Lock In (Lock In, #1)(87)

“When I was in Bell, Sam was supposed to link right in and take over Johnny. But Sam got distracted for a couple of minutes. Johnny came to, looked around, grabbed a love seat, and ran at the window with it, and pushed it out into the street. Then he came back, grabbed a glass, and smashed it against the dresser. I thought he was going to use it on me. I put up my hands.

“He yelled at me, telling me that now someone would come up to see what was happening. He wanted to stop being used. He wanted to know what he was being used for. He said he wanted to go home.”

Hubbard paused again.

“Keep going,” Vann said. “If you won’t say it, Bell will. It’s all coming out, Hubbard.”

“I laughed at him,” Hubbard said. “I knew Sam was coming to link to him and then that would be the end of it. So I told him that what he was being used for was to make me very rich. He wanted to know if he’d ever been made to hurt people. I told him that he didn’t remember it anyway so he shouldn’t worry about it.

“Then he said to me, ‘I know you’re a bad man and I know you won’t let me go home so now I’m going to make trouble for you.’

“And then he cut his throat.”

May and Janis stared at Hubbard stonily. I remembered Klah Redhouse telling me how they tried not to show too much grief.

“I’m sorry—” Hubbard said, looking at May and Janis.

“Don’t you dare,” Janis spat. “You’re not sorry Johnny is dead. You were going to kill someone today. You’re sorry you got caught. But you did get caught. You got caught because Johnny stopped you from getting away with what you were doing. He made trouble for you, just like he said. My brother was slow but he could figure things out if he took enough time. He figured you out. And now look at you. My brother is ten of you.”

Janis helped May up out of the chair. The two of them left the room without looking back.

“You saw him cut his throat, but then you panicked, didn’t you,” Vann said, after they left. “You actually left Bell’s body for at least a couple of minutes.”

“Yes,” Hubbard said. “I left but Sam told me to go back in. He said if Bell told anyone about his experience that they would figure out what we had done, and sooner or later it would come back to us. I had to stay with Bell until the thing was done.” He snorted. “He said he’d come up with a cover story that would last through Saturday, and that would be long enough. For all the good it did either of us.”

“You were gone just long enough for Bell to give us a clue,” Vann said. “He was confused just enough by what was happening to let us know something was seriously wrong. Thanks for that.”

Hubbard smirked ruefully and looked up at Vann. “Now what,” he said.

“Now it’s time for you to go get arrested for real, Mr. Hubbard,” Vann said. “Go back to your body. Do it now.”

“You need to swap out the patch,” Hubbard said.

“About that,” Tony said.

“What about it?” Hubbard asked.

“We lied to you,” Vann said. “There was no patch.”

“There was a general patch that closed the interpolator back door,” Tony said. “That was true. So if you backed out you wouldn’t have been able to come back in.”

“But we knew you wouldn’t do that,” Vann said. “So we decided to press our luck.”

“There was no script-flipper either,” Hubbard said.

“If we had that, we would have led with that,” I said. “And then we would have made you watch your company burn.”

“Now, go, Hubbard,” Vann said. “My colleagues are waiting for you. You’ve got a lot to answer for.”

Hubbard left, which was not noticeable.

Nicholas Bell surfacing was. He shook himself, almost knocking over his chair, and sucked in his breath. “Jesus,” he said.

“Nicholas Bell,” Vann said.

“Yes,” Bell said. “Yes. It’s me.”

“Nice to meet you,” Vann said.

“Hold still,” I said, gently putting a hand on his shoulder. “I need to get you out of these cuffs.” I undid him. He shook out his arms and rubbed his wrists.

“Mr. Bell,” Vann said.

“Yes,” he said.

“What Hubbard said about Johnny Sani,” Vann asked.

Bell nodded. “It was true,” he said.

“I’m sorry you had to watch that,” Vann said.

Bell laughed, shakily. “It’s been a long week,” he said.

“Yes,” Vann said. “That it has.”

“I hate to say this,” I said, to Bell. “But we need to have you answer some questions. We need you to tell us everything you saw or heard while Hubbard had control of your body.”

“Trust me, I intend to tell you everything I know about that son of a bitch,” Bell said. “But there’s something I really would like to do before I do that. If I can. If you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” Vann said. “Tell us what you would like to do.”

“I’d really like to see my sister now,” Bell said.





Chapter Twenty-five

VANN POINTED AT the stage in front of the Lincoln Memorial, where the speakers for the Haden march stood. “Your father looks pretty good up there,” she said, nodding toward Dad, standing next to President Becenti and Cassandra Bell, held in a portable cradle.