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<p> “Just tell me one thing. Why do you want it done?” I asked Eamon, as we came around the back side of the building. He shot me a glance. “Insurance money?” I asked.</p>
<p> He looked bored with my questions. “Can you do it or not?”</p>
<p> “Destroy the building?” I shrugged. “Probably. But weather’s a fu
<p> “I don’t care about precision. I care about results.” He stared for a second at the building. “It’s a weekend, and I’ve already made inquiries-there’s nobody working today, and the guard’s been called away. Building’s locked up and unattended for the next six hours. How long will it take?”</p>
<p> I had no earthly idea. I was winging it. “Two hours,” I said.</p>
<p> “What do you need?”</p>
<p> I waggled the Mexican mocha. “Another one of these, and you out of my face.”</p>
<p> He left. I wasn’t stupid enough to assume he’d let me out of his sight, and, of course, there was Sarah holding me hostage for good behavior. I sat down on a boulder on the beach, watching the dark tide roll in. Point Loma Lighthouse glowed not far away, and from somewhere back toward town I heard bells tolling. The night air smelled of sea and rain.</p>
<p> I had an irresistible, self-pitying urge to weep.</p>
<p> “So, are you going to do it?”</p>
<p> Ve
<p> “Are you going to do it?” she asked me again. “You know he only wants it done for the money. I didn’t think you approved of that.”</p>
<p> “<i>Now</i> you show up?”</p>
<p> “Well, I was busy,” she replied. She came and sat down next to me, neat and tidy, hands folded in her lap. The sea air blew her fine blond hair back over her shoulders, and her black shoes dangled several inches off the sand. “Why did you leave?”</p>
<p> “Leave?”</p>
<p> “Where I put you,” she said patiently. “It was a perfectly nice place. I even checked with other people to be sure it was all right.”</p>
<p> “Did you actually rent the room?”</p>
<p> She looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “Why would I do that?”</p>
<p> “Because hotels have a fu
<p> “Oh.” She contemplated that with a slight frown. “I can never keep you people’s rules straight.”</p>
<p> I gave up. “Why didn’t you just find me and poof me away again?”</p>
<p> “It’s dangerous,” she said. “It could kill you.”</p>
<p> I stared at her, struck dumb for a few seconds. Lewis had told me something about this, but honestly, I’d thought he’d been exaggerating. “You mean teleporting me out of the hospital could have killed me? And you were going to tell me this when, exactly?”</p>
<p> She seemed offended. “Most Dji
<p> “Well, that makes all the difference.”</p>
<p> Another largely indifferent shrug. “You’re all right, aren’t you? I didn’t remember the police would want you, too. It’s hard to remember things like that.” She shook her head as if it was amazing anyone would bother with something as trivial as arrests for murder. “You were supposed to stay. I didn’t know you’d leave.”</p>
<p> “I didn’t <i>leave</i>. I was <i>arrested</i>!”</p>
<p> “If you say so.” Alice-Ve
<p> “Not a clue,” I said. “I guess I’ll have to try. He’s going to hurt my sister if I don’t. Unless-”</p>
<p> “I could kill him.” She meant it. And seriously-I considered it, too.</p>
<p> “No,” I said, reluctantly. “I don’t think so. Besides-and don’t take this the wrong way-how do I know you wouldn’t just skip off and leave me with a dead guy and no explanation?”</p>
<p> Alice considered that very gravely. “I suppose you don’t really have any reason to trust me,” she acknowledged. “That’s a problem, isn’t it? I’m sorry. I’m not used to being mistrusted. It’s inconvenient.” Her eyes suddenly focused back on the ocean. “There’s a low pressure system pushing in from Mexico. You can use that. Do you remember how?”</p>
<p> “No.”</p>
<p> She shrugged. “I can show you. Oh, and I’ve thought of a reason you should trust me.”</p>
<p> “Do tell.”</p>
<p> “I could kill you anytime I wanted.” It was a cool, measured observation. Creepy in the extreme. “I’m Dji
<p> I swallowed hard. “Maybe you’re having fun lying to me.”</p>
<p> “Maybe I am. But I’d have more fun doing something else.” She sighed. “I can help you with this, though.”</p>
<p> “You can help me destroy the building. Like Eamon wants.”</p>
<p> “Of course,” she said, as though it were about as easy as scuffing over an anthill. Which, for her, might very well be true. “And then we can kill him.”</p>
<p> <i>Creep. Eeeeee.</i> “No,” I said. “No, we won’t be killing anybody.”</p>
<p> “Why not?” She looked surprised. “Don’t you want him to go away? He scares you, you know.” Yeah, like that was news to me. She must have read that in my expression, because she looked contrite. “I’m sorry. I don’t do this very often. Talk to people. I’m not doing it very well.”</p>
<p> This was turning into pretty much the ultimate in surrealism, I thought. I was having a conversation with Alice in Wonderland about destroying buildings and killing people, and she was worried about her communication skills. We sat in silence for a few seconds, watching people strolling the beach in the distance. It was getting late, so the place was more or less deserted.</p>
<p> I wondered if Eamon was watching us. Probably. I could almost feel the oily slime of his regard.</p>
<p> Ve
<p> The skies opened up, and the rain began to fall like silver knives.</p>
<p> “There,” Ve
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<p> I should have known that we wouldn’t go u
<p> Not the actual cops, the handcuffs-and-truncheon patrol; these were the <i>other</i> kind. The kind who radiated competence and power, and they showed up after Ve