Never Flinch (Holly Gibney #4)

Chapter 9

1

Corrie has seen Holly’s picture on the Finders Keepers website, but she’s surprised at how petite the woman is. And her hair is grayer than in the website photo. Her thought, as Holly gives her outstretched hand a short but firm shake, is how different she is from the male security people they’ve had, especially Elmore Packer, he of the unfortunate champagne incident.

That’s probably good , Corrie thinks. Another beefcake is the last thing we need. Nobody will even notice she’s around. I just wish she wasn’t so small. She looks almost… frail .

For her part, Holly is thinking Corrie Anderson looks like a high school senior. But of course the older she herself gets, the younger the rest of the world becomes.

“We’re getting packed up,” Corrie says as they cross the Radisson’s lobby. “Actually, we are packed up. It’s only a short run to Davenport, our next stop, but Kate likes to swim if she can before her… her lectures, and I’ll have a bunch of things to do.” They get in the elevator. “The…” Again, that slight hesitation. “… Iowa City lecture is tonight, of course, and Sunday’s off. Well, most of it. We’ll be driving to Madison. The dates are speeding up a little now. I did tell you we’re driving, right?”

“You did,” Holly says. “And you don’t really think of them as lectures, do you?”

Corrie blushes a little. “Well… Kate’s colorful. Put it that way.”

“I was looking forward to her talk in Buckeye City,” Holly says. “Now I guess I’ll get to hear her, after all.” Although she won’t be able to give Kate her full attention. Holly’s not here to be entertained.

Corrie uses a key card to let them into a small suite on the fourth floor. Kate McKay is sitting in a shaft of sunlight by the window, one foot curled beneath her, making notes on a yellow legal pad. There are two suitcases by the door. Small ones. She travels light , Holly thinks approvingly.

Kate shoots to her feet, gives Holly a quick up-and-down, then busts out the radiant smile that has graced magazine covers, newspapers, and blog posts without number.

“Holly Gibney!” She hijacks both of Holly’s hands in both of hers. “Welcome to Kate and Corrie’s Excellent Adventure!”

“It’s a pleasure to be here. As I was telling Corrie, I was planning to come and see you at the Mingo.”

“We wuz robbed!” Kate cries. She spreads her hands, as if making headlines. “Soul Singer Defeats Sisterhood! ‘Get Down Tonight’ Defeats ‘We Shall Overcome!’ Stop the presses!”

Kate laughs, her green eyes alight. Holly thinks there’s an aura about her, a crackle of psychic static electricity. Holly could tell herself that’s nonsense, she’s just feeling the awe ordinary folks feel when in the same room as a very famous person, but she suspects that persons who’ve attained a certain renown really do have that electricity about them. Not because they’re famous; it’s how they became famous.

“Do you think I should lodge a protest, Holly?”

“It would probably be good public relations to give in graciously.”

Kate smiles at Corrie. “See? We have the right woman! Would you like something to drink, Holly?”

“Maybe a Coca-Cola, if there’s one in your minibar.”

“If there isn’t, I’ll complain to the management,” Kate declares. “Corrie, find this woman a Coke.”

Corrie goes to the minibar. Kate focuses her full attention on Holly. It’s a little like being hit with a spotlight.

“I have a show tonight.” She isn’t as hesitant about using the word as Corrie was. “I’ll want you with us. Macbride Hall, North Clinton Street, seven PM.”

Holly has a notebook in her bag. She writes down this information.

“May I ask if you’re armed, Holly?”

“I will be for your events,” she says… and little does she like it.

“Please God, don’t shoot anyone,” Kate says. “After Des Moines, that’s the last thing I need. Unless they deserve it, of course.”

“Glass, Holly?” Corrie asks.

“No, thanks.” She takes a can of Coke from Corrie and sips. It’s cold and good. To Kate, Holly says, “If we exercise reasonable caution, everything will be fine. Here and elsewhere. No one is going to get shot. No confrontations of any kind. We’ll avoid them.”

“Confrontation is part of what Kate does ,” Corrie says.

Kate wheels on her, eyebrows raised. Corrie looks like she wishes she could take that particular observation back. Then Kate lets loose with that hooting laugh again. “She’s right, but I’d like to stick to verbal fireworks from here on out. Everybody has a good time and nobody gets hurt.”

“That sounds fine to me, Ms. McKay.”

“Make it Kate. We’re going to be friends.”

