“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.”
24
Jerome is leaning against the hood of his Wrangler when they come out of the rental office with the keys to an all-wheel drive Expedition. He hugs Holly and whispers in her ear. “Last chance. Take me along.”
She shakes her head against his chest.
He lets her go and turns to Hodges, who’s wearing an old fedora, the brim already white with snow. Hodges puts out a hand. “Under other circumstances I’d go with the hug, but right now hugs hurt.”
Jerome settles for a strong grip. There are tears in his eyes. “Be careful, man. Stay in touch. And bring back the Hollyberry.”
“I intend to do that,” Hodges says.
Jerome watches them get into the Expedition, Bill climbing behind the wheel with obvious discomfort. Jerome knows they’re right—of the three of them, he’s the least expendable. That doesn’t mean he likes it, or feels less like a little kid being sent home to Mommy. He would go after them, he thinks, except for the thing Holly said in that deserted hotel lobby. If anything happens to us, there’s only you.
Jerome gets into his Jeep and heads home. As he merges onto the Crosstown, a strong premonition comes to him: he’s never going to see either one of his friends again. He tries to tell himself that’s superstitious bullshit, but he can’t quite make it work.
25
By the time Hodges and Holly leave the Crosstown for I-47 North, the snow is no longer just kidding around. Driving into it reminds Hodges of a science fiction movie he saw with Holly—the moment when the Starship Enterprise goes into hyperdrive, or whatever they call it. The speed limit signs are flashing SNOW ALERT and 40 MPH, but he pegs the speedometer at sixty and will hold it there as long as he can, which might be for thirty miles. Perhaps only twenty. A few cars in the travel lane honk at him to slow down, and passing the lumbering eighteen--wheelers, each one dragging a rooster-tail fog of snow behind it, is an exercise in controlled fear.
It’s almost half an hour before Holly breaks the silence. “You brought the guns, didn’t you? That’s what’s in the drawstring bag.”
“Yeah.”
She unbuckles her seatbelt (which makes him nervous) and fishes the bag out of the backseat. “Are they loaded?”
“The Glock is. The .38 you’ll have to load it yourself. That one’s yours.”
“I don’t know how.”
Hodges offered to take her to the shooting range with him once, start the process of getting her qualified to carry concealed, and she refused vehemently. He never offered again, believing she would never need to carry a gun. Believing he would never put her in that position.
“You’ll figure it out. It’s not hard.”
She examines the Victory, keeping her hands well away from the trigger and the muzzle well away from her face. After a few seconds she succeeds in rolling the barrel.
“Okay, now the bullets.”
There are two boxes of Winchester .38s—130-grain, full metal jacket. She opens one, looks at the shells sticking up like mini-warheads, and grimaces. “Oough.”
“Can you do it?” He’s passing another truck, the Expedition enveloped in snowfog. There are still strips of bare pavement in the travel lane, but this passing lane is now snow-covered, and the truck on their right seems to go on forever. “If you can’t, that’s okay.”
“You don’t mean can I load it,” she says, sounding angry. “I see how to do that, a kid could do it.”
Sometimes they do, Hodges thinks.