“I’ve thought about it a lot,” Somers said, tucking a loose strand of Hazard’s hair back into place. “I want to be angry that you took that kind of risk. But no matter how I turn it over in my head, I don’t know what you could have done. I’m so proud of you. And I’m so sorry you got hurt again.”

“My leg will be fine.”

Somers cupped Hazard’s chin and wagged his head once. “Not worried about your leg. Not much, anyway.”

“He didn’t really have chlorine gas in the sub-basement, did he?” Hazard asked, and then he cleared his throat again. “Once I realized most of the Keeper’s work had been sleight of hand, I guessed he was bluffing, but it was a guess.”

“He was bluffing. He did have one real camera above the door, one of those cable cameras, and that’s what he used to send a feed to you. But he mostly relied on scaring us—the fake cameras, the fake grenades. The building was empty because of the holiday weekend, but on Monday, somebody would have found us. It might have been too late for Nico, though. He was pretty badly dehydrated.”

“Tell me all of it.”

“You first. When did you figure it out?”

“Figure out that Mitchell was a psychopath who specialized in one-upmanship and the desperate need to be smarter, better, and in control?”

“Is that really very different from most psychopaths?”

Hazard grimaced. “The answer is: embarrassingly late. Not until I got his message at the hospital. I couldn’t figure out how he kept outsmarting me, staying one step ahead of me, until I flipped it around and realized Mitchell had never been a victim.”

“Nobody else considered that possibility,” Somers said. “I don’t know why you’d be embarrassed. He played it perfectly. Hell, he even gave himself fake freckles when he rented the truck so we’d suspect Dulac. And who would have thought somebody would hurt themselves that badly? Stabbing himself like that, before we found him with Rory and Phil, he could have died.”

“I’m not sure he saw it like that,” Hazard said. “He always thought he had everything perfectly under control. And, of course, a classic trait of psychopaths is an increasing need for stimulation; I think he found it exhilarating. I think that’s also what got him fixated on this idea of challenging me. Now you.”

Somers shrugged. “You did the hard part. Foley and Dulac did what you told them to do: they got help. First they showed up with Sheriff Engels and Yarmark to rescue me and Nico. We left Engels to take care of Nico and the crime scene at the college, and the rest of us went to the Empire Fruit building. Dulac and Yarmark and I went inside. It was pretty easy to follow your path through the building. Well, Dulac got hurt pretty badly by a spear trap, but he’s stable now.” His fingers brushed the bandage on Hazard’s arm. “I got there after Mitchell shot you. I . . . I wasn’t thinking very clearly at that point. I had been recording him, because that old building carries sound pretty well, but I didn’t know if I’d make it in time.”