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That made both me and Hansen stare at her.
“Not at this moment,” she clarified, exasperated.
“For crying out loud,” Hansen exclaimed. “Don’t any of you have any nice skills?”
“Absolutely,” I said, choking down a laugh, “but they don’t really cause problems, do they?”
“Is he…an affiliate?” Liz asked, looking at Hansen as if he was a fourth grader who’d snuck into a college lecture.
“Nope,” I said, giving no more explanation. No need to reveal his occupation right now. She had enough to worry about. We all did. We needed to get Will somewhere he could get help.
As we went to get him out of the tent, I saw the reason Liz had taken so long getting out of there in the first place. She had taken the time to dress him, protecting his body from both prying eyes and the elements. He would be heavy when unconscious, and I was dreading the trek back to the parking lot, and yet she’d managed this on her own. Despite the clusterfuck we were in the middle of, I was strangely moved by her act.
Between the three of us, though, carrying Will wasn’t so bad. Especially when we got back to the trail, which was wide and without rocks and roots betraying us in the darkness. We’d taken a wide berth around the other more lively camp, and Liz hadn’t even suggested we ask them for help. That only made me more certain their friends were not affiliates.
We passed Larkin on our way. He lay exactly as he’d fallen, looking like he was sleeping next to the trail, dressed in his dark suit.
“Is that the guy?” Liz said, stopping as she noticed him, making us do the same. Hansen held Will under the arms, while we carried a leg each.
“No,” I said. “That’s the pit-nipple from the FBI who’s trying to kidnap me.”
“No kidding,” Liz said, sucking air in through her teeth, asking no more questions. “Damn cops,” she added and started walking again, making me laugh at her practical way of dealing with this information. It was such an affiliate reaction.
In the end, we used both mine and Will’s car to drive back to Ashport as the Beetle would be crowded as hell if we were to stuff an unconscious man in the backseat. We drove to Mona’s house where Dr. Morris waited for us. There was no point in using the hospice for this. There wasn’t enough room for all three of the young men who’d been trapped in their immobile prisons.
Hansen and I stayed until Will woke up. We could see nothing on him, of course, but I knew the panic that had to set in when realization hit him. We let Mona, Liz, and Dr. Morris deal with that. No one could help him better than his loved ones.I, sure as hell had failed him, and I had no more knowledge of how to deal with this.
Which meant it was time to go see the Judge again.
Chapter 9
Gerard watchedus with a look in his eyes so dark that I couldn’t think of any situation where it would be a good thing.
“I’m sorry,” he suddenly said, the tension leaving both him and me at once. “What you told me makes me so mad, and then there’s all the pent-up anger in him mixing into it.” He pointed at Hansen, who sat next to me on the couch, seemingly calm. A flicker of confusion crossed his face, but he said nothing. Knowing his stance on my ability, I had told him about Gerard on the way over, figuring that was fair under the circumstances. Gerard seemed fine with it. He had picked up on it as soon as we’d walked through the door. He’d been surprised to see a cop in his house, especially in the middle of the night, but he hadn’t scolded me for it. It was, after all, his own orders that I deal with him.
“This is terrible,” Gerard went on. “Three young men trapped like that. And poor Andrea Kirby, too.” He shook his head again. His soft eyes found mine and though his face didn’t smile, they did. “Are you all right, Maggie?”
“Peachy,” I said, not wanting to go through this again. Not while Hansen was listening.
“You’re not good at taking care of yourself when you get this invested.”
“Yes, yes. Can we deal with your empathy thing later?”
He smiled and nodded. “At least I tried. What do you need?”
“I think this guy is targeting affiliates with dangerous abilities,” I said.
“It’s not really a guess anymore, is it?” Hansen interjected. “Three cases kind of proves it, don’t you think?”
“Fine. This guy is targeting them,” I said and turned back to Gerard. “Are there more affiliates like these three?” I could think of several in town with potentially dangerous abilities, but no one who could pose such a threat. Affiliates with thought control were, for example, never allowed to hold positions of authority in the communities. One could never quite trust how they got there. It had happened in the past.
“I can think of a few,” Gerard said, “but it’s the middle of the work week and they’re in Ashdale.”
I sighed. Much as I hated it, I needed bait if we were going to get a chance at this guy again.
“I would check with Annalise, if I were you,” Gerard continued. “No one knows as much about our affiliates as her.”
This was the problem with not having a register documenting people and their affiliations. The problem did, however, not outweigh the risk of such a thing ending up in the wrong hands. He was right. Annalise was born and raised here; if anyone would know something, it would be her.
