So this is how the world ends, I thought, remembering the T. S. Eliot poem from high school. Not with a bang but a whimper.
I wanted to fight. Whatever happened tonight, I wanted to be the one who finally inflicted damage, caused bodily harm. Win or lose, Detective D. D. Warren and her team would get some fresh evidence from my crime scene. That was my resolution.
Eleven thirty. Shirlee Wertz appeared, black curly hair held back by a red bandana, overflowing book bag slung over her shoulder. We ran through the call log, I caught her up on drunk Vinnie and his disappearing body parts. Then I transferred my headset to her, stepped away from the desk, and took one look back.
Would I miss this?
I’d be taking a two-week vacation, that’s all I’d told the higher-ups. No drama over my departure this way. No burning questions about my future, life after the twenty-first.
It’s funny, but my throat felt tight. I stared at the ANI ALI monitor and I was choked up.
I’d liked this job. I cared about my officers, felt the burden and honor of watching their backs. I felt that, in a small, feeble way, in this dark room, manning these lines, I’d spent the past year making a difference.
Eleven forty-five A.M. Eight hours fifteen minutes.
I found my messenger bag. I exited the Grovesnor PD. And I forced myself not to look back.
I went straight for my gun. Far edge of the parking lot, beneath the prickly bush. I looked right, looked left. Coast clear, so I bent down to retrieve it.
Except it wasn’t there. I dug around. Little more to the left, little more to the right, then abandoning all pretense and frantically unearthing the snow mound with two hands, like a terrier pawing away the earth.
Nothing.
Gun was gone. All that remained was an icy hole, topped with plow sand and city dirt.
In the distance, sirens sounded. One, two, three patrol cars.
Who could’ve taken it?
I’d told no one. Hidden it only at the last moment, when no one was watching. How could someone foresee something I hadn’t even known I would do?
The hairs prickled to life on the back of my neck. I finally understood.
The killer was in Boston.
He/she was watching me.
And he/she was already one step ahead.
This was it. No more countdown.
My own murder had officially begun.
I couldn’t help myself. I staggered away from the dirty, grimy snowbank. Then, unarmed and genuinely panicked, I began to run.
Chapter 35
JESSE WOKE UP Saturday morning in his mother’s queen-sized bed. She was rolled away from him, facing the far wall, her arm flung out, snoring softly. Jesse didn’t know what time it was. Probably later than usual, because the room was bright, the sun pushing and shoving at the corners of the drawn shades.
There was a time Jesse would’ve gotten up on his own. Padded into the kitchen for a bowl of cereal. Then he would’ve turned on Saturday morning cartoons. Maybe, if he felt like pushing things, logged onto the Internet and entered the world of AthleteAnimalz.
Now he pressed up against his mother’s sleeping form. He liked the feel of her body, warm and soft, against his back. He smoothed the red-flowered comforter with one hand and peered at the far gray-washed wall.