Page 204 of Deep Cover

Or needing to pee.

The things one worries about.

They'd left me on my knees in the middle of the room facing the door, but that got old about ten minutes into the waiting, so I shifted around until I was sitting cross-legged again and then shoved myself up from the floor without using my hands, this time because they were pinned behind me.

Then I went over to the couch and sat down and waited.

Vincent just looked at me when he walked in. I hadn't been going for a reaction. I just didn't want to be on the floor anymore, being on my knees hurt them, and being on my knees in front of Vincent hurt my pride.

"I see you've made yourself at home." He walked to the credenza on the far side of the room and poured himself a drink. "Drink?"

"No." I expected him to fly across the room and grab me and insist it was no, thank you, sir, that's very kind, sir, or the like but he just nodded.

"I'm not sure you understand how this works," he said.

He was standing with his back to me, pouring a drink over at the tall wooden case, ice in the glass, the sound of it ringing like a chime. The gurgle of bourbon poured into a glass. It was all so civilized. If someone were filming it, there wouldn't even be any particular interest right now. Medium height man pouring a drink. Girl on sofa sitting a trifle strangely but so what about that?

Then the camera would pan closer, showing the bruises she had, the split lip, the look of panic in her eyes, the way her clothes barely covered her. The fact that her arms were bound behind her.

About then, I'd turn off whatever show it was and if Mark had the remote, I'd make the statement that either he found something else to watch or I went and did something else. Drugs and prostitution like to go hand in hand. When you have absolutely nothing but you have to be able to buy something, you sell what you have. I'd seen enough degradation and assault in real life and didn't want to watch it during the strange, short times that I was home.

There were so many things I could say in response to what Vincent had just said – I'm not sure you understand how this works – that I opted to keep quiet. See if he said anything else.

Vincent walked back to the couch and sat down beside me. Without speaking, he looked at me with his small, stony eyes, the drink held at chest level.

I breathed out, wishing I could wake up. Even if the dream meant I was in some dim alley strung out on opiates, it would be an improvement. Even if every improvement I'd made with Cole had been part of the dream, it would be worth waking from this.

If everything I'd gone through with Cole was a dream, I'd write it down on waking and use it as a blueprint. And I'd follow it. Scared Straight. Just dreaming there was someone in the world like Vincent Geddes might be enough.

"You're essentially a pawn," Vincent said, and his voice was thready with false sympathy. "You're a stand-in between Cole St. Martin and me, the one we both hurt in order to – "

"Cole doesn't hurt me." Now that was a lie.

He didn't even bother to pretend. "Come now."

I shook my head, as much to shake free of the tears of fury gathering there. "He doesn't hurt me like you do. He doesn't hurt me as some stupid message to you."

I saw the muscle jump in his jaw and knew I'd made contact.

"How do you know?"

For a horrible minute, I couldn't breathe, let alone think or answer. I didn't know. That was the truth. I thought every single thing Cole had done had been predicated on Cole being Cole. Until the auction where this living, breathing asshole paid $5.5 million for the chance to hurt me, I didn't think anything Cole did had anything to do with Vincent Geddes.

I also thought he was trying to help me. Yes, his sick fascination with pain played out during that help, but I thought the biggest part of everything was curing opiate addictions with his rainforest drug.

I was used to the long game when I went undercover. I stayed under for months at a time, the payoff of whatever operation it was occurring without me because otherwise it would be too risky to go back under. Some people only did one stint undercover and that was enough for them. They didn't want to risk their real life being subsumed by it. I understood that. I couldn't imagine not going back under, though. Not while I could still pass for young enough to fit in with the people I was trying to help. It occurred to me that maybe living undercover, living a life that wasn't mine, a fantasy, and going back to it time after time despite having already done good - Maybe that was a form of addiction too.

But the idea that I was a long game between Cole and Vincent was nauseating.

It only lasted for a few seconds, maybe a couple minutes, but during that time the world dropped out from under my feet. What if Cole had done everything he'd done as part of some mad bet? He had all the money in the world. He could be bored and sadistic and playing a game with another bored, rich, sadistic son of a bitch.

The thought persisted for maybe thirty seconds and disappeared with a wave of finality I welcomed. Cole was confusing and confounding. He dealt pain and the occasional pleasure. He was the half seen smile out of one side of his mouth, when he thought I couldn't see him but I'd just said something that made him smile.

He was a triangular smile of mischief when he talked about things that interested him. He was the man who got me all the coursework for the first semester of criminal justice so I could one day leave him and go back into law enforcement, even if it wasn't in Seattle.

Vincent was actually waiting for an answer. I probably could tell him I knew because I was telepathic and he'd go for it. I wasn't sure how crazy he was. And I wasn't brave enough to try it. So I said, "I've been whipped by him." I met Vincent's beady little eyes. "Once you've been beaten by a man, you have his measure."

He met and held my gaze, and showed no emotion.

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