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I followed hih into a small room with a tay mirror in the far wall

Jeff Caldwell raised his head and looked atThey were flat and devoid of all eustine assured me that only the police would be present

The door closed behind me

“What is this?” Caldwell asked

Myyour hand into a bucket of slime

“I did nothing wrong,” he said

True He actually believed that His eyes were still flat like those of a toad

“Are you just going to stand there? This is ridiculous”

“Did you kidnap Amy Madrid?” I asked

“No”

My

“Are you holding her somewhere?”

“No”

Lie

My ic snapped out and claid His nostrils fluttered as his breathing sped up, racing in tune to his rising pulse Finally, emotion flooded his eyes, and that emotion was raw, sharp terror

I opened ic saturate my voice It came out low and inhuman “Tell me where she is”

Chapter 1

Figuring out when people lied ca soao I didn’t even realize I had the power to do it Picking through Jeff Caldwell’s htin panic, threatening to shatter his ownthe inforh to stand trial I’d gotten what I wanted anyway, and when I exited MII’s building, a caravan of cop cars had taken off down Capitol Street, an urgent cacophony of sirens deht of way

Jeff Caldwell had drainedwas an effort Soh Houston’s notorious traffic, turned onto the road leading to our house, and aln It was a bad place, too; delivery trucks had a nasty habit of rolling out this way as if other cars didn’t exist

Nothing rolled out today I glanced down the access road anyway A two-foot-high steel barrier bristling with thick six-inch-long spikes blocked the street Judging by the indentations in the paveround If you added some blood and tattered cloth on the spikes, it would fit into any postapocalyptic o The last time two trucks collided here must’ve resulted in some serious lawsuit