Esmerelda hypnosis

If Susan wanted me dead, she wouldn't really need to contract it out. A pretext to get me alone and another one to put us very close to each other would just about do it. And I'd never see that one coming.
Something about this just wasn't right. I'd have called Stevie a liar, but I didn't think he was one. I was sure he believed what he was saying.
So. Either Stevie was lying and I was just too dim to pick up on it, or he was telling the truth. If he was lying, given what kind of hot water I could get him into, he was also an idiot. I didn't think he was one of those. If he was telling the truth, it meant . . .
It meant that either Susan really had hired someone to kill me, or else someone who could look like Susan had done business with Stevie D. If Susan had hired someone to kill me, why this guy, in particular? Why hire someone who didn't have better than even chances of pulling it off? That was more the kind of thing Esteban and Esmerelda would come up with.
That worked a lot better. Esmerelda's blue and green eyes could have made Stevie remember being hired by Mister Snuffleupagus, if that was what she wanted. But how would she have known where to find me? Had they somehow managed to tail Sanya back to the church from my apartment without being noticed by Mouse?


Changes Chapter 33, Page 321