Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [304]
“You’d like us all to get out of your way,” he continued. “Is that it, Special Agent Margaret O’Dell?” He paused. She pursed her lips, denying him a response, and so he continued, “You want to go after him all by yourself again, because you’re the only one who can capture him. Oh no, excuse me. You’re the only one who can stop him. Perhaps you think stopping him this time will absolve you of his crimes?”
“If I was looking for absolution, Dr. Kernan, I’d be in a church and certainly not sitting here in your office.”
He smiled, a thin-lipped smile. Maggie realized it was the first time she had ever seen the man smile.
“Will you be looking for absolution after you shoot Albert Stucky between the eyes?”
She winced, remembering their last session and how out of control she had been. It reminded her that she still felt out of control, only now the anger gave her a false sense of how close the ledge really was. If she remained angry, perhaps she wouldn’t see the ledge at all. Would she even feel herself slipping or would the fall be abrupt and sudden when it happened?
“Maybe I’ve been around evil too long to care about what I need to do to destroy it.” She was no longer concerned with what she told him. He couldn’t use any of it to hurt her. No one could hurt her more than Stucky already had. “Maybe,” she continued, letting the anger drive her, “maybe I need to be as evil as Albert Stucky in order to stop him.”
He stared at her, but this time it was different. He was contemplating what she had said. Would he have some smart-ass response? Would he try his reverse psychology on her? She wasn’t one of his naive students anymore. She could play at his game. After all, she had played with someone ten times as twisted as him. If she could play at Albert Stucky’s game, then Dr. James Kernan’s would be nothing more than child’s play.
She stared him down, without flinching, without fidgeting. Had she rendered the old man speechless?
Finally he sat forward, elbows on his messy desk, fingers constructing a tent of bent and misshapen digits.
“So that’s what concerns you, Margaret O’Dell?”
She had no idea what he was talking about, but she kept the question from her face.
“You’re concerned,” he said slowly, as if approaching a delicate subject. It was an unfamiliar gesture, one that immediately made Maggie suspicious. Was it another of Kernan’s famous tricks or was he genuinely concerned? She hoped for a trick. That, she could handle. The concern, she wasn’t too sure about.
“You’re worried,” he began again, “that you may be capable of the same sort of evil Albert Stucky is capable of.”
“Aren’t we all, Dr. Kernan?” She paused for his reaction. “Isn’t that what Jung meant when he said we all have a shadow side?” She watched him closely, wanting to see how it felt to have one of his students contradict him with his own teachings. “Evil men do what good men only dream of doing. Isn’t that true, Dr. Kernan?”
He shifted in his chair. She should have counted the succession of eye blinks. She wanted to smile, because she had him on the ropes, so to speak. But there was no victory in this truth.
“I believe—” he hesitated to clear his throat “—I believe Jung said that evil is as essential a component of human behavior as good. That we must learn to acknowledge and accept that it exists within all of us. But no, that doesn’t mean we’re all capable of the same kind of evil as someone like Albert Stucky. There’s a difference, my dear Agent O’Dell, between stepping into evil and getting your shoes muddy, and choosing to dive in and wallow in it.”
“But how do you stop from falling in headfirst?” She felt an annoying catch in her throat as the inner frenzy threatened to reveal itself. Her thoughts of revenge were black and evil and very real. Had she already dived in?
“I’m going to tell you something, Maggie O’Dell, and I want you to listen very closely.” He leaned forward, his face serious, his magnified eyes pinning her to the chair with their unfamiliar concern. “I don’t give a rat