“The Good Man?” Danny wanted to be sure he’d heard that right.

“Yes,” Carrie said. “Why?”

Danny hesitated, tried to assimilate this new bit of data. And failed. “I’ve heard it before. From Dr. Sax. Before I…” He stopped, not really wanting to get into what he’d done. “Before he died,” he finished.

He expected them to ask questions. They didn’t. He realized they were letting him off the hook. Despite how he’d behaved toward them.

He felt gratitude, like the effects of an unfamiliar drug.

Carrie began speaking again.

“The Followers are all over town,” she said. “There are people inside the police department and city hall. Probably our school. That’s why I can’t tell my dad. We can’t tell anyone. We can’t risk tipping them off.”

“In other words, our families, friends, and neighbors,” Eric said. “Maybe it’s mind control.”

Alana snorted. “And maybe it’s just how people are. The Khmer Rouge. The Nazis. The Cultural Revolution. Rwanda. All through history, there have been people who wake up one morning and decide they’re fine with slaughtering their friends and neighbors.”

They all stared at her.

“What? I did a term paper on it.”

They kept staring.

“Jesus, read a book sometime,” she said.

Danny scowled, but not at any of them. He hated this. He hated anything he couldn’t nail down. Couldn’t define. “This is what I don’t understand. What does Colchester gain? What could he possibly get out of this?”

Eric and Alana and Carrie looked at each other, all with the same expression. Danny had seen that a lot in his life, from all kinds of people, when he said something that should have been obvious. He still didn’t know exactly what it meant, but his rough translation was: It’s him, right? It’s not us? It was the surprise that someone who was supposed to be so smart couldn’t see something so obvious. It irritated the hell out of Danny.

“Because,” Eric finally answered, “Colchester is evil.”

That irritated Danny even more. Terms like evil, monster, and inhuman were placeholders, a way to avoid naming the real motivations of real people. They were cheap dodges in place of the facts.

“Yeah, I’m sure he’s very scary,” Danny said. “Right up there with the boogeyman.”

“No,” Eric said, his voice close to a shout. Everyone looked at him. Even the hostess.

Eric looked embarrassed, but still angry. He lowered his voice to an urgent whisper.