Peace Talks (The Dresden Files, #16)(52)

I struck it away.

Chandler hissed and withdrew his arm, holding it close to his body.

“We have to know, Dresden,” Ramirez said. “Who did you sleep with tonight?”

“Because your sex life is a disaster, you pull this crap on me,” I growled.

Carlos’s face drained of color, but his expression never changed. “Believe it. Who?”

“Suddenly I remember why I have authority issues,” I said. “Go fuck yourself, Ramirez. And tell whoever ordered you to do this to me to pound sand while you’re at it.”

“Captain Luccio ordered me to do this,” Ramirez said quietly. “She’s still your friend. She wants to help you, too.”

“I don’t need this kind of help,” I said. “We’re supposed to be on the same side.”

“We are,” Chandler said emphatically. Then his face fell. “ Unless … we aren’t, I suppose.”

“Every word I’ve said to you is true,” I snapped. Or at least not a lie. “I’ve had enough bullshit from the White Council for one night.”

“Harry, let’s sort this out with the captain,” Chandler said. “Come back to Edinburgh with us. Let’s talk this out, yes?”

It was a rational suggestion, and it was completely unacceptable—because Thomas did not have time for me to spend a full day in a hostile debriefing back in Edinburgh. Those things were thorough and exhausting. It was possible that I’d gone through them maybe once or twice.

That gave me little choice.

“I’ve been talking,” I said. “You aren’t listening. The problem is on your end.” I glared at Ramirez. “I’ve got a lot of work to do. Get out of the road. Or arrest me.” I grounded my staff and shook my shield bracelet clear of my sleeve. “If you can.”

Things got real quiet. No one took their eyes off me, but everyone’s attention was on Ramirez.

He exhaled slowly. Then he said, “My God, Harry, you don’t make it easy, do you?”

“Of the two of us here,” I said, “which of us has definitely wronged the other? You suspect that I might have done something wrong. You’ve definitely wronged me, trying to find out. And you did it first.”

“We’ve both done things we’d rather not have, as Wardens,” he answered. “That’s the job.” He shook his head and, leaning heavily on the cane, limped out of the road. “Six o’clock tomorrow, security meeting at the Four Seasons before the mixer. We’re registered under McCoy.”

I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes. “I’m still on the team, eh?”

“Keep your friends close,” Ramirez said.

I huffed out a breath in a parody of a laugh and turned back toward the Munstermobile.

“Harry,” Ramirez said.

I paused without looking back at him.

“I hope I’m wrong,” he said. “I hope I need to apologize to you later. God, I would love to do that. Please believe that much is true.”

For a second, I felt nothing but tired.

Secrets are heavy, heavy things. Carry around too many of them for too long and the weight will crush the life out of you.

I wanted to tell everyone to take a walk, talk to Ramirez alone, and tell him everything. Carlos was a good man. He’d do the right thing. But the professional paranoia of the White Council made that impossible. Hell, if they thought I’d been subverted, they would regard the fact that I wanted to talk to him alone as proof that I was, myself, trying to isolate Ramirez so that he could be subverted as well. The other Wardens might not even let me have the conversation. And even if I did, if Carlos really thought I’d been made into someone’s sock puppet, he might talk with me and report everything I’d said back to the Council in an effort to discover what disinformation I’d been trying to give them. If he knew I meant to free Thomas, he’d have excellent reason to have me detained, to prevent an incident that could rapidly spiral out of control.

Fear is a prison. But when you combine it with secrets, it becomes especially toxic, vicious. It puts us all into solitary, unable to hear one another clearly.

“You are,” I said tonelessly. “You do.”

Then I got into my car and got moving again.

Alone.





16


I was tired and sick, which isn’t the best frame of mind to be in when you’re doing detail-oriented work, but I wasn’t sure how else to proceed.

Screw it. If I had to do this alone, I would.

I started planning ahead.

So after eating some fast food, I stopped at the trucker station at the highway and bought a shower. I rinsed off meticulously and at length, until I was sure that Ramirez’s tracking spell had lost its hold on me. I also scrubbed off the ink spot, along with a couple of layers of skin so that he wouldn’t be able to get it to lock on again. Once that was done, I made some purchases and headed back out.

I needed some isolation, so I picked a random direction away from the crowds and started following my instincts, doing so until I was damned sure I wasn’t being physically followed. I wound up at the Illinois Beach State Park as the sky in the east was just turning deep blue after several hours of black. It’s about seven miles of the shoreline of Lake Michigan, mostly pebbles and dunes and marshes with low scrub brush and the occasional larger stand of trees. I found parking in a church lot not too far from the park, took my stuff, and headed in. The park wasn’t due to open until well after sunrise, so I’d have to keep an eye out for rangers and other amateur meddlers. The professionals were at work here.