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“Maybe put them into a coma and... keep going.”
“Keep going?”
“Until everything shuts down, including the heart,” he said.
The ice-cold certainty in his voice stole her breath for a moment. She knew then that he had been dealing with his Jekyll-and-Hyde fears ever since his lost night.
“And I thought I ended up with a depressing talent,” she said.
Luke did not respond. He watched her.
“Are you absolutely sure you could stop someone’s heart?” she said, trying to choose her words with exquisite care.
“You’re asking me if I’ve ever killed anyone with my talent,” he said, emotionless now.
She cleared her throat. “Yes.”
“Maybe.”
She frowned. “You don’t know for sure?”
Luke turned back to the bioluminescent gardens. “Given our situation, you have a right to the truth, and the truth is I don’t know if I killed anyone with my talent.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“In my other life as a history professor I did some hostage and crisis negotiation for the local police department. I was good at de-escalation.”
“Because of your original talent.”
“Yes. But shortly before Hatch contacted me about the list, I was called to a crime scene. A man named Pilcher had been stalking his wife. He tracked her down in the small town where I was living until now. When I arrived on the scene he was holding his wife at gunpoint, threatening to kill her. I used my new talent to get him under control. I was trying to render him unconscious. He collapsed. I don’t know if I stopped his heart, because his wife grabbed the gun and put a bullet in his head.”
“But you’re sure you could have killed him, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“How does your talent work? I know I think of it as hypnosis, but you told me it isn’t that, at least not exactly.”
He turned to look at her again, his eyes fierce and cold. “Once I have the fix on certain wavelengths in a person’s voice I can project counterpoint currents with my own voice. I essentially jam the signal. That sets up a kind of psychic dissonance that the brain can’t handle. It shuts down, taking the vital organs with it. I’m sure that if I pushed hard enough I could kill someone the way Keever was killed tonight.”
She threw her arms out wide, exasperated. “Well, don’t.”
He stared at her as if she had switched to another language, one he did not even begin to comprehend. “ ‘Don’t’? Is that all you can say?”
“Luke, you’re overthinking this. I can pick up a gun and shoot someone in cold blood. But I’m not going to do that. Okay, I would shoot someone to protect myself or someone else if there was noalternative and if I actually had a gun. But we’re talking about seriously extenuating circumstances. Life or death. My point is, you’ve got a talent that can be used as a weapon, but you’re the one in control of your ability. You’re not Jekyll and Hyde.”
“What makes you so sure of that?”
“Two reasons.” She held up a single finger. “One, you didn’t kill me when you found me at Phoebe Hatch’s place.”
“Why the hell would I have done that?”
“A sociopathic assassin would have figured it was the logical thing to do, especially after I found the memory card, because at that point you no longer needed me. I became excess baggage. In fact, you made it clear you considered me a problem, remember?”
“That is not the same thing as wanting you dead.”
“It is for a sociopathic killer.” She held up a second finger. “Two, you brought me cupcakes for my birthday.”
He looked at her in disbelief. “That logic is a little weak, don’t you think?”
