Her eyes were red and puffy.
“Are you all right?” I asked. She was looking at me blankly.
She did that blinking thing—I could almost see her consciousness swim up from some black depth. “I’m fine, thank you. Take a seat.”
I sat down.
“The voice is still gone?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Excellent. And how are you feeling?”
“Good,” I said.
“Okay,” said Dr. Rezwari. “And the medication. Any side effects?”
“No.”
“No drowsiness? Lack of appetite?”
“Oh, yeah. All of that. But that’s normal, right?”
“Yes. To a degree. Keep an eye on it, yes?” She moved papers around on her desk, absently.
“I will.”
“Great. You’re doing very well, Cassandra. I’m very pleased with your progress.”
“No thanks to you.” That wasn’t me. That was the voice.
“Uh-huh,” I said.
Dr. Rezwari rubbed at her eyes. Then she looked up at me and seemed surprised I was still there. “So … I’ll see you next week?” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Are you … um … can I help?”
“Excuse me?”
“You seem upset. Can I help?”
Dr. Rezwari laughed—a half-hollow, half-real laugh. “You want to help me? Your psychiatrist?”
“Sorry, it’s stupid, I—”
“No, it’s kind of you. I guess my work with you is done! The pupil has become the master. I’m fine, truly.” She moved another file, randomly as far as I could see. “I just … something happened to one of our outpatients. Something terrible. Nothing to concern you.”
“Paris?”
Her eyes sharpened. “You knew her?”
Suddenly I knew that I didn’t want to talk about Paris. “Not really. We met in the courtyard. But I read in the paper … about …”
“Yes,” said Dr. Rezwari. She made a sobbing sound. “Oh God. Sorry. This is so unprofessional. I was … I was very fond of her.”
I stared at her, surprised. But yes, why not? Paris was one of those people. She didn’t so much have charisma as an aura. To my amazement I found myself feeling a moment of connection with Dr. Rezwari. “Sorry,” I said.
“Thank you. And now I must let you go, try to gather myself before my next appointment.”
“Okay. See you next week.”
“See you, Cassandra.” She looked down at her desk and didn’t look back up.
I closed the door behind me, took the corridor lined with photos of old board members and then the green stairs down to the lobby, where the bus stop was.
“Liar,” said the voice. “You lied to her about everything. About your drugs. About Paris.”
“Shut up. It’s not six.”
“Fine. But you’re still a liar. And it’s going to get you in trouble.”
“This is it?”
“Yeah,” you said. We were sitting in your pickup early in the morning, outside a liquor store. You had an hour before starting work—and every second counted. I mean, what could be happening to Paris as the hours ticked by … We both knew it, but neither of us said it.
You showed me the screen of your phone. I looked at it. There was a list of tweets. The pictures next to them showed a whole range of people. Young, old, white, black. I didn’t know what you had done, but you had gotten a load of different people looking for that Jeep.
“Read it,” you said.
I read.
#SRT8 Lauderdale b/t Ash and Ocean Spotted! Bayside 8th Street #SRT8
#SRT8 @ the Laundromat on Fort in Lauderdale #SRT8 on Mayflower Drive in Lauderdale #Lauderdale #SRT8 #Ocean & 10th
“That’s just a random sampling,” you said. “Notice anything?”
“Yeah. Lauderdale.”
“Hence, we are sitting here in Lauderdale.”
“And we’re just going to wait till we see a Jeep SRT8?” I was starting to feel less sure about this plan. “There are hardly any houses around here. It’s all factories and offices and industrial buildings.”
“Nevertheless,” you said, “Lauderdale came up most. That means someone who owns an SRT8 either lives here or works here. Furthermore, a lot of the tweets mention Ocean Avenue. Which is why we’re on Ocean Avenue.”
“You’re a latter-day Sherlock,” I said.
“That makes you Watson.”
“Fine. I’m comfortable with—”
I shut up. A black Jeep SRT8 had just turned right onto the street in front of us. It traveled north slowly. Its windows were darkened—privacy glass. Perfect for a murderer, I thought. Murderers like privacy.
“There!” I said. “There!” There was a nasty worm of a thought at the back of my mind—this could be the person who …
who …
who took Paris.
“Yep,” you said. You turned the key in the ignition.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to follow it, obviously.” You checked the traffic and then gunned across the road to catch up with the Jeep. A guy in a BMW shook his fist at us.
“Keep two cars between us and them,” I said. “I saw it in a movie.”
“Yeah, I’m not going to do that,” you said. “I’d just lose them. I’m not a spy.”