“Yeah, you mean the ones who didn’t think twice about telling the Bannings which cabin they were staying in because a woman was asking?”

Luke thinks Charley might be fighting tears, but he can’t tell. She’s like a different person now, and it’s been that way ever since she showed him what she could do. Surly and embarrassed, as if he’s seen her naked and she didn’t want him to.

She didn’t want you to see what she could do, genius. You forced her to show you when you tried to call Mona.

“The Bannings were an exceptional case,” he says. “By any standards.”

“So’s the Mask Maker,” Charley says. “And I don’t need an FBI profile to find him.”

“Well, good, because I think it’s the best Bailey’s gonna be able to do. That and the case files from LAPD.”

“Fine,” she says.

Luke knows he should take a breath. Maybe a few. At his house. With a beer. But instead he hears himself say, “What do you mean, fine? I mean, what does that even mean here?” He sounds like he used to when he was eight years old and his mother told him he couldn’t have a third Coca-Cola.

Only when he sees the way everyone’s staring at him does he realize he’s shot to his feet.

“Yes, Luke. Fine. If that’s all Bailey can get, I will find the guy on my own. Alone, if I have to.”

“And then what?” Marty asks. “You gonna burst through the walls of his house like the Kool-Aid Man, or Kool-Aid Girl, or whatever?”

Kayla says, “Shut up, Marty.”

“It’s a good question,” Luke says.

“I don’t disagree,” Kayla responds.

“She just likes telling me to shut up,” Marty says.

“The answer’s no,” Charley says. “I am not going to burst through his walls like the Kool-Aid Man.”

“What are you going to do?” Luke asks.

“I’m going to make sure he never kills again.”

“How?” Luke says with such anger in his voice it makes something wild dance in Charley’s eyes.

So she has a plan, he realizes. She’s not flying blind, with desperation as her driving wind. She knows exactly what she wants to do; she doesn’t think he can handle it.

“Oh my God,” Kayla says softly. “You’re gonna do it just like the bar, aren’t you? You’re gonna bait the guy. You’re gonna try to get him to take you, just like one of his victims.”

Charley’s answer is in her silence.

“You’re out of your fucking mind,” Luke says.

“And you’re free to go at any time.”

“Oh yeah? Now that you’ve got my brother working for you.”

“Give me a break. He agreed to help me because he wanted to. You didn’t talk him into anything.”

“And you could be sending him after these people, not using him to work with them.”

“I am not working with these people. And if you really think your brother, by himself, is going to be able to take on a corporation the size of Graydon Pharmaceuticals and whoever they can afford to hire, you’re the crazy one.”

She gets to her feet and moves into the tiny kitchen. Marty steps out of her way, riveted, it seems, by the confrontation building before him.

“This is just crazy, and desperate. You’ve got no idea what you’re doing or why you’re doing it.”

“Oh, really? I thought you knew exactly what I was doing. I’m out to prove to the world I’m not a serial killer. Still! Wasn’t that what you said back at the library?”

“That’s not what I—”

“It is what you said. It’s exactly what you said. And if you didn’t mean it, maybe you’re the desperate one right now. What happened to the guy who wanted to help me no matter what?”

“He’s still trying.”

“Oh, bullshit. You’re freaking out because you can’t handle what I can do. I never should have told you or shown you any of it.”

“You’re not doing anything, Charlotte. The drug is doing it. Dylan’s drug is doing it. And you’re choosing to take it again for reasons that are certifiably insane. Am I the only who feels the need to weigh in here?”

“Weighing in is what we’re calling this?” Kayla asks.

“All right, fine, so it’s gonna be all about my tone then! Or how I’m not saying it in the right way.”

Charley answers by turning her back on him and opening the refrigerator door. Is she actually looking for something inside or is it just an act?

“So tell me, Charley. Trina. Whatever it is. Tell me why you’re going after the Mask Maker.”

She slams the refrigerator door shut with enough force to shake the trailer. Luke can feel the pulse of terror that moves through all three of them, the fear that maybe the drug isn’t out of her system, or maybe this is some new episode. Charley either doesn’t notice or she doesn’t care.

“Because I want to. That’s why. Because if these people are going to force me to be their guinea pig, then by God, I’m going to use what they’ve given me the way I want. I’m gonna find the man who did that to those women, and I’m gonna look right into his eyes when he realizes that I am the end of him. And I will not spend another second justifying that to some prick who’s on an apology tour because his life has hit the skids and he’s just now realizing he’s too big of an asshole to make any friends.”

Marty winces.

Kayla swallows.

Her words strike a blow to his gut, and the pain that radiates outward, while phantom and fleeting, fills him with a bewildering urge. It feels almost like a craving, this acute desire to return to that moment in his Jeep when he reached for her because he thought she was about to lose it, the moment when his hand made it no farther than the gearshift before she rested hers atop it.

Why would he think of that moment now, when her words have slugged him this hard? It’s like his brain’s convinced there’s something he can squeeze from the memory and apply to his wounds like a balm.

Oh, shit, dude, he thinks. Oh, shit. He’s familiar with this voice in his head, the voice that warns him away from serious risks. The voice that sounds just like his freshman-year roommate, Reggie, who had a particular, steady way of pointing out when things were about to go seriously off the rails. Like when he realized the hot girl visiting their room was about to turn psycho, or the coffee they’d been drinking out of the bottom of the pot had been sitting there for days. Oh, shit, dude. You are totally falling for—

The words fly from him before Reggie’s voice can finish his sentence.

“Well, shit. You didn’t just rent Dylan a space in your head. You bought him a house there. Good luck with your treatment, Burning Girl.”

“Get out.”

“Works for me,” he answers. But there’s a tremor in his voice. Kayla cocks her head to one side, sympathy flashing in her eyes. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep all your crazy secrets. And if Bailey doesn’t find a way to get in touch with you himself, I’ll let you know. If, you know, you’re not off hunting terrorists by then because it’s what you want.”

He’s moving so fast he’s startled by the sound of his own footsteps punching the wooden steps out front. Startled to suddenly be speeding downhill toward the valley, holding the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip.

He keeps swallowing, but nothing gets rid of the lump in his throat. And that look Kayla gave him, the one that seemed surprised by the level of emotion in his voice, replays on a loop inside his mind.

He can feel the cold, analytical parts brushing off their spectacles and preparing to lecture him the way he just tried to lecture Charlotte. Preparing to explain away his bewildering mixture of hurt and embarrassment, his acute sense of rejection.

On the one hand, it’s probably shock. Some people—most people—would have full-on lost their minds once they saw what that drug can do. So all things considered, maybe he’s doing pretty well, thank you. And who’d be surprised to learn that one afternoon of friendly conversation and criminal conspiracy wasn’t enough to put all the years of ill will between him and Charlotte at bay?

But there’d been a moment back there on the porch, after he’d managed to steady his hands, around the time he and Marty had started to shoot the shit, when he’d felt more settled inside his own skin than he’d been for weeks. Months, even. When he’d felt like a part of something. Included.

Well, that’s gone now, isn’t it?

Get out, she’d said to him.

Can’t get any clearer than that.

Yeah, and she said it because you jumped down her throat, lectured her, and then, when she disagreed, you told her how to think.

And those final words. God, they hurt.

They hurt because she is right.