Play Dirty (Wages of Sin #2) - Neve Wilder Page 0,65
“But I couldn’t do it. I got attached in spite of myself.” He rubbed a long finger over his brow and settled a weightier gaze on the two of them. Madigan inferred the point the man was trying to make and acknowledged it with a noncommittal grunt.
Dr. Eastman slipped the disc in his pocket. “My next appointment with Bennington is in two days. I’d like proof of life each morning and afternoon. I’m sure I’m correct in my assumption that you already know every way to contact me, where I live. Most of my clients do, aside from the ones in prison.” Madigan nodded, briefly wondering what it must be like to live immersed in a world of pathological people, never fully safe. Eastman smoothed a hand over his trousers. “She’s allergic to regular dog food and needs a special brand called Terra Canine. If I’m caught by Bennington and hurt, you will not harm her or send her to a kill shelter. You will make sure she is properly re-homed. Agreed?”
Madigan shrugged a yes as Az nodded, and the three of them stood.
The doctor tucked his tablet away in his messenger bag and slid the strap over his shoulder. From his pocket, he pulled a business card and tossed it on the table. “My personal cell is on there, though, once again, I’m certain you either have it already or can easily acquire it on your own.” He sighed, and for a moment, his mask slipped, and Madigan glimpsed weariness.
He and Az trailed the doctor slowly down the hallway.
At the door, Eastman turned back to them, fixing them with a gimlet-eyed stare. “Neither of you are true psychopaths, by the way. Borderline, perhaps. But neither of you would be suffering were you pure in your psychopathy. Your relationship troubles stem from the fact that you’re both deeply enmeshed with each other and despise the idea of making yourself vulnerable to the other. Your profession reinforces and rewards mistrust, I suspect, and likely, you have both been either betrayed by someone close to you or witnessed repercussions of such a betrayal. Yet, the pull is strong enough that you can’t resist. You cycle through the same pattern over and over again: intimacy, betrayal, retreat. You treat it like an addiction to avoid the truth: that you’re in love with each other. But you’ll have to make yourselves vulnerable if you truly want this relationship to survive. You get off on the competition with each other. Fine. Find a way to accept these truths and capitalize on them in your relationship. That’s the only way it will work.”
He let himself out, and Madigan watched the man’s back disappear down the hallway, his jaw still unhinged. After a moment, he shook his head. “He’s a strange man.”
“Very,” Azrael agreed.
“Do psychiatrists take the Hippocratic oath? He didn’t seem particularly concerned about betraying one of his clients.”
Azrael leaned out and checked the hallway before he pushed the door fully shut and locked it. “I think so. But again, he’s an unusual man. Perhaps he has his own motivations.”
“He could leave right now and sell us out. Reveal where we are.”
“I don’t think he’ll do that. It wouldn’t serve him.” Azrael reached out and caught Madigan by the wrist. “The things he said, Madigan, I think we should—”
“Later,” Madigan clipped, pulling out his phone as it vibrated once more. He glanced down at the message on-screen and strode toward the dining area where he’d left the laptop a courier had delivered a few days prior. “Cas just sent the layout of Bennington’s compound.”
Madigan dropped into a dining chair and fired up his laptop, decrypted the email Cas had sent, and pored over the information, only noting Az’s absence when something clanked in the kitchen.
“Aren’t you going to come look at this with me?”
“In a minute.” Az appeared at the bar counter separating the kitchen from the dining area. “I’m making dinner. You’ve hardly eaten today, and I’m tired of takeout. Everything’s too fucking salty.”
Madigan’s lips twitched. “Feeling bloated, sweetheart?” Az flipped him off, and he returned the gesture. Az didn’t look remotely bloated. He looked like a fucking snack in a casual tee with a kitchen towel tossed casually over his shoulder. Like a domestic fantasy come to life. Fuck. Since when had Madigan had anything remotely approaching a domestic fantasy? Never. Regardless, his stomach twinged with an ache that wasn’t a hunger pang, and his smile faded. “I did eat earlier.”