But if the story is all true, they’ll want us both alive. They’ll probably try something similar to what I’m about to do to Daniel. Then they’ll cart me off to the lab and my odds of ever walking out again are… less than encouraging.
A thousand other bad endings raced through her head as the doors closed behind them. She walked quickly to stand beside Daniel, sharing the same pole for balance, her fingers close below his paler, much longer fingers. Her heart felt like someone was squeezing it in a tight fist; it got more painful in direct proportion to her proximity to the target. He didn’t seem to notice her, still staring out the window with a faraway look, a look that didn’t change as they pulled into the darkness of the tunnel and he could see only reflections from inside the car. Nobody in the car made any move toward them.
She couldn’t see any of the other guy in Daniel Beach, the one she’d seen pictures of in Mexico and Egypt, the one who hid his hair and moved with aggressive assurance. The abstracted man next to her could have been an Old World poet. He must be an incredible actor… or was it possible that he was legitimately psychotic, suffering from dissociative identity disorder? She didn’t know what to do with that.
Jesse tensed as they neared the Chinatown stop. The train lurched into the station, and she had to grip the pole tighter to keep from swinging into Daniel Beach.
Three people, two suits and one skirt, exited the train, but none of them looked at Jesse. They all hurried past, moving like they were late for work. Two more men got into the car. One caught Jesse’s attention—a big man, built like a professional athlete, wearing a hoodie and sweatpants. He had both hands in the front pouch of the hoodie, and unless his hands were the size of shoe boxes, he was carrying something in them. He didn’t look at Jesse as he passed her, just went to the back corner of the car and grabbed an overhead strap. She kept him in the corner of her eye in the reflection, but he didn’t seem interested in either herself or the target.
Daniel Beach hadn’t moved. He was so absorbed in his distant thoughts that she found herself relaxing beside him, as if he were the one person on the train she didn’t have to guard against. Which was foolish. Even if this wasn’t a trap, even if he was exactly who she’d been told he was, this man was still planning to become a mass murderer in the very near future.
The athlete pulled a boxy pair of headphones out of his sweatshirt’s big pocket and covered his ears with them. The cord led back down to the pocket. Probably to his phone, but maybe not.
She decided to make the next stop a test.
As the doors opened, she bent down as if to fix the nonexistent cuff on her pants, then straightened suddenly and took a step toward the door.
No one reacted. The athlete in the headphones had his eyes closed. People got on, people got off, but no one looked at her, and nobody moved to block her exit or suddenly brought up a hand with a jacket awkwardly draped over it.
If her enemies knew what she was doing, they were letting her do it her way.
Did that mean it was real or that they just wanted her to believe it was for now? Trying to think around their circles made her head hurt. She grabbed the pole again as the train started moving.
“Not your stop?”
She looked up, and Daniel Beach was smiling down at her—the perfectly sweet, guileless smile that belonged to the school’s most popular teacher, to the Habitat for Humanity crusader.
“Um, no.” She blinked, her thoughts scrambling. What would a normal commuter say? “I, uh, just forgot where I was for a minute. The stations all start to blur together.”
“Hold on. The weekend is only eight or nine hours away.”
He smiled again, a kind smile. She was more than uncomfortable with the idea of socializing with her subject, but there was a strange—possibly counterfeit—normality about Daniel that made it easier for her to assume the role she needed to play: Friendly commuter. Ordinary person.
She snorted a dark little laugh at his observation. Her workweek was just beginning. “That would be exciting if I got weekends off.”
He laughed and then sighed. “That’s tough. Law?”
“Medicine.”
“Even worse. Do they ever let you out for good behavior?”
“Very rarely. It’s okay. I’m not much for wild parties anyway.”
“I’m too old for them myself,” he admitted. “A fact I usually remember around ten o’clock every night.”
She smiled politely as he laughed, and tried to keep her eyes from looking crazed. It felt both creepy and dangerous to be fraternizing with her next job. She never had any interactions with her subjects beforehand. She couldn’t afford to look at him as a person. She would have to see only the monster—the potential million dead—so she could remain impassive.
“Though I do enjoy the occasional quiet dinner out,” he was saying.
“Mm,” she murmured distractedly. It sounded like an agreement, she realized.
“Hi,” he said. “My name is Daniel.”