Chapter 7
OAKLEY
I’ve been staring at a blank wall for over an hour.
My new office is blissfully sterile. All shiny surfaces, meant to reflect and disappear into the Hill Country. I’m normally a plant guy. Art too. But right now, I appreciate the emptiness. It’s easier than acknowledging the files that are still open on my laptop.
The second I got to my computer, I pulled Silas’s file. I was so eager to get the answers to the questions I’ve always had. I was in no way prepared for what I found.
I read the reports. Including the report my father wrote about how he killed a human trafficker named Silas Wayne Blake.
Our Silas’s sperm donor.
I saw the videos. Specifically, the one where they found little Sy with animal blood running down his chin. Underfed. Looking like a creepy miniversion of Blake.
I close my eyes, but it doesn’t help.
I register, vaguely, a knock at the door.
“You want me to come back?”
Mav fills the doorway, hesitant.
I shake my head. “Come on in.”
He sits. We stare at each other for a solid minute.
“So…we’re, like, trauma bonded now, right?” he asks.
I laugh, and honestly, I feel better for it. “Basically.”
“Are you okay?”
I snort. “Yeah, maybe. I can’t stop thinking about Silas.”
“Me too. Like, how is he such a good dude with all of that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know what I think?” Mav gives me an appraising look. “I think they brought you in to find that out.”
I send my cousin a tight-lipped grin. “You might be right.” I straighten my pens. “Ready to get started?”
“Sure,” he answers, good humor firmly in place. “Why the fuck not?”
I’m so glad I get to start with him.
“I’ll be developing other tests in the field, but for now, I’m giving you what Aunt Hedy lovingly calls the ‘psycho test.’ And since I know you’re not a psycho, this will end up being my baseline score.”
“How do you know I’m not a psycho?” he asks, popping his brows.
“Because it broke your heart when Uncle Eddie’s eyes turned black,” I say softly. “Worst psycho ever.”
Maverick throws his head back, laughing. “Fair.” He gives me his bring it gesture. “Come on. Gimme the test.”
I shake my head and pull a piece of paper and a pencil from my drawer. “It’s just one sheet, front and back, multiple choice. Don’t overthink it. Just give the first answer that comes to you, and we’ll chat about the results.”
He grimaces as he takes the sheet of paper and the pencil. “You don’t have this on the computer?”
Shit. With everything happening today, I completely whiffed the accessibility. I dearly wish I’d addressed that instead of diving face-first into Silas’s files.
Also…I don’t want these on the Wimberley mainframe just yet.
“I’m trying to keep this analog for now. Would it help for me to read this aloud to you?”
The tension in his shoulders releases. “That works. I may still need you to repeat a few things, but…it’s multiple choice, right?”
“Yep.”
“Then, yeah, that’ll work.” He scratches his temple. “Also, can you turn away from me while I fill it out? I know you’re going to read my answers right away, I just…”
“I totally understand.”
I grab a copy of the test and spin my chair so I’m facing the wall of windows overlooking the small waterfall at the back of the property.
“Question one…”
Maverick’s test goes well. It’s clear he’s been working on some of his language-processing issues, and it doesn’t take us much extra time at all to get through the questions. As I suspected, he ranks low on the psycho scale.
“Congratulations, you’re a sweetheart.”
He shoots me the finger. “Don’t tell anyone.”
I zip my lips, and he gets up. “I’ve got to get to the next thing on Hedy’s Day of Torture, but let’s smoke some weed out by the pool on Friday.”
“Honestly, a brilliant idea.”
He throws the peace sign as he walks out the door. “See ya later, trauma buddy.”
Just as he clears the door, Holmes appears. Where Maverick was initially a little nervous, Holmes is calm.
He sits in front of me and crosses his arms. His typical steady warmth bleeds out and is replaced by… Huh.
Has this day blitzed my frontal lobe, or is that…ego?
Holmes takes the test from me and answers the questions in his usual efficient style. He slides the paper across the desk with a tiny smirk. I go over his answers. Not believing what I’m seeing, I go over them again. When my eyes meet his, he cocks an eyebrow.
Well shit.
His smirk broadens into a smile.
I take a few notes, make a few calculations, and then run it all again.
