Minders (37 page)

“He trusted you,” Ford said.

“Beautiful sentiment. I didn’t let him down, either. My job was to stick close, take care of any muscle the Pharmacist might have brought, keep the peace.” He nodded boyishly. “And James sure was peaceful at the end. Hit him with a big shot of R22, and it mellowed him right out.” Willy’s expression got grave. “I hope that is of comfort to you and your family.”

The key in Ford’s mind tightened again, and Sadie caught a split-second image of Ford beating Willy’s face with his fist. “Yeah, thanks.”

“Too bad Bucky’s dead.” Willie stroked the bat fondly. “Would love to know how he got the money out under our noses. And where it went too. Don’t suppose you know where it is?”

Sadie’s chest tightened, and Ford’s imagined fist connected with Willy’s nose. “Bucky’s dead?”

Willy shrugged. “More or less. His body’ll be found in a car wreck tomorrow.” He leaned forward, taking his feet off the desk. “But let’s talk about you.”

Ford was seeing a slideshow of images—James—Bucky—Mason—each one interspersed with a punch to Willy’s face. “What about me? I thought I was going to swim with the fishes.”

Willy waved the comment aside. “That day at the Castle, when you guessed our poker hands. How’d you do that? Fake blindfold?”

Ford shook his head. “No.” The slideshow stopped, and his mind filled with darkness, except a slim margin where the blindfold was held off his face by his nose. Dots formed into the fingers of the other players, shifting their chips, tapping restlessly, moving around.

He knew people were bluffing not by their faces but by their hands
, Sadie reminded herself. And it was easy enough to see the hands blindfolded if you were standing up.

“I just got lucky,” he told Willy.

Willy guffawed. “Keep your friends close and your secrets closer.” He stood up from his desk. “Tell you what I’ll do. Let’s make it a game. I’ll put the bat on the desk between us and count to three, and whoever gets it wins. Test how good you are picking out bluffs under pressure.”

Wins what?
Sadie asked.
What does “winning” mean in this game?

She’d spoken aloud, but Ford ignored her, his mind full of the feel of the bat in his hands—

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll play.”

What are you playing? Are you seriously telling yourself that you’re going to beat Willy up with that bat? Ford Winter, you are better than that.

—full of the
thwack
the bat would make hitting the desk. Hitting bone. Hitting—

“On three,” Willy said, putting the bat on the desk.

This is insane. I know you hate me, but trust me, this is a mistake.

Viscous self-loathing flooded Ford’s mind. Sadie heard him think,
Maybe this will get rid of you
, and realized the loathing was for her. She’d driven him to this, driven him out of his mind.

“On three,” Ford agreed.

“One,” Willy said.

A flash of blue metal, a thud, dots of color splattering everywhere, Willy chuckling, saying, “I win.”

Darkness.

• • •

She woke up feeling dizzy and had trouble making her eyes focus.

Her ears were ringing, and there was a metallic taste in her mouth.

Where was she? What had happened?

Sadie glanced around the room, the uneven stacks of boxes looming like cliffs in the inadequate light from the high windows. The sounds of someone clipping their nails and watching a nature program came from inside the office up ahead, the announcer saying, “. . . but the natural habitat of these majestic creatures is succumbing to the drumbeat of civilization.”

Ford must have regained consciousness before she did, because he was on his feet moving toward the office. As he walked Sadie felt his right hand tighten and realized he was holding something, something she couldn’t identify. His grip felt strange, less sensitive than usual.

Gloves
, she realized as he brought his hands up and she saw them. He lifted the edge of the right one just past the scar on his wrist to glance at the Mickey Mouse watch, which showed nine thirty exactly.
Why would he be wearing glo
—

She saw it then. The object in his hand.

He was holding a gun.

Her mind reeled.
No
, she thought, then yelled,
No!
Whatever you are planning, stop. Don’t do this. It won’t get you what you want.
But he’d perfected his ability to ignore her now. She felt as if he’d built a wall between them, impervious and reflective, so everything she said just reverberated back.

