What, that was it? She stole a glance at him. “Lose the pool, did you?”
“Betting on hurt feelings—what kind of reprobate do you take me for?”
She snorted.
Bernie shifted in his seat, grin slipping. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“God, no.”
He looked relieved. The man was always on firmer footing when the subject wasn’t serious.
“So ...” She searched for a topic guaranteed to provoke his sense of humor. “How are the new students?”
After Bernie left, her mother sat with her for a while, chatting about this and that. Then her father took a turn—with cookies.
This time, he didn’t have to resort tohmm-ing. She unloaded everything on him before he even asked, starting with the day she found Hartgrave’s room and ending with their fraught farewell.
He listened to it all, including just how much danger he and her mother had been in, without interruptingonce. When she finally finished, he issued an admirably restrained, “Well.” After a few seconds he added, “How do you feel?”
“Angry.” She didn’t have to ponder that point for even one second.
He nodded. “But at whom?”
The fact that he asked told her he already knew the answer. Knew it by the way she’d told the story. “Me, mostly.”
He put a ginger snap in her hands. “Why not Hartgrave? A convenient outlet for fury, and possibly also the right one.”
“I do blame him for everything that’s properly his fault, but so much of what happened was my doing,” she said. “Dad—I’ve been incredibly selfish. Ever since I saw him flying in that room, I trampled all over him in the interest of getting what I wanted. It’s a wonder he ever fell in love with me.”
Her father’s smile suggested he thought this overstated her errors and understated her appeal, but he hadn’t been there. The nearly fatal adventure, the failed romance and the ruined career were a direct result of her decision to force her way into Hartgrave’s life. And for what? To pursue an unresolved childhood obsession. What terrible things might she have done had she been in his position, an autodidact recruited by Kincaid?
She shivered. But as she tried to imagine it, she knew—as much as she knew anything about herself—that Kincaid could never have persuaded her to kill an innocent person. The thought of killing even in justified self-defense had filled her with a creeping horror.
She wasn’t nearly as good as she’d given herself credit for, but there was—thank God—a difference between her failings and the utter disregard for individual lives that made the Organization possible.
How could Hartgrave have done it?
A rap on the door interrupted this terrible thought. “Hang on,” her father said and went to see who it was.
Willi.
“Hallo,” he said, giving her a level glance as he settled into the seat her father vacated. He looked better. Neater. “How can I help you?”
More direct than Bernie, though Bernie’s intent was obviously the same. She could see her future: Emily the Project.
“I’m all right,” she said. “Mostly. Okay, somewhat. But I have to get back to all right on my own.”
Willi’s furrowed brow told her what he thought of that. “I at least could talk to you. What would you like to hear about?”
In all honesty—Hartgrave. Willi could certainly tell her things about him that she didn’t know, tempting and dismaying in equal measure. She shouldn’twantto know more. She needed to turn Hartgrave into a faded memory that no longer hurt, rather than one as intense as standing on the sun.
She settled on a topic a degree shy of him. “What’s happening with the Organization? Is it feasible to dismantle it?”
Willi sighed. “I begin to doubt. We would like the technicians to be working directly for the microchip companies, but even if this could be managed, we needsome way of”—he made a frustrated motion with his hand—“containing bad convincers.”
“So you find yourself needing to come up with the alternative Kincaid claimed was impossible,” she murmured.
His face clouded at this mention of the man, but he inclined his head. “True.”
