بخش 04 - فصل 23

23

Jerome listens carefully to what Hodges tells him, then shakes his head. “No way, Bill. I need to come.”

“What you need to do is go home and be with your family,” Hodges says. “You especially need to be with your sister. She had a close call yesterday.”

They are sitting in a corner of the Hilton’s reception area, speaking in low voices although even the desk clerk has retired to the nether regions. Jerome is leaning forward, hands planted on his thighs, his face set in a stubborn frown.

“If Holly’s going—”

“It’s different for us,” Holly says. “You must see that, Jerome. I don’t get along with my mother, never have. I see her once or twice a year, at most. I’m always glad to leave, and I’m sure she’s glad to see me go. As for Bill . . . you know he’ll fight what he’s got, but both of us know what the chances are. Your case is not like ours.”

“He’s dangerous,” Hodges says, “and we can’t count on the element of surprise. If he doesn’t know I’ll come for him, he’s stupid. That’s one thing he never was.”

“It was the three of us at the Mingo,” Jerome says. “And after you went into vapor lock, it was just Holly and me. We did okay.”

“Last time was different,” Holly says. “Last time he wasn’t capable of mind control juju.”

“I still want to come.”

Hodges nods. “I understand, but I’m still the wheeldog, and the wheeldog says no.”

“But—”

“There’s another reason,” Holly says. “A bigger reason. The repeater’s offline and the website’s shut down, but that leaves almost two hundred and fifty active Zappits. There’s been at least one suicide already, and we can’t tell the police all of what’s going on. Isabelle Jaynes thinks Bill’s a meddler, and anyone else would think we’re crazy. If anything happens to us, there’s only you. Don’t you understand that?”

“What I understand is that you’re cutting me out,” Jerome says. All at once he sounds like the weedy young kid Hodges hired to mow his lawn all those years ago.

“There’s more,” Hodges says. “I might have to kill him. In fact, I think that’s the most likely outcome.”

“Jesus, Bill, I know that.”

“But to the cops and the world at large, the man I killed would be a respected neurosurgeon named Felix Babineau. I’ve wiggled out of some tight legal corners since opening ­Finders Keepers, but this one could be different. Do you want to risk being charged as an accessory to aggravated manslaughter, defined in this state as the reckless killing of a human being through culpable negligence? Maybe even Murder One?”

Jerome squirms. “You’re willing to let Holly risk that.”

Holly says, “You’re the one with most of your life still ahead of you.”

Hodges leans forward, even though it hurts to do so, and cups the broad nape of Jerome’s neck. “I know you don’t like it. I didn’t expect you would. But it’s the right thing, for all the right reasons.”

Jerome thinks it over, and sighs. “I see your point.”

Hodges and Holly wait, both of them knowing this is not quite good enough.

“Okay,” Jerome says at last. “I hate it, but okay.”

Hodges gets up, hand to his side to hold in the pain. “Then let’s snag that SUV. The storm’s coming, and I’d like to get as far up I-47 as possible before we meet it.”