No , Holly thinks, I don’t believe we will. What I’m going to be is an employee, just like young Ms. Anderson . Only Kate McKay might be the sort of person who wants everyone to be her friend. To fall under her spell. With some people, Holly knows, it’s a compulsion. She could be wrong, snap judgements are never to be trusted, but she doesn’t think she is.

“Kate, then. My number one job is to make sure you can go about your business without being harmed. It would be easier to do that if the woman who’s menacing you can be found and arrested. For that reason, I’d like to go over her communications with you. And I want to find out about your—”

“My enemies?” Kate laughs. “That would be a long list, but most of them limit their aggression to cable news panels and mean tweets. I can’t think of anyone who’d put anthrax in a greeting card.”

“If we put our heads together, we might come up with someone who would. Maybe more than one.”

“Okay,” Kate says, “but later. I have a Zoom call coming up, I want to take a swim, then the presser, the Macbride tonight, and the RiverCenter in Davenport tomorrow. What about Sunday? That’s a day off, thank God. Except for the drive to Madison. Did Corrie tell you—”

“That you’ll be driving? Yes. I have my own car. Corrie can fill me in on your route. Some of the time I’ll be behind you, and you’ll see me—it’s a blue Chrysler 300, hard to miss. Some of the time I’ll be ahead of you, and you won’t.”

Kate points a finger at Holly and gives her a wink. “Trying to spot our stalker. Smart. And we’ll bring you up to speed as soon as possible.”

Holly doesn’t like it. This is only Friday; surely they could find time to go over the stalker’s communications before Sunday. Kate could skip her swim in the hotel pool, for instance. ( Hotel pools and yeast infections go together , Holly thinks. Oough. ) She thinks Kate isn’t taking this as seriously as it deserves to be taken.

For that matter , Holly thinks, it’s hard to tell how seriously she’s taking me . No surprise there. She’s used to being underestimated. Sometimes it comes in handy. In this case, it might not.

“I also have a GPS tracker I’d like to put on your car, if you don’t mind.”

“It’s not a car, it’s a truck, and I have no problem with that.”

“Where are you supposed to be staying in Davenport?”

Kate shrugs, but Corrie knows. “The Axis. It’s actually across the state line in Illinois.”

“Keep that reservation but book a different hotel,” Holly says. “Three rooms, in my name. Your stalker knows your names, but she won’t know mine.”

“I’ll want a suite,” Kate says. “Connecting with Corrie’s room. And with yours, if possible.”

Yes, I’m an employee, all right , Holly thinks.

“What about the press conference?” Corrie asks Holly. She’s clearly not happy about this change. Maybe also not happy about Holly taking charge. “There’s always a press conference.”

“That can still be at the Axis. Corrie, I understand this is annoying. As a person who’s a scheduling nut myself, I understand that. But your stalker knows your schedule, it’s on Kate’s website for anyone to see, and this crazy person has shown she’s interested in inflicting mortal harm. If you’re serious about protection, we need to make these changes.”

Holly hopes that throwing the stalker off her schedule will make the woman easier to catch. If Holly had Pete Huntley with her—or Jerome—she would have one of them stake out the Axis, looking for someone who’s looking for Kate and Corrie. But Pete’s retired and Jerome is keeping an eye on Izzy’s case. She hopes he’s also gone back to work on his new book.

“Got it,” Corrie says. “Give me your credit card, Holly. We’re going to switch hotels all the way down the line, I suppose? The whole tour?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Corrie sighs but makes no further objection. Holly guesses she’s already calibrating the changes that will have to be made. And Kate? It’s nothing to her, either way; for her it’s on with the show. Holly knows, even on brief acquaintance, that if she suggested a change that directly impacted Kate—canceling one of her dates, for instance—her response would be more than a sigh. It makes her like the younger woman more, and it takes only a moment to realize why.

She’s like me .

2

Chrissy is wearing the plain brown dress of a chambermaid, purchased yesterday at A-1 Uniforms in Coralville, and paid for with cash—love offerings from Real Christ Holy, by way of Andy Fallowes.

She gets out of her Kia, circles the hotel on foot, and goes in through the service entrance, which has been propped open by a brick. For smokers, no doubt. Swinging from one hand is a plastic bag that might contain trash. It doesn’t, but it does contain offal. Chrissy has reached Iowa City by secondary roads and found plenty of usable stuff along the way: squirrels, squashed birds, a woodchuck, an exploded cat. Kate McKay is a fan of blood and destruction?

Fine.

Here’s a whole bag of it.

3

Holly doesn’t want to wait for Sunday to get after the stalker. She asks Corrie if she has communications from the woman on her phone or tablet.

