“You’re crazy,” I said softly, looking at Audrey.
“Huh?”
It had just struck me. Audrey was insane.
Each of my aspects were. I barely noticed Tobias’s schizophrenia anymore, let alone Ivy’s trypophobia. But the madness was there, lurking. Each aspect had one, whether it be fear of germs, technophobia, or megalomania. I’d never realized what Audrey’s was until now.
“You think you’re imaginary,” I told her.
“Duh.”
“But it’s not because you’re actually imaginary. It’s because you have a psychosis that makes you think you’re imaginary. You’d think this even if you happened to be real.”
It was hard to see. Many of the aspects accepted their lot, but few confronted it. Even Ivy did that with difficulty. But Audrey flaunted it; she reveled in it. That was because, in her brain, she was a real person who was crazy and therefore thought she wasn’t real. I’d assumed she was self-aware, but that wasn’t it at all. She was as crazy as the others. Her insanity just happened to align with reality.
She glanced at me, then shrugged, and immediately tried to deflect the conversation by asking Tobias about the weather. He, of course, referenced his delusion who lived in the satellite far above. I shook my head, then turned.
And found Dion standing in the doorway, a distinctly uncomfortable look on his face. How much had he watched? He gave me a look like one might give an unfamiliar dog that had just been barking frantically but now seemed calm. Through that whole exchange, I’d been a crazy man, stalking around and talking to himself.
No. I’m not crazy. I have it under control.
Maybe that was my only real madness. Thinking I could handle all of this.
“You found your mother?” I asked.
“In the backyard,” Dion said, thumbing over his shoulder.
“Let’s go talk to her,” I said, brushing past him.
15
I found Ivy and J.C. outside, sitting on the steps. She was rubbing his back as he sat with hands hanging before him, gun in one of them, staring at a beetle crossing the ground. Ivy gave me a glance and shook her head. Not a good time to talk to him.
I headed across the well-tended lawn with Audrey and Tobias in tow. Mrs. Maheras had finished pruning and was now inspecting her tomato plants, pulling off bugs, pulling weeds.
She didn’t look up as I approached. “Stephen Leeds,” she said. Her voice bore a distinct Greek accent. “You’re famous, I hear.”
“Only among people who like gossip,” I said, kneeling down. “The tomatoes look nice. Growing well.”
“I started them inside,” she said, lifting one of the plump, green fruits. “Tomatoes do better after the late frosts are past, but I can’t help wanting to get an early start.”
I waited for Ivy to give me a prompt on what to say, but she was still on the steps. Idiot, I thought at myself. “So . . . you like to garden a lot?”
Mrs. Maheras looked up and met my eyes. “I appreciate people who make decisions and act on them, Mister Leeds. Not people who try to make small talk about things in which they obviously have no interest.”
“Several pieces of me are very interested in gardening,” I said. “I just didn’t bring them along.”
She regarded me, waiting.
I sighed. “Mrs. Maheras, what do you know of your son’s research?”
“Almost nothing,” she said. “Ghastly business.”
I frowned.
“She thinks it took him away from the church,” Dion said behind me, kicking at a clump of dirt. “All of that science and questioning. Heaven help us if a man spends his time thinking.”
“Dion,” she said, “don’t speak stupidity.”
He folded his arms and met her gaze, defiant.
“You work for the people who employed my son,” Mrs. Maheras said, looking at me.
“I just want to find his body,” I said. “Before anything dangerous happens. What can you tell me of your priest?”
“Father Frangos?” she asked. “Why ever would you want to know about him?”
“He was the last person to see the body,” I said. “He visited the coroner on the night before your son’s corpse vanished.”
“Don’t be silly,” Mrs. Maheras said. “He did nothing of the sort—he was here. I requested a house blessing, and he visited.”
To the side, Tobias and Audrey shared a glance. So we had a witness that Father Frangos had not gone in to see the body. Proof an impostor was involved. But what good did that knowledge do us?
“Did Panos give you anything, before he passed away?” I asked her.
“No.”
“It might have been something trivial,” I said. “Are you sure? There’s nothing you can think of?”
She turned back to her plants. “No.”
“Did he spend time with anyone in particular during the last few months?”
“Just the men from that ghastly laboratory.”
I knelt beside her. “Mrs. Maheras,” I said softly. “Lives are at stake because of your son’s research. Many lives. If you are hiding something, you could well cause a national disaster. You don’t need to give it to me. The police—or, better, the FBI—would work just fine. Just don’t gamble with this. Please.”
She glanced at me, lips pursed. Then, her expression hardened. “I have nothing for you.”
I sighed and rose. “Thank you.” I walked away from her, back toward the steps, where J.C. had perked up a little at Ivy’s prodding.
“Well?” he asked me.
“Stonewalled,” I said. “If he did give the key to her, she wouldn’t tell me.”
“Coming here was a mistake,” J.C. said. “A distraction from what we need to do.”
I glanced at the mother, who had continued to regard me, trowel in her hand.
“Admit it, Skinny,” J.C. continued. “If we don’t do something soon, the world is going to get cancer.” He hesitated. “Smet, it sounds stupid when I say it like that.”
“. . . ‘Smet’?” I asked.
“Future curse.”
“Why does it sound so much like—”
“Future curses always sound like our curses,” J.C. said, rolling his eyes. “But they’re not, so it’s okay to say them when prudes are around.” He thumbed at Ivy, still sitting beside him.
“Wait,” Ivy said. “I thought you were from another dimension, not from the future.”