She nodded. “Waiting to be saved.”

Up ahead, Jay turned onto a ramp leading onto 275 North, his small red taillights blurring in the rain.

“Possibly true,” I said. “Possibly. But whatever the case, if you got involved with someone for a short time, under intense circumstances, and then that person was taken from you, shot in the face—you’d become obsessed, too.”

“Granted.” She downshifted into neutral as the Celica hit a puddle the size of Peru and the back wheels slid out and to the left for a moment. Angie turned into the skid and the car righted itself as we passed beyond the puddle. She shifted back into fourth, and then quickly into fifth, stepped on the gas, and caught back up with Jay.

“Granted,” she repeated. “But he’s going to assassinate a virtual cripple, Patrick.”

“An evil cripple,” I said.

“How do we know that?” she said.

“Because Jay told us and Desiree confirmed it.”

“No,” she said as the yellow dorsal fins of the Skyway Bridge climbed into the night sky about ten miles ahead. “Desiree didn’t confirm it. Jay said she did. All we have to go on is what Jay’s told us. We can’t confirm it with Desiree. She’s dead. We can’t confirm it with Trevor, because he’d deny it in either case.”

“Everett Hamlyn,” I said.

She nodded. “I say we call him when we get to Jay’s place. From a pay phone out of Jay’s earshot. I want to hear it from Everett’s mouth that this is all as Jay said it is.”

The rain, as it drummed the canvas hood of the Celica, sounded like ice cubes.

“I trust Jay,” I said.

“I don’t.” She looked at me for a moment. “It’s nothing personal. But he’s a wreck. And I don’t trust anyone right now.”

“Anyone,” I said.

“Except you,” she said. “And that goes without saying. Otherwise, everyone is suspect.”

I leaned back against the seat and closed my eyes.

Everyone is suspect.

Even Jay.

Hell of a weird world in which fathers give orders to assassinate their daughters and therapeutic organizations offer no real therapy and a man I would have once easily trusted with my life suddenly couldn’t be trusted.

Maybe Everett Hamlyn had been right. Maybe honor was in its twilight. Maybe it had always been heading that way. Or worse, maybe it had always been an illusion.

Everyone is suspect. Everyone is suspect.

It was starting to become my mantra.

24