“I have a computer file with everything in it, including police reports.”

“That’s great. Send me the file. Maybe I can go over it after your lecture tonight, Kate.”

“There’s really not that much,” Kate says. “The card with the anthrax in it was—”

That’s when the hotel’s fire alarm goes off in a series of almost deafening whoops. A moment later an overhead speaker comes to life. “There is an alarm,” says an automated voice. “Please leave the building. Do not use the elevators. Wait outside for the all-clear. There is an alarm. Please leave—”

“No shit there’s an alarm.” Kate sounds annoyed. “It’s going to blow my freakin eardrums out.”

“What do we do?” Corrie asks Holly.

“Nothing,” Kate says before Holly can answer. “Somebody probably sparked up a joint in their bathroom, and—”

“We’re going to leave,” Holly says. She wishes her gun—Bill Hodges’s .38—wasn’t still in the trunk of her car, locked in its airline box.

“I hardly think—” Kate begins.

“I’m sorry, Kate, but this is exactly what you’re paying me for. Follow me down the hall. Wait outside the stairwell door until you hear me say clear . Same thing at each floor—wait for my clear. Do you understand?”

Kate decides to play this as something that’s amusing rather than annoying. She’s not scared, but Corrie is. Because she’s the one who got the bleach bath , Holly thinks. Nothing at all has happened to Kate, at least so far .

Holly goes to the door of Kate’s sitting room and looks out into the hall. At this time of day there are few guests on the floor, and only four or five are heading for the stairs. Two others are looking out their doors, wearing the same exasperated expression Holly saw on Kate’s face when the alarm started to blare. False alarm, of course it is , those faces say. Nothing happens to me, it’s always someone else. I’m exempt . Those doors shut even as Holly beckons Kate and Corrie out.

They go down the hall, now empty, in single file. Holly peers into the stairwell, keeping low. There’s no one there; the few guests who elected to heed the alarm are already most of the way down. She calls, “Clear!”

Kate and Corrie follow her down, stopping on the stairs until Holly can check the landing and then the third-floor hallway, where a head-down chambermaid in a brown dress is pushing a trolley, seemingly oblivious of the alarm. They reach the lobby in this fashion. Here the reception clerks and a man in a suit—probably the manager—are ushering people out.

“I’m sorry, Ms. McKay,” he says as they pass. “Probably a false alarm.”

“Women are very familiar with falsies,” Kate says. The man in the suit laughs as if it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard.

Outside, two or three dozen guests mill around beneath the lobby overhang where Holly first glimpsed Corrie waiting for her. Kate looks at her watch. “I had hoped to be on my next call by now,” she says. “First you were late, Holly, now this. It’s obviously a false alarm.”

“I think—” Holly begins, but Kate has reached a decision.

“Fuck this, I’m going back.”

Holly is dismayed. Should she go with? Try to restrain her? She has an idea that trying to restrain might get her fired. As it happens, there’s no need to decide. The alarm quits, and the man in the suit comes out.

“Folks, you can go back to your rooms. We’re very sorry for the inconvenience.”

“You should be,” Kate says.

“It looks as if some prankster—” the manager says, but Kate is already power-walking past him.

“Where was the alarm triggered?” Holly asks. “Which floor?”

“I’m not sure,” the manager says.

Holly wonders if that’s the truth, but this is not the time to probe. Her client is already approaching the elevators, a Type A who is well ahead of the other guests, meaning to get the first available car. Corrie is close behind, but looking back at Holly, who catches up to them and steps in just as the doors begin to close.

“False alarm, as I told you,” Kate says.

“Seems so.” Holly isn’t entirely convinced. It feels wrong.

“I appreciate your dedication to the job, Holly, but you might be a little too eager to show off your skills.” Kate is watching the digital floor indicator count up, giving Corrie the chance to shoot Holly a quick sidelong look that says sorry, sorry .

Holly makes no reply to Kate, but when the elevator doors open, she makes sure she’s out first. She takes four steps down the hallway toward Kate’s suite, then spreads out her arms. “Stop, stop.”

“For God’s sake, what ?” Kate’s not exasperated now; this is annoyance edging into anger.

Holly hardly notices. Her sensors, which have been in the yellow, now turn bright red. “Stay where you are.”

“I don’t need you to—” Kate pushes past Holly, then stops. “Which of you left the door open?”

“Neither of us,” Corrie says.

The door to Kate’s junior suite opens inward. Holly can see part of the living room rug and a slice of the window where Kate was sitting in the sunshine with her pad of paper. She can also see splinters on the hallway carpet.

