn't. A girl had to get her thrills somehow.

The van dipped when Garrett stepped inside.

"We still don't have any news from Team Father Federico," I said to Uncle Bob. "If they can't find him, I don't know what we'll do."

"We'll have to worry about that later," Ubie said. "For now, let's get this on you." He lifted a tiny mic from a padded box. "We got the smallest wire we could find."

"Are you for real?" I asked, appalled. "A wire? The plan is for Angel to turn on that spiffy, high-dollar camera Price has set up behind his desk. We'll get him on tape without him even knowing it. And more important, I'll live through this."

"Right, but we've got to have some kind of surveillance," he argued. "How will we know if you're in trouble?"

"If I'm in trouble, I'll get you a message." I looked over at Angel, who'd just stepped in. He was getting excited about the plan, I could tell. And he knew exactly what to do. "Do you honestly think Price won't have his men frisk me once he finds out why I'm there?" I leaned into Uncle Bob. "Just because I see dead people doesn't mean I want to be dead people."

Twenty minutes later, I was stepping out of a room full of half-naked chicks and fairly decent music and into the surprisingly quiet office of Benny Price. Businessman. Father of two. Murderer.

"She's not wired, boss," one of his bouncers said, a tall and muscled blond at whom the strippers had batted their lashes as we walked past. He'd brought me into a shadowy hall that led to Price's office before searching me, simultaneously providing me with a rush of indignation and a rather inappropriate thrill. "She does have a video camera, though."

Benny Price, who was sitting behind a ma.s.sive teak desk, turned out to be much more striking in person than his surveillance photos had led me to believe. But in all fairness, he hadn't been prepared for those shots and didn't know to pose. He had short black hair and a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee. Where I lost complete respect for him was with his tie and kerchief. The tie was magenta against a sleek black shirt and pin-striped vest, and the handkerchief peeking from the vest pocket was much closer to violet. That settled it. He had to go down.

"You wanted to see me, Ms.-?"

"Mrs. ... Magenta. Violet Magenta," I said. While keeping a straight face.

The bodyguard stepped forward and placed the video camera he'd found in my handbag on Price's desk. "She told me her name was Lois Lane."

Sadly, I think he believed me.

Price stood and picked up the camera. His very stance was meant as a threat, meant to belittle and intimidate. I knew plenty of women his tactics would work on. I was not one of them.

I sat down opposite him as he opened the LCD monitor and played the video on the camera.

"My name is Donna Wilson," I heard myself say from the other side. Well, not the other side ...

"I have sent this video to ten people, including my lawyer, a coworker, and my pedicurist." Pedicurist. I tried not to giggle. "If I do not call each and every one of these people by nine P.M. today, they will take the tape directly to the police. I have irrefutable proof locked in a safety deposit box that Benny Price, owner and operator of the Patty Cakes Strip Clubs, is trafficking children and selling them as slaves in foreign countries. One of the ten persons mentioned has the key to the box and will give it to the police if I do not return unharmed within the allotted time."

Benny stood stunned for a moment before closing the monitor and handing my camera back to me. Since I seemed to have his complete attention, I started the act. Breathing heavy, I curled my fingers into my handbag-a gorgeous silk clutch Cookie let me borrow-and leveled a determined, and slightly naive, stare on him.

Clearly, I would not win the Patty Cakes Club's fave person of the year award. Though he hid it well, Price was angry. He forced himself to stay calm as he sat back behind his desk. "And what kind of proof do you have?" he asked, his voice like ice water.