“No, Neil, calm down.” I held up my palms in surrender. “He’s not dead. Or, well, I don’t think he’s dead. But he will be soon. I have to find his body. Like I said, he’s hurt. Bad.”
“And you’re thinking someone might be harboring him? Someone who’s come to visit.”
“Exactly.”
He turned and punched a button on his speakerphone again. “Luann, can you get me the names of everyone who’s visited Reyes Farrow in the last year? And I need to know who he’s requested be put on his visitation list, whether they were approved by the state or not.”
“Would you like that information before or after I have you committed, sir?”
He pursed his mouth in thought. Making a decision, he said, “Before. Definitely before.”
“I’ll get them immediately.”
“I just love her use of the word immediately,” I said, vowing to introduce the concept to Cookie. “So, visitors have to be approved?”
“Yes.” He sat back down behind his desk. “The inmate has to turn in anyone’s name he wants to receive visitations from; then that person has to fill out an application, which is submitted to the state for approval before he or she can visit. So let’s get back to this supernatural thing,” he said, a tinge of mystery in his eyes.
“Okay.”
“Are you psychic? Is that how you know Farrow is hurt?”
Always with the PS-word. “No. Not especially. Not in the way that you mean. I can’t predict the future or tell you about the past.” When he eyed me doubtfully, I said, “Seriously, I can barely remember last week. The past is a blur, like fog only blurrier.”
“Okay, then what do you mean by supernatural?”
I thought again about telling him the truth, but just as quickly decided against it. I didn’t want to lose him, but I didn’t want to lie to him either. This was a guy who’d worked with convicted felons for over a decade. Deceivers one and all.
I studied the speckled pattern of his carpet, trying to figure out what to say. I hated the uncertainty of how much to tell someone, how much to hold back. The problem with telling people the truth was that by my doing so, their lives were forever altered. Their perspective forever skewed. Since most people would never believe a word of it anyway, I was rarely put in such a precarious position. But Neil had seen things. He knew Reyes was more powerful than any man he’d ever met. He knew I could see things others couldn’t. But there was a line, a limit to what the human mind could accept as reality. If I crossed it, I would lose his cooperation and his friendship. Not that I really gave a crap about his friendship, but still.
“Neil, I don’t want to lie to you.”
“And I don’t want to be lied to, so this whole thing should be pretty cut and dry.”
With a deep sigh, I said, “If I tell you the truth … let’s just say you won’t sleep well at night. Ever again.”
He tapped a pen on his desk in thought. “I have to be honest, Charley, I haven’t slept all that well since your last visit a couple of weeks ago.”
Damn. I knew it. I’d already screwed up his world.
“I could be wrong,” he continued, “but I’m certain I would sleep better if I knew the whole story. It’s the bits and pieces that are kicking my ass. Nothing is solid anymore. Nothing fits. I feel like the foundation of everything I’ve ever believed in is crumbling beneath my feet and I am losing my grip on what’s real and what’s not.”
“Neil, if I tell you more, the last thing that knowledge will do is help you get a stronger grip on reality.”
“Can we agree to disagree?”
“No.”
“So we are disagreeing?”
“No.”
“So we’re in agreement?”
“No.”
“Then let me put it this way.” He leaned forward with an evil, evil grin. “If you want a gander at those visitation records, I want to know everything.”
Did he just use the word gander? “I don’t think I can do that to you,” I said with regret.
“Yeah? Well, maybe I didn’t tell you everything either.”
My brows snapped together. “What do you mean?”
“Do you honestly think that one little story I told you about Reyes was everything?”
The first time I’d visited, Neil told me the most amazing story. He had just started working at the prison when he witnessed Reyes, a twenty-year-old kid at the time, take down three of the most deadly men in the state without breaking a sweat. It was over before Neil could even call for backup. That’s when he knew Reyes was different.
“Do you think that was all there was to tell?” he asked. I half expected an evil laugh. “I have dozens of stories. Things that … things that are impossible to explain.” He shook his head as he contemplated what I could tell was a plethora of unexplainable phenomena. I tried not to drool. “And quite honestly, Charley, I need an explanation. Call it the scientist in me,” he added with a shrug of his brows.
“You sucked at science.”
“It’s grown on me.”
He wasn’t giving up. I could see the determination in his eyes. That same determination that took our high school football team to state three years in a row. Damn it.
“Tell you what,” I said, slipping into negotiation mode. “You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.”