She pauses and then says, “He was acting like Roy.”
“I know.”
“What Roy did to himself—the hair, the beard—it’s like a stage-one version of this.”
“Yes.”
“Then whatever I gave Roy…” She looks at me. “What are you thinking?”
I don’t answer. She knows exactly what I’m thinking, and I’m not putting it into words so she can tell me I’m wrong, tell me there are other explanations. I know there are. I don’t need to have that conversation with anyone except Dalton.
“We need to get back to Rockton,” I say.
* * *
Once I’m back, I go straight to Dalton and tell him everything. I barely finish before Dalton gets called off on an unrelated problem. Before I get ten steps away, Mathias approaches with Raoul in his arms.
“I hope you weren’t bringing him for more canine socialization,” I say in French. “Eric has Storm, and he’s busy. We both are.”
“So am I, apparently. Someone has given them to me without asking whether I wanted to undertake it.”
“Sebastian. Yes. You’re welcome.”
His mouth opens.
“Skip the protests, Mathias. You like projects. You wanted this one. You’re going to pretend you’re doing me a favor, so I’ll feel indebted. But I did you a favor.”
“A favor?”
“I gave you a pet sociopath. Almost as good as a pet wolf, right?” I motion for him to join me as I walk back to the station. “Sebastian says he’s reformed. He says he wants to stay reformed, and he wants help with that. I’m not making any judgment calls. Your job is to help him and watch over him. That’s why he’s your apprentice.”
“I do not need—”
“Too bad. He’s your apprentice. Your shop apprentice. Not your sociopath apprentice.”
I get a reproachful look for that. I continue. “Whatever your own condition, you’ve learned to rechannel it. I’m not asking you to do that with Sebastian. He isn’t you. Just figure out if he’s serious about coping with his condition. If he isn’t, we can’t have him here. If he is, that’s a project for you.” I glance over. “Did he tell you what he did?”
“Yes. It is a fascinating case study, to be so young and do such a thing. Even more fascinating if he, at his current young age, sees his problem and wishes to overcome it. The issue with sociopathy is that one usually cannot understand that what one is doing is wrong. He seems to. Fascinating.”
“You’re welcome.”
* * *
Next I head for Phil’s place. Of course he’s at home. He answers the door with a notebook in his hand and a look that warns me I’m interrupting something. On the notepad, I see numbers and equations, and there is a moment where I don’t see Phil there at all. I see Val, and I feel …
Regret. I will admit that. I will always feel regret for what I did, but I feel anger, too, outrage even, that emotion I’m far less likely to admit to than the regret. Regretting murder is natural, expected, whatever the circumstances. The anger, though, rises from hurt. I am hurt that Val betrayed me. I am humiliated by the fact that I worked so hard to bring her into the community, and she turned on me and mocked me for it.
I won’t reach out like that with Phil. Right or wrong, I must lick my wounds in hurt silence, and let him do what he will do, and if that’s hiding in his home like Val, so be it.
“I need to talk to you,” I say. “About the gun and your watch.”
His mouth tightens. “I believe we’ve been through this—”
“No, we actually haven’t. I know you had the gun in your luggage, but we have never discussed who had access to it. Now, I’m sorry to interrupt whatever you’re doing…”
“Budgets,” he says. “I’m working on the town budget. It’s clear that despite Valerie’s level of mathematical expertise, she had no head for accounting. The books are a mess, along with the town’s finances. I’ve already discovered over a thousand dollars a month that can be trimmed from expenses.”
I stiffen. “If you are suggesting that we overspend, let me remind you that people are trapped here. Yes, we could cut back on coffee or baked goods or books, but those things are important to residents.”