He took a step forward, then another. Dread filled her. She wanted to close her eyes, look away, but that wouldn’t change anything. He raised the gun, and as he stepped into the office she heard him think,
Watch this, Sadie.

As if she had a choice.

Willy spoke without looking up from his nails. “I’m almost done,” he said, nodding toward the nail clippers. “Tough on the mani—” He glanced up with a warm smile. It faded when he saw the gun pointed at his head.

“Hey, wait a sec—” he said, dropping his hands.

“Keep them up,” Ford whispered. “Stand up and come around the desk. No more talking.” His voice sounded strained to Sadie, and the windy noises she was used to were nearly silent and unreadable.

She was terrified. Everything felt wrong, as though the force of Ford’s hate for her had changed his entire mindscape. It was disorienting, like being in the head of a stranger.

Where are you, Ford?
she demanded.
I know you’re in there.

An image of James with Plum’s head on his shoulder, looking up at him for a kiss, formed in Ford’s head, not out of points of color but like a photograph developing. It went from indistinct to clear then began to bubble and curl, the image melting away like old movie film catching fire in the projector, until there was only blankness.

He steadied his arm and aimed at Willy, standing next to the Crock-Pot now, and the sensation inside of him was nothing like his regular anger, nothing Sadie recognized.

What are you doing?
Sadie cried.
This won’t solve anything.

Another photographic memory forced its way forward, faint outlines becoming Plum holding her iPad, filming, a boy’s voice saying “I promise. Anything you want. Just say you’ll never to leave me.” Sadie felt Ford struggling to hold the memory at that moment, freeze it, but it didn’t stop, overexposure singeing its edges, eating through until it completely corroded and dissolved into ashes.

The interior of his mind was still then, and cold, so cold. Desolate.
Loneliness
, Sadie thought.

But you’re not alone
, Ford, she called.
I’m here for you. I—

Ford’s finger tightened on the trigger. Eyes locked on Willy, he punctuated each word with a shot. “She”—
bang—“
is”—
bang
—“not”—
bang—“
a”—
bang—“
tart.”

Four hits, all to the chest.

Sadie was frozen. Time stood still. For an instant Willy’s body hung in the air, and his face became James’s against the same backdrop, eyes glazing over, an expression of pure disbelief as he mouthed the word “You?” Then the body fell to the ground with a thud.

Sadie opened her mouth to scream her horror, but it was too big, nothing could come out.

She had just seen Ford kill Willy.

She gulped, terrified, shaking. Could she have been in his head all this time and never really known the truth about who he was? What he was capable of?

A loud shrieking filled her head, and she realized it was her own screams echoing back at her as she plummeted into a bottomless hole of pure, terrifying darkness.

CHAPTER 30

S
he’s coming to.”

“Is she lucid?”

“I have good brain scans.”

“Her heart rate is spiking.”

Curtis’s voice said, “Sadie, it’s all right, you’re fine, you’re safe. Can you look at me?”

Sadie opened her eyes, expecting to see the oval ceiling of the Stasis Center, but instead she was in what appeared to be a hospital room. There were no sensors; she was in a nightgown. Curtis was next to the bed. “Where am I?”

“You’re in the medical wing at Mind Corps,” Curtis told her. “You’ve been under sedation, but you’re out of it now.”

“Sedation? What happened to stasis? What’s going on?” The heart monitor reacted with a loud beeping that felt like it was piercing her head. And then it came back to her: Willy, the church, Ford, the gun, gloves—

Horror
. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why am I here? Shouldn’t I still be in Syncopy?”

Catrina said, “There was a glitch.” Sadie thought she was avoiding Curtis’s gaze.

Curtis interrupted, “You gave us quite a scare. Your mind disengaged itself from Syncopy. We’ve never seen that before. Did something happen?”

Sadie had no idea how to answer. Rationally, she knew it should have been simple. She was the eyewitness to a murder. She saw it. She had to report it. Had to turn Ford in.

I can’t
,
she protested instinctively, recoiling from the thought.
He hadn’t been in his right mind.

Because of you
, she went on, torturing herself.
You are responsible. You did this to him.

