End of Watch (Bill Hodges Trilogy #3)(75)

Her first thought is to call 911, get an ambulance over here and go to the hospital, but what will she tell them? That a man claiming to be a Mormon or a Jehovah’s Witness knocked on her door, and when she opened it, he shot her? Shot her why? For what? And why would she, a woman living alone, open her door to a stranger at ten thirty in the evening?

That isn’t all. The police will come. In her bedroom is an ounce of pot and an eightball of coke. She could get rid of that shit, but what about the shit in her computer room? She’s got half a dozen illegal hacks going on, plus a ton of expensive equipment that she didn’t exactly buy. The cops will want to know if just perchance, Ms Linklatter, the man who shot you had something to do with said electronic gear. Maybe you owed him money for it? Maybe you were working with him, stealing credit card numbers and other personal info? And they can hardly miss the repeater, blinking away like a Las Vegas slot machine as it sends out its endless signal via WiFi, delivering a customized malware worm every time it finds a live Zappit.

What’s this, Ms Linklatter? What exactly does it do?

And what will she tell them?

She looks around, hoping to see the envelope of cash lying on the floor or the couch, but of course he took it with him. If there was ever cash in there at all, and not just cut-up strips of newspaper. She’s here, she’s shot, she’s had a concussion (please God not a fracture) and she’s low on dough. What to do?

Turn off the repeater, that’s the first thing. Dr Z has got Brady Hartsfield inside him, and Brady is a bad motorcycle. Whatever the repeater’s doing is nasty shit. She was going to turn it off anyway, wasn’t she? It’s all a little vague, but wasn’t that the plan? To turn it off and exit stage left? She doesn’t have that final payment to help finance her flight, but despite her loose habits with cash, there’s still a few thousand in the bank, and Corn Trust opens at nine. Plus, there’s her ATM card. So turn off the repeater, nip that creepy zeetheend site in the bud, wash the gore off her face, and get the fuck out of Dodge. Not by plane, these days airport security areas are like baited traps, but by any bus or train headed into the golden west. Isn’t that the best idea?

She’s up and shuffling toward the door of the computer room when the obvious reason why it is not the best idea hits her. Brady is gone, but he wouldn’t leave if he couldn’t monitor his projects from a distance, especially the repeater, and doing that is the easiest thing in the world. He’s smart about computers – brilliant, actually, although it pisses her off to admit it – and he’s almost certainly left himself a back door into her setup. If so, he can check in any time he wants; all it will take is a laptop. If she shuts his shit down, he’ll know, and he’ll know she’s still alive.

He’ll come back.

‘So what do I do?’ Freddi whispers. She trudges to her window, shivering – it’s so fucking cold in this apartment once winter comes – and looks out into the dark. ‘What do I do now?’





12


Hodges is dreaming of Bowser, the feisty little mongrel he had when he was a kid. His father hauled Bowser to the vet and had him put down, over Hodges’s weeping protests, after ole Bowse bit the newspaper boy badly enough to require stitches. In this dream Bowser is biting him, biting him in the side. He won’t let go even when young Billy Hodges offers him the best treat in the treat bag, and the pain is excruciating. The doorbell is ringing and he thinks, That’s the paperboy, go bite him, you’re supposed to bite him.

Only as he swims up from this dream and back into the real world, he realizes it isn’t the doorbell, it’s the phone by his bed. The landline. He gropes for it, drops it, picks it up off the duvet, and manages a furry approximation of hello.

‘Figured you’d have your cell on do not disturb,’ Pete Huntley says. He sounds wide awake and weirdly jovial. Hodges squints at the bedside clock but can’t read it. His bottle of painkillers, already half empty, is blocking the digital readout. Jesus, how many did he take yesterday?

‘I don’t know how to do that, either.’ Hodges struggles to a sitting position. He can’t believe the pain has gotten so bad so fast. It’s as if it was just waiting to be identified before pouncing with all its claws out.

‘You need to get a life, Kerm.’

A little late for that, he thinks, swinging his legs out of bed.

‘Why are you calling at …’ He moves the bottle of pills. ‘At twenty to seven in the morning?’

‘Couldn’t wait to give you the good news,’ Pete says. ‘Brady Hartsfield is dead. A nurse discovered him on morning rounds.’

Hodges shoots to his feet, producing a stab of pain he hardly feels. ‘What? How?’

‘There’ll be an autopsy later today, but the doctor who examined him is leaning toward suicide. There’s a residue of something on his tongue and gums. The doc on call took a sample, and a guy from the ME’s office is taking another as we speak. They’re going to rush the analysis, Hartsfield being such a rock star and all.’

‘Suicide,’ Hodges says, running a hand through his already crazed hair. The news is simple enough, but he still can’t seem to take it in. ‘Suicide?’

‘He was always a fan,’ Pete says. ‘I believe you might have said that yourself, and more than once.’