Face Off (The Evelyn Talbot Chronicles #3)

Nothing. He was imagining the sensation, probably because he was so nervous. His heart was pounding like a hammer—in rhythm with the pulsing ache in his shoulder.

Amarok listened politely before telling Sean he’d see what he could find out about the “weird” dude and got up. “Thanks for your help,” he said, but instead of walking out he took the time to shake each person’s hand.

Thrilled by this sign of camaraderie and respect, the others eagerly responded while Jasper froze. Was this some sort of test? Could it be that Amarok was trying to gauge each man’s sincerity and physical well-being?

As the sergeant went around the circle, Jasper thought that might be the case. Jasper lied so often he wasn’t worried about his ability to act sincere. But he was concerned when Delbert gave Amarok a Styrofoam cup filled with coffee, because then the trooper had only his left hand to offer Jasper.

Jasper had come into physical contact with Amarok once before. They’d shaken hands when he went, as Andy Smith, to visit Evelyn in the hospital after “saving” her last winter. Jasper remembered it clearly. He was so fascinated by Evelyn’s lover that there was something stimulating, almost sexual, about a second encounter. After all, it was Amarok’s hands that touched Evelyn in the most intimate of places.

The excitement Jasper felt disappeared the moment he had to squeeze Amarok’s hand, however. He hadn’t had time to prepare for or ease into the movement, and it sent a sharp pain through his body.

He was positive Amarok would see the grimness under his plastic smile or the color drain from his face. But Skip happened to speak just then, and Amarok looked away.

“I saw a woman with Dr. Talbot at the Moosehead last night, when I stopped to eat before work,” Skip said. “Are we getting a new psychologist or neurologist or something here at Hanover House?”

Amarok released Jasper’s hand as he took a sip of coffee. “No, that was Brianne, her sister. She’s visiting for a week or so.”

“Dr. Talbot has company from back home?” Delbert said. “Heck of a time to come to Alaska, what with two murders and all the storms.”

“I’m happy Evelyn won’t be home alone this week,” Amarok said.

The sergeant was doing everything he could to cockblock Jasper. It wouldn’t work, but Jasper couldn’t think about how he’d counter that move right now. He had to get out of the room; he felt like he was about to pass out.

“Gotta take a piss,” he muttered as he slipped through the others. “But if I see anything, I’ll let you know,” he added in a louder voice, along with a little salute using his right hand for Amarok.

Amarok nodded to signify that he’d heard, but was too busy to respond in any other way.

Jasper barely made it to the bathroom before his knees buckled. He grabbed the sink with his good arm so he wouldn’t fall and managed to summon the strength to make it into a stall, where he threw up what little he’d eaten.

Afterwards, he sat on the toilet and hung his head, waiting for the pain in his arm to subside. He was fairly certain he was bleeding again, but he couldn’t change the dressing right now. He had to have a few minutes.

He was still sitting there when Easy poked his head into the bathroom. “Hey, we’re all clocking back on. You about done in here?”

He’d been in the bathroom too long if someone had to come after him, but he couldn’t help that.

“Yeah, I’m right behind you,” he said.

After Easy left, he took a deep breath and surged to his feet. Then he changed the bandage on his arm and flushed down the other one before walking out as if nothing were wrong.

He had a solid three hours before he could go home.

He hoped to hell he lasted that long.





18

Evelyn felt terrible leaving Brianne when she headed to work first thing the following morning. Last night had been so stilted and awkward. Even though, once they’d finally returned to Hilltop and Amarok had dropped them off, they’d had dinner at the Moosehead before spending several hours alone, it had been nothing like she’d anticipated when she’d agreed to have Brianne come visit. Her sister simply wasn’t herself. Evelyn didn’t know why, but she couldn’t stay at home, trying to figure out what was wrong. Hilltop was in the middle of another murder investigation, one in which she and the institution she’d fought so hard to create would once again come under fire. Her boss at the Federal Bureau of Prisons would feel the pressure, too. She needed to be there if Janice called.

On top of that, Hanover House was getting its first female psychopath today and there was a news crew coming from Anchorage to document the occasion. It was more important than ever that she be present and ready to reassure the country that she knew what she was doing, that having a prison like Hanover House did not constitute more of a threat than not having one and that whatever was happening had nothing to do with a lack of security.

Because she had so much on her mind, she wasn’t pleased to see Dr. James Ricardo waiting for her when she walked through the glass double doors that led into the mental health offices. She could guess what her colleague wanted to talk about and would rather not broach that subject again.

“Not today, James,” she said when he started to approach her. “I’ve told you before, we’re not ready to publish.”

“Of course we are!” he argued. “We’ve been doing brain scans for eight months. It’s time to tell the world what we’re finding.”

“That would be premature. You can’t draw solid conclusions from too small a sample.”

“We have the biggest sample of any research team so far!”

Fortunately, they were both early and could argue in private, since none of the support staff had arrived. Judging by the lack of light in the perimeter offices, the rest of the mental health team wasn’t in, either. “It’s still not enough,” she said. “The brain has too many variables. You know that. It can be significantly different from one individual to the next, and yet both can be perfectly normal. We need to continue our studies until our findings are unimpeachable.”

“If we do that, someone else will publish first.”

“They already have! A number of researchers from around the world are looking into the same topics.”

“They don’t have access to the number of violent psychopaths we do, so they don’t have the same amount of data to back up their conclusions.”

Evelyn grappled for the patience she needed to deal with her shortsighted colleague. She knew his wife was unhappy in Alaska, that he hoped to take her back to the Lower 48 soon, but Evelyn couldn’t let him push her into risking her professional credibility. “That’s part of the problem.”

“What do you mean?”

She didn’t want anything they put out there to be taken as gospel and used in some kind of diagnostic procedure. Their findings weren’t conclusive enough yet. “I’m sorry, James. I know getting this information out there matters a great deal to you—”

“It should matter to you, too!” he broke in as he followed her into her office. “Everyone in the country is waiting for us to reveal what we’re learning. They’re going to wonder what the hell we’re doing up here—using federal dollars to run this place—if we’re not passing anything along to the public.”

She flipped on the light before putting her briefcase under her desk and her purse in a drawer she kept locked while she was at work. “So we should make generalizations that could have negative implications for people, based on the size of certain structures in their brains? Even though we can’t be entirely sure those generalizations will hold true from subject to subject? Come on, James. You’re a neurologist! You know there’s a great deal of natural variation in brain structure. If what we’ve done has taught us anything, it’s taught us that.”