“I can’t answer that,” he said, staring at his hands. “I’m very sorry, but I don’t have the authority—”

“Mr. Cooper,” Adam interrupted. “Ms. Kingsley has remembered more than enough to drop you in a kettle of very hot water. I’m willing to listen to your side of the story before I take any drastic actions.”

Cooper raised his chin in what was supposed to look like defiance. It would have worked better if fear didn’t radiate from his every pore. “I’ll be happy to answer your questions. Just as soon as my lawyer is present.”

Adam laughed, and the sound raised the hairs on the back of my neck. I can’t imagine what it must have done to Cooper. I laid my hand on Adam’s arm.

“Let’s just stay calm and discuss this like civilized human beings,” I said. Only with Adam was it possible for me to play the “good cop.” Adam leaned forward in his seat, staring at Cooper once more with unblinking eyes, but he didn’t say anything. That was probably creepier than any threat he could have uttered.

“The cat is well and truly out of the bag,” I said. “There’s no point in trying to hold on to your secrets.”

Cooper took off his glasses and started polishing the lenses with his shirttail. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No,” I answered patiently, “I don’t. That’s why I’m asking you to explain.”

He kept polishing. “I can’t answer your questions.”

“Yes, you can. You just don’t want to. Unfortunately for you, you don’t have a choice.”

He didn’t say anything, just shook his head and kept polishing those glasses as if his life depended on it.

“Are we going to have to resort to the same methods you used on me when I wouldn’t do what you wanted?”

His hands jerked, and the glasses dropped to the floor. When he bent to retrieve them, I saw that he was shaking. If I didn’t have the image in my mind of him ordering Dr. Neely to give me another jolt of electricity, I might have felt sorry for him.

“Are you threatening me?” he asked, his voice shaking as badly as his hands.

Well, duh! “If you have no memory of doing anything bad to me, then why should you be worried?”

He jammed the glasses back on his face. “I didn’t say I didn’t remember. I said I can’t talk about it.”

“You can and will,” Adam said, his voice surprisingly mild. But to Cooper, that mild voice must have sounded as terrifying as a growl.

He shook his head, and white showed all around his pupils. “I can’t!” he repeated. “Raphael would kill me. Or worse.” He looked at Adam with pleading eyes. “You know who Raphael is!”

“Yeah, and I don’t give a flying fuck.” Cooper jumped at the sudden vulgarity.

Playing good cop again, I reached out to pat Adam’s arm. “Take it down a notch.” I gave Cooper my best sympathetic smile, though I didn’t care if it was patently false. “I asked Adam to let me do the talking, but as I’m sure you know, he’s got a bit of a temper on him.” Beside me, Adam cracked his knuckles, and Cooper jumped. I gave Adam a dirty look out of the corner of my eye. If Cooper were any more terrified, he might faint dead away.

I put the smile back on. “It’s not like we’re going to go to Raphael and report everything you tell us. He never has to know how we got our information. For all he’ll know, it all came back to me, and someone let slip your big secrets while they thought I was out cold.”

Cooper’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “You don’t know Raphael.”

Actually, I probably knew him far better than Cooper, but that was beside the point. “And you don’t know me and Adam. We’re asking you nicely, but that could change.”

This time, he didn’t feel compelled to ask if that was a threat. He lowered his face into his hands, forgetting about the glasses until he inadvertently knocked them off. He didn’t bother to retrieve them. His shoulders shook, and I realized with my first hint of genuine pity that he was crying. I had never liked Raphael, and after talking with Andy, I knew he was a bad dude. But I hadn’t realized until now just how bad.

“Are you going to talk to us?” Adam asked, and he’d gone back to using his calm, gentle voice.

I prayed that Cooper would start talking, and I held my breath as I waited for his answer. When he shook his head, the air rushed out of my lungs, and I felt something very much like despair. It didn’t matter what this bastard had done to me—I didn’t know how I could stand to see Adam interrogate him.

I turned to Adam to beg him for more time, but he held up his hand for silence, his eyes meeting mine.

“There’s another way we can do this,” he said cryptically, then rose from the couch and crossed to Cooper. Cooper didn’t raise his head, didn’t acknowledge in any way that he noticed. Adam crouched in front of him, then reached out and touched Cooper’s hand.

It was just a casual touch, a quick brush of skin on skin. But Cooper’s whole body shuddered, and when Adam rose and came to sit beside me on the couch once more, I knew what he had done.

Cooper didn’t move, and Adam didn’t speak. I had to clear my throat before I could find my own voice.

“Is Cooper going to be a vegetable when this is over?” I asked.

Adam sighed. He promised he’d do his best not to do any damage, but he couldn’t guarantee results.

Then I asked the important question. “And is Cooper going to live through this interview?”

Adam nodded. “He can’t prove we did anything to him, so he’s not really a threat to us.”

I stared at Cooper, who still hadn’t moved. “How long is this going to take?”

“Shouldn’t be long. He can access Cooper’s memories almost instantly. He’ll just need to stay in there long enough to sort them out and make sure he knows all the important stuff.”

In all the possible scenarios I had built in my mind, this one had never occurred to me, though now it seemed patently obvious. What better way to get the truth out of Cooper than to rummage through his mind? Even if we’d gotten answers out of him using Adam’s more dubious interrogation techniques, we couldn’t have been sure it was the truth.

A chill crawled down my spine as I absorbed all the implications. “Why didn’t he do this when he interrogated Val?” In reality, he hadn’t hurt my best friend and betrayer very much, but he could have avoided everything just by possessing her.

Cooper raised his head, but it was the demon Adam who looked out of his eyes. “Don’t,” he said, staring at his host intensely.

His host returned the stare, but spoke anyway. “Because Adam knew from the beginning he was going to kill her. She was a danger to both of you, even if he hadn’t laid a hand on her.”

Cooper made a disgusted face. “Thanks a lot. Now I’m going to have to listen to Morgan’s opinion of me for the entire ride home.”

“She would have figured it out on her own anyway. Are you ready to come back to me?”

Instead of answering, Cooper just held out his hand. While I was still struggling to process everything, Adam clasped Cooper’s hand. A moment later, Cooper collapsed in a heap on the floor, and Adam was back to himself once more.