His amused smile is weirding me the fuck out. It’s reminding me of the surgical residents I went to school with. Specifically, the subset of neurosurgeons who knew that they were brilliant.
“Did you know this would be the result?” I ask, pushing the paper with my notes to him.
He reads through my notes. “Actually, ‘right on the cusp of a sociopathy diagnosis’ is better than I thought I would get. Maybe I’m losing my touch.”
“You’ve gotten higher results?” I ask, a little insecure about the test I poured my blood, sweat, and tears into.
He shakes his head. “Uncle Anders showed me how to trick the tests, but I answered your questions honestly. I didn’t wanna fuck up your hard work.” He taps the page. “What do these numbers mean?”
“You score low-to-moderate in empathy and high in both manipulation and grandiosity. Your self-control scores match those of a neurotypical, which keeps you on this side of a full diagnosis. You’re also oddly high on charm.”
“Oddly high?”
“I don’t view you as charming.”
“That’s because I’m manipulating you into thinking that I’m a by-the-book kind of guy.” He sees the confusion on my face. “It’s dead simple to charm people, and I’m easily bored. I’m more interested in the glamour.”
“Huh.” I stroke my beard. “My sense has always been that you love everyone you call family. Is that part of your glamour?”
He smiles. “Would you believe me if I said no?”
I look at his results again. “You’re capable of love. Maybe not at the same level someone like me would experience, but…I lean toward believing you.” I tilt my hand side to side. “I believe you want to love us and act in accordance with that desire.”
He leans across my desk, suddenly intense. “I do love my family. Killing assholes to support the family business serves that end.” He sits back, lifting a casual shoulder. “Everyone else can get fucked.”
“Now that I believe.”
He seems proud of this accomplishment and gets a little chatty. I let him talk, fascinated by what I learn. Honoré, the other half of H and H, knows. Hedy doesn’t. Mav doesn’t, and Holmes insists he never know.
“I didn’t really care that I’d been keeping the family business a secret from him, but I don’t enjoy it when he is upset. And I would also find it upsetting if he doubted that I love him.”
“That I believe as well.” I smile. “What’s really funny is that this makes for an interesting case study. Identical twins with completely different psychological profiles.”
“Fun fact, sociopathy and psychopathy are shared in twins at about the same percentage as sexuality.”
“Really?”
He nods. “I’ll send you the study.”
I notice, not for the first time, that he doesn’t clarify his sexuality.
We stand, a silent mutual decision to end the conversation. His energy shifts again, and a comforting sense of familiarity comes over me as I recognize the cousin I grew up with.
“Holmes, when it’s just us, you don’t have to—”
He holds up his hand, cutting me off. “Thank you for the offer. I’ll keep it in mind, but it’s easier to maintain the glamour than to turn it on and off.”
“Understood.”
He winks and walks out the door.
Next is Uncle Eddie, who finishes his test in under a minute.
“I suppose you’re used to taking these kinds of tests.”
“Anders says the trick to taking them is to answer C all the way down,” he says, cracking a rare joke.
I double-check, and he seems to have provided genuine answers. His answers also mostly mirror Maverick’s, which I find weirdly endearing.
I share his results, and he compliments me. “Having taken a number of these things, I will say this is the most thorough while also being the most efficient. Well done.”
“Good to know all that scholarship money didn’t go to waste, huh?”
“Very good indeed,” he says, patting my hand before getting up to leave. “I’ll send in Silas next.”
Forty-five minutes pass, and no sign of Silas.
Which is just enough time for me to pore over his files again. This time, instead of staring at the walls, I’m just sad.
I haven’t interviewed him yet, but my sense of Silas is that he loves the killing, that it feeds him. Oddly enough, this might disqualify him from the psycho Olympics.
For one, most psychopaths aren’t killers.
Or, if they are, murder is usually a means to an end, not a source of joy.
In fact, one of the first things I learned in my studies is that psychopaths experience emotional flattening.
They literally cannot process profound emotions, which is why Holmes thought it was important to point out that he loves his family.
This theory is further strengthened when I pull up ops tapes while waiting for Sy to show.
Holy hell.
