“Be right back, don’t worry.”
I felt her watching me as I walked across the room.
“How can I help you, Doctor?” I asked Blackwood.
He stopped just outside the doorway. “Did you see Father Vargas last night?”
I fought to keep my expression neutral. “No, why?”
He peered at me. “He asked me about you... It seemed he was about to speak to you about something. Are you sure you didn’t see him?”
I swallowed, my throat too dry to answer. I wasn’t like Massimo. I was no seasoned killer who could lie with a straight face, and it felt like Blackwood was trying to crack open my skull and inspect my memories.
I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.
“Why don’t you just ask him?” I wondered suddenly, remembering that I shouldn’t know there was anything wrong with Vargas.
Blackwood narrowed his eyes at me, then gripped my upper arm.
“Liars have tells; I’m sure you know that, Katarina. They have tells for when they don’t want to appear like they’re lying. Too much eye contact is one, and not blinking is another. Come with me.”
He tugged me along the hall.Crap.I’d been so busy trying to avoid seeming like a typical liar, I’d acted weird enough to make him suspicious. Or maybe he was just suspicious because he’d known what Vargas’s plans were going to be last night. Either way, he was pissed off. There was an urgent, frantic sort of energy hiding behind his usual stern and dispassionate demeanor that was unsettling.
We reached his office, and he pushed me inside. My ribs twinged hard, and I hid a flinch.
“Doctor, I don’t know what you’re talking about, I didn’t see Father Vargas last night,” I attempted, and stumbled across the floor.
His office was roomy, with a desk and seating area and another area behind a medical curtain. He pulled the curtain back and pointed at the exam table there.
“You’re overdue for your checkup. Sit.”
I took a deep breath and slowly walked over. Resisting now would only get me thrown into solitary. Blackwood had never hurt me, as far as I remembered, and Iwasoverdue for my checkup.
It was the usual routine. Blood pressure, weight, pulse. He checked my eyes with a little light and then my throat.
“I suspect you’re anemic again,” he said, and sighed, as if the nutritional choices I made at Hallow Hall were my own.
He fiddled around with an IV bag before wheeling it over to me.
I drew back. “I feel fine.”
“But you’re not. Aren’t you tired? You haven’t been skipping medication doses, have you?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m always tired, so it doesn’t feel any different.”Crap.I was getting myself into all kinds of trouble today.
He took my arm and cleaned it with a sterile wipe, then slipped the fresh IV needle in. It didn’t hurt. My arms were a patchwork of small, silvery lines of scar tissue. I’d been stuck and poked and prodded so much in the three years I’d been here, an IV going in hardly registered.
“Lie back and relax. Take half an hour to enjoy the quiet,” he said, picking up my medical chart and making copious notes on it.
I lay back, my arm feeling slightly cold where the iron infusion was passing into me.
“So, when was the last time you saw Father Vargas?” Blackwood suddenly asked me. His focus was still trained on his notes, but I had the feeling he was watching me more closely than ever.
“I don’t know, when he walked around with the director, or maybe in the dining room... I think he passed through while the patients were eating.”
“And you’re sure it wasn’t at any other time?”
A wave of tiredness washed over me. It was soft, and gentle, like the breeze of a peaceful sea. Well, what I imagined a breeze off a peaceful sea might feel like. I’d only ever read about them and dreamed.