Mr. Mercedes (Unnamed Trilogy #1)(108)

He tucks his wallet away in his back pocket, starts to close the safe, then re-thinks. There’s something else in there he might want: a small flat leather case that looks like the sort of thing a frequent flier might keep his passport in. This was also his father’s.

Hodges slips it into his pocket with the Happy Slapper.

5

After cleansing the stubble on his skull and donning his new plain glass specs, Brady strolls down to the Motel 6 office and pays for another night. Then he returns to his room and unfolds the wheelchair he bought on Wednesday. It was pricey, but what the hell. Money is no longer an issue for him.

He puts the explosives-laden ASS PARKING cushion on the seat of the chair, then slits the lining of the pocket on the back and inserts several more blocks of his homemade plastic explosive. Each block has been fitted with a lead azide blasting plug. He gathers the connecting wires together with a metal clip. Their ends are stripped down to the bare copper, and this afternoon he’ll braid them into a single master wire.

The actual detonator will be Thing Two.

One by one, he tapes Baggies filled with ball bearings beneath the wheelchair’s seat, using crisscrossings of filament tape to hold them in place. When he’s done, he sits on the end of the bed, looking solemnly at his handiwork. He really has no idea if he’ll be able to get this rolling bomb into the Mingo Auditorium . . . but he had no idea if he’d be able to escape from City Center after the deed was done, either. That worked out; maybe this will, too. After all, this time he won’t have to escape, and that’s half the battle. Even if they get wise and try to grab him, the hallway will be crammed with concertgoers, and his score will be a lot higher than eight.

Out with a bang, Brady thinks. Out with a bang, and f**k you, Detective Hodges. Fuck you very much.

He lies down on the bed and thinks about masturbating. Probably he should while he’s still got a prick to masturbate with. But before he can even unsnap his Levi’s, he’s fallen asleep.

On the night table beside him stands a framed picture. Frankie smiles from it, holding Sammy the Fire Truck in his lap.

6

It’s nearly eleven A.M. when Hodges and Jerome arrive at Birch Hill Mall. There’s plenty of parking, and Jerome pulls his Wrangler into a spot directly in front of Discount Electronix, where all the windows are sporting big SALE signs. A teenage girl is sitting on the curb in front of the store, knees together and feet apart, bent studiously over an iPad. A cigarette smolders between the fingers of her left hand. It’s only as they approach that Hodges sees there’s gray in the teenager’s hair. His heart sinks.

“Holly?” Jerome says, at the same time Hodges says, “What in the hell are you doing here?”

“I was pretty sure you’d figure it out,” she says, butting her butt and standing up, “but I was starting to worry. I was going to call you if you weren’t here by eleven-thirty. I’m taking my Lexapro, Mr. Hodges.”

“So you said, and I’m glad to hear it. Now answer my question and tell me what you’re doing here.”

Her lips tremble, and although she managed eye contact to begin with, her gaze now sinks to her loafers. Hodges isn’t surprised he took her for a teenager at first, because in many ways she still is one, her growth stunted by insecurities and by the strain of keeping her balance on the emotional highwire she’s been walking all her life.

“Are you mad at me? Please don’t be mad at me.”

“We’re not mad,” Jerome says. “Just surprised.”

Shocked is more like it, Hodges thinks.

“I spent the morning in my room, browsing the local I-T community, but it’s like we thought, there are hundreds of them. Mom and Uncle Henry went out to talk to people. About Janey, I think. I guess there’ll have to be another funeral, but I hate to think about what will be in the coffin. It just makes me cry and cry.”

And yes, big tears are rolling down her cheeks. Jerome puts an arm around her. She gives him a shy grateful glance.

“Sometimes it’s hard for me to think when my mother is around. It’s like she puts interference in my head. I guess that makes me sound crazy.”

“Not to me,” Jerome says. “I feel the same way about my sister. Especially when she plays her damn boy-band CDs.”

“When they were gone and the house was quiet, I got an idea. I went back down to Olivia’s computer and looked at her email.”

Jerome slaps his forehead. “Shit! I never even thought of checking her mail.”

“Don’t worry, there wasn’t any. She had three accounts—Mac Mail, Gmail, and AO-Hell—but all three folders were empty. Maybe she deleted them herself, but I don’t think so because—”

“Because her desktop and hard drive were full of stuff,” Jerome says.

“That’s right. She has The Bridge on the River Kwai in her iTunes. I’ve never seen that. I might check it out if I get a chance.”

Hodges glances toward Discount Electronix. With the sun glaring on the windows it’s impossible to tell if anyone’s watching them. He feels exposed out here, like a bug on a rock. “Let’s take a little stroll,” he says, and leads them toward Savoy Shoes, Barnes & Noble, and Whitey’s Happy Frogurt Shoppe.

Jerome says, “Come on, Holly, give. You’re drivin me crazy here.”