“You don’t know me. Don’t tell me what to think. I can do that for myself.”

“You’re right. We can never truly know or understand other people. Thinking that you can fully grasp how another person is thinking or feeling is one of the greatest mistakes you can make in life,” Carter said. “But we can always ask. So let me rephrase. Do you really want to waste that beautiful brain of yours changing oil and rotating tires? Or is that just an easy way to hide from the world and all the people in it?”

Burke kept his calm, indifferent mask in place, but internally, he wanted to scream at Carter, to tell the old man he had no idea how difficult and painful it was to constantly analyze all input and output and fight with every breath to appear normal.

After a few seconds, Burke replied, “People like me don’t suffer from being on the spectrum. We suffer from other people.”

“You can’t live your whole life in fear.”

Burke hated making direct eye contact with anyone, but he forced himself to meet Carter’s gaze. “All I want is to be left in peace. To not have to worry about offending someone every time I open my mouth. To not have to analyze and mimic the behavior of others to blend in. My world is beautiful and fascinating. Yours is broken and terrifying. Which would you choose?”

Carter seemed to consider that and was about to respond when Nic pushed through the back door. The SWAT officer said, “Been looking for you two. Taz just called. Our bad guys sent us another message. They requested hamburgers for everyone, unwrapped, no packaging of any kind, on two plastic trays.”

Sam Carter nodded. “Burgers make sense. So does the packaging removal. Pizza or something like that comes in a cardboard box where we could hide audio or video bugs. These days the bugs are small enough that we could even hide them inside the cardboard that a burger like a Big Mac comes in.”

“Maybe we could bug the trays?” Nic said.

“They’ll probably throw them back out the front door when they’re done.”

Burke dropped his cigarette to the pavement and ground it out with the toe of his Vans sneaker.

“I don’t like the sound of this,” he said. “They’re still stalling for time, but even worse, they’re trying hard to make themselves seem reasonable and make us believe that they care about the well-being of the hostages.”

“Why is that a bad thing?” Nic asked.

“Because, in my experience, when someone tries so hard to convince you that they’re one way, they’re probably the exact opposite.”

Chapter 34

Nic Juliano needed to get back to Henderson and the hostage situation. Not because that’s where the action was or that he was some kind of adrenaline junkie. He kept thinking about Strom, the rookie, and the incident that morning at the survivalist’s house. It was hard to forget. His chest still hurt, and he figured that some deep bruises would be showing by now.