Silas’s delight in these videos almost certainly excludes him as a psychopath. I still don’t fully understand the nature and impact of the genetic modifications he was subject to. I don’t know if they occurred in the petri dish or after he was born, or what any of that means by way of a label.
His records are surprisingly void of those kinds of details.
As I consider why that is, Silas appears in my doorway, running his hand through his short, messy hair.
Speak of the Devil, and he shall appear.
Silas toes the floor, which is super fucking endearing when paired with his tight musculature, tattoos, and overall aesthetic. I push that thought aside and give him shit for making me wait.
“The point of doing these tests within a few hours of the operation is so we can capture your mental state directly afterward. This delay will impact my test results.”
“Does that mean I don’t have to do it?” he asks, hitting me with a silver-blue doe-eyed look.
I put my hand on my hip. “Don’t look at me like that, Sy.”
“What do you mean? Did my eyes turn black?” He pulls out his phone and turns the camera to selfie mode.
“No. But I know when someone’s acting all helpless and sweet.”
Helpless and sweet, he mouths, shaking his head. “What does that even mean?”
“It means you’re trying to charm me out of making you do an unpleasant task.”
“I don’t mind taking the test.” He sucks in his bottom lip—as if I would ever fall for that. “I’d just rather you weren’t the one seeing the results.”
“Makes sense. It’s highly unethical for me to administer this test to you,” I answer. This is both the truth and, apparently, a common joke in the Wimberley office.
Except. Huh. My words seem to shock him.
“Then why…?” He lets the question die off.
I pick up a stack of papers and tap them on the desk, organizing them. “I talked to Hedy about it this morning, shared my concerns with her, but…”
“This isn’t a legal operation, and ethics are a lot less concrete,” Silas says, parroting Hedy’s words from our conversation almost verbatim.
Huh.
He wrinkles his nose, which is so fucking cute that I… Never mind.
I gesture for him to spill his guts.
“We actually do have ethics,” he insists. “Nothing standard, of course, but there is a discernible right and wrong, I think. And I don’t think forcing this information out of me is on the side of right.”
His sincerity is utterly precious.
I think about Holmes’s test results. Silas has none of his grandiosity or false charms, which further supports my theory of the man.
“You’re not wrong,” I admit. “If it makes a difference, I have already seen your previous tests.”
“You have?”
God, he looks so crushed. Like maybe my opinion of him is important.
I’m reminded that, over the last few months, I’ve caught a vibe from him. I shared that with my sister Amelia when she visited last month, and she wouldn’t. Let. The. Topic. Die.
Worse, she doesn’t think Sy’s merely interested. She’s entirely convinced he’s in love with me.
Sisters.
More importantly, though, I wonder what Dad would think if he could see Silas like this. Vulnerable. Worried about my opinion of him. Would it sway his ingrained fear of the man?
Probably not.
Especially if they already know about the murder room.
Returning my focus to Sy, I answer truthfully. “Yes. I’ve seen your test results and read about your rather disturbing history. I don’t—nor would I ever—judge you. Super promise.”
“You’ll be happy to know that I don’t torture animals or indiscriminately rage out on the unsuspecting public, if that’s the disturbing history you’re so kindly trying to brush over.”
“It is.”
He tugs at his collar.
Adorable.
Adorable and fucking murderous.
“And you don’t judge me for it?”
I shake my head. “You were a little kid, Sy. You’ve worked hard to bring those impulses under control.”
In fact, while this test served as the basis for my doctoral thesis, I often had Silas in mind.
Not because I thought he was a psychopath, but because I knew he’d been given tests like this his entire life.
I wanted to ensure the questions were easy to respond to and treated the subject—someone like Silas—with dignity.
“What about what you saw earlier, in Mav’s initiation?” he asks, challenging me. “You’re not judging me for that either?”
“Not at all.”
I chew on my bottom lip for a second, knowing that honesty is the key to him fully trusting me. “It does color how I see you. Not negatively,” I’m quick to add. “It just adds a layer.”
“Oh.”
I press my lips together. “Also, since you took long enough to get here, I passed the time watching some of the footage from when they found you.”
Silas looks off to the side while pulling at his collar. “And?”
“I’ll answer you if you look me in the eyes.”