Unless—

Immediately she saw an alternative that was worse. What if the Ford she thought she knew wasn’t him at all? What if he’d really been hiding a monster inside of him the entire time? What if he was a psychopath so cunning, so cool, that he’d had her fooled?

It wasn’t possible.
Was it?

She had to get out of here. She had to see him. Hear his version of the story. Watch him while he talked. Then she would know.
Wouldn’t she?

It would mean betraying Mind Corps, the contract she’d signed, the rules. Betraying Curtis.

“Sadie?” Curtis said gently. “Is everything okay?” He sounded concerned, as if there could be something really wrong with her, and she felt a pang of guilt. He trusted her, and she was repaying him by lying and running away. Trying to run away, she corrected.

A faint memory from orientation, someone saying that if you’re pulled out of Sycnopy too early it could cause—

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice almost hysterical in her ears.
That could work
, she decided. “I—I can’t seem to remember anything past dinner last night. Tortellini. Butternut squash. There was a beet salad.”
Too many details
, she told herself. “Then he went to bed, and—it’s a blank.”

“After that?”

“Nothing.” She felt like the lie must be so obvious, the way Curtis and Catrina were studying her, but she didn’t detect anything on either of their faces. They just looked like they were worried and trying not to show it. She felt another jab of guilt.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“It’s a little after ten,” Catrina told her. “You’ve been under sedation nearly twenty-four hours to make sure your brain scans were clear.”

Sadie’s heart dropped and she forgot about feeling guilty.
Twenty-four hours? He could already have been arrested.
She looked from Catrina to Curtis. Did one of them know more than they were saying?
Could someone else know what she’d seen?

“Is there any way to read a Subject’s mind without Minders?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Curtis said, looking at her curiously.

“So all information from the chi—relays has to come from Minders,” Sadie clarified.

Curtis nodded. “Yes. Why?”

At least Ford was safe from her.

“I—” Sadie fumbled with how to go on. “I was just thinking that it means—it’s important that I remember. What happened. Because you won’t know any other way.”
Stop talking,
she ordered herself.

She felt Curtis studying her, but she avoided looking at him, hoping she seemed confused rather than evasive. Now, as though reading her mind, he said, “Given the minor amnesia, I think we should send Miss Ames home and schedule her debriefing in two days.”

Catrina said, “I humbly disagree.” The word
humbly
sounded laughable in her mouth, and there was clearly tension between her and Curtis. “I think it would be best if she began debriefing immediately. You and I should be sufficient.”

“She doesn’t remember anything,” Curtis pointed out.

Catrina stared at him. “Or maybe she does and she doesn’t want to tell.”

“I don’t,” Sadie said to no one.

Curtis’s voice had an edge. “Whatever the case, the best place for her to rest and remember is at home. She would go nuts wandering the halls here, bumping into people.”

Catrina had seemed ready to object again, but his last words changed her mind. “I suppose that’s true,” she said. “Home is probably better.”

“Excellent.” Curtis gave her a faint nod. “Please give Miss Ames whatever assistance she needs. I’ll bring in her parents. And then, when her memory returns in a few days, we’ll do the debriefing.” He smiled reassuringly at Sadie.

“Thank you,” she said.

Sadie was clumsy in her body. It felt strange to move around, and she was struck even more forcefully by how different her perspective was from Ford’s.

What she noticed most, though, was the silence. It was so quiet in her mind. So… even. After the constant buffeting of Ford’s emotions, she was acutely aware of how little she normally felt.

God, she missed him.

• • •

Sadie showered and dressed and was escorted to a smaller elevator that whisked her quickly up the fourteen stories to the ground floor. A man in a dark suit was waiting to take her to a sitting room she’d never been in. It had French doors that opened out onto the terrace where she’d had her debriefing. Four weeks, four lifetimes ago.

She paused on the threshold, taking in the scene. Her father was standing by the windows, talking on the phone. Pete was near him, staring out and tapping on one of the panes. Her mother was on the sofa facing the door, in a posture of anticipation. Sadie put on a smile and stepped into the room.