I have to poke the spider, he thinks.
Interfering with his efforts to plan the forthcoming confrontation are thoughts of the diagnosis he’s just received, and the inevitable fears that go with it. For his life, yes. But there are also questions of how much he may suffer a bit farther down the line, and how he will inform those who need to know. Corinne and Allie will be shaken up by the news but basically okay. The same goes for the Robinson family, although he knows Jerome and Barbara, his kid sister (not such a kid now; she’ll turn sixteen in a few months), will take it hard. Mostly, though, it’s Holly he worries about. She isn’t crazy, despite what she said in the office, but she’s fragile. Very. She’s had two breakdowns in her past, one in high school and one in her early twenties. She’s stronger now, but her main sources of support over these last few years have been him and the little company they run together. If they go, she’ll be at risk. He can’t afford to kid himself about that.
I won’t let her break, Hodges thinks. He walks with his head down and his hands stuffed in his pockets, blowing out white vapor. I can’t let that happen.
Deep in these thoughts, he misses the primer-spotted Chevy Malibu for the third time in two days. It’s parked up the street, opposite the building where Holly is now hunting down the Sunrise Solutions bankruptcy trustee. Standing on the sidewalk next to it is an elderly man in an old Army surplus parka that has been mended with masking tape. He watches Hodges get on the bus, then takes a cell phone from his coat pocket and makes a call.
4
Holly watches her boss—who happens to be the person she loves most in the world—walk to the bus stop on the corner. He looks so slight now, almost a shadow of the burly man she first met six years ago. And he has his hand pressed to his side as he walks. He does that a lot lately, and she doesn’t think he’s even aware of it.
Nothing but a small ulcer, he said. She’d like to believe that—would like to believe him—but she’s not sure she does.
The bus comes and Bill gets on. Holly stands by the window watching it go, gnawing at her fingernails, wishing for a cigarette. She has Nicorette gum, plenty of it, but sometimes only a cigarette will do.
Quit wasting time, she tells herself. If you really mean to be a rotten dirty sneak, there’s no time like the present.
So she goes into his office.
His computer is dark, but he never turns it off until he goes home at night; all she has to do is refresh the screen. Before she can, her eye is caught by the yellow legal pad beside the keyboard. He always has one handy, usually covered with notes and doodles. It’s how he thinks.
Written at the top of this one is a line she knows well, one that has resonated with her ever since she first heard the song on the radio: All the lonely people. He has underlined it. Beneath are names she knows.
Olivia Trelawney (Widowed)
Martine Stover (Unmarried, housekeeper called her “spinster”)
Janice Ellerton (Widowed)
Nancy Alderson (Widowed)
And others. Her own, of course; she is also a spinster. Pete Huntley, who’s divorced. And Hodges himself, also divorced.
Single people are twice as likely to commit suicide. Divorced people, four times as likely.
“Brady Hartsfield enjoyed suicide,” she murmurs. “It was his hobby.”
Below the names, circled, is a jotted note she doesn’t understand: Visitors list? What visitors?
She hits a random key and Bill’s computer lights up, showing his desktop screen with all his files scattered helter-skelter across it. She has scolded him about this time and again, has told him it’s like leaving the door of your house unlocked and your valuables all laid out on the dining room table with a sign on them saying PLEASE STEAL ME, and he always says he will do better, and he never does. Not that it would have changed things in Holly’s case, because she also has his password. He gave it to her himself. In case something ever happened to him, he said. Now she’s afraid something has.
One look at the screen is enough to tell her the something is no ulcer. There’s a new file folder there, one with a scary title. Holly clicks on it. The terrible gothic letters at the top are enough to confirm that the document is indeed the last will and testament of one Kermit William Hodges. She closes it at once. She has absolutely no desire to paw through his bequests. Knowing that such a document exists and that he has been reviewing it this very day is enough. Too much, actually.
She stands there clutching at her shoulders and nibbling her lips. The next step would be worse than snooping. It would be prying. It would be burglary.