“It’s not open, it’s been forced. Probably kicked in.”

Her first impulse is to herd them back into the elevator, get them down to the lobby, and tell the manager to inform hotel security. Only the manager himself may be the only security the day shift has, and she doesn’t trust Kate not to bull ahead into the room.

“Wait here, both of you. Please.”

“I want to—” Kate begins.

Corrie says, “Let her do her job, Kate. It’s what you hired her for.”

Holly goes to the door in gliding slide-steps, back pressed to the wall and the room doors she passes. She thinks again of the revolver locked in her trunk and promises herself she won’t be without it again—isn’t it why she brought her big purse, even though it’s ugly? As she closes the distance, she sees something has been written on the door. And even though it looks like it’s been written in blood, she relaxes a little. If there’s a message, it means the messenger is gone. Probably g —

A hand falls on her arm. Holly jumps and gives a small squeak. It’s Kate, who obviously has a problem with following instructions. She’s looking over Holly’s shoulder. “What the hell does that mean?” Scrawled on the door is EX 21 22 23. “Is it blood ?”

Holly doesn’t answer. She shakes off Kate’s hand and moves closer to the open door. This time Kate stays where she is. Holly peers around the splintered jamb. What she sees isn’t nice—far from it—but it makes her even more sure that the person who did this is gone.

Kate McKay’s neat little suitcases have been drenched in blood and the mangled corpses of birds and small animals. Roadkill , Holly thinks. Oough. Lying on the carpet is the white plastic bag the dead things came in.

“We need to go back down to the front desk,” Holly says, but Kate darts past her and stares, disbelieving, at the blood and guts on her previously pristine luggage. She utters a scream that causes the guests who have stayed in their rooms to open their doors and stare out. Several returnees from the false alarm stop in their tracks. Holly has heard screams like that before, on at least one occasion coming from her own throat. Not fear. It’s partly horror, mostly fury.

Kate is no longer exempt.

4

Izzy and Tom are looking at the Porta-John where the Boy Scout found the body. With them is a State Police detective lieutenant named Ralph Ganzinger. The toilet has been blocked off with a square of DO NOT CROSS tape, but the door has been propped open. The bench seat, urinal, and plastic walls are black with fingerprint powder. The State Police forensic unit has been and gone.

“They got plenty of prints,” Ganzinger says, “all probably useless. Most of them in one place. Men who use the urinal have a tendency to prop their fingers on the wall while they do their business.”

Izzy thinks of what Holly would say about that: Oough . Even with the Porta-John’s door open, the smell of human waste wafts out.

“Security cams?” Tom asks.

“Six.” Ganzinger cocks a thumb toward the woods. “Five of them point at the trailheads. The sixth is up there on that pole, looking at the toilets. That one’s been broken since last year. The Park Service guy who came out says it gets vandalized regularly. What happens is people who don’t want to be seen sometimes use those toilets for what you might call nefarious purposes. This last time it was too broke to be fixed, and there’s no money for a replacement.”

“Pretty high up there,” Izzy says. “Someone with good aim must have hucked a rock at it.”

“I bet you could hit it,” Tom tells her. And to Ganzinger, “She’s our starting pitcher in next week’s Guns and Hoses game.”

“Don’t remind me,” Izzy says.

Lew Warwick has requested—no, mandated —her appearance at a City Center press conference later this afternoon, the purpose being to build interest in the game and thus drive up charitable contributions. He’s promised that she won’t have to say much, but she doesn’t entirely trust him on that, and although Lew is her boss, she couldn’t resist pointing out that with Sista Bessie onboard to sing the National Anthem, “building interest” is really unnecessary; the game will be SRO. She knows the presser is actually an opportunity for PD Chief Alice Patmore and Fire Commissioner Darby Dingley (the stupidest name in the universe, as far as Izzy is concerned) to get their faces on the evening news. And all that’s for later. Now she asks Ganzinger if there were tire tracks.

“Yes. Good ones.” He holds up his pad, shielding it from the sun with his hand so she and Tom can get a good look at the photos. “Confidence is high that these were made by the perp’s car. This was a spur-of-the-moment deal.”

“Impulse murder,” Tom says.

Ganzinger nods. “Sinclair was hitching his way to D.C., then maybe on to New York. Perp didn’t take his wallet, so we were able to talk to his parents.”

“I hate making those calls,” Tom says.

“Don’t we all,” Ganzinger says. “We’ve got a gal at the post who’s pretty good with breaking news like that.”

No one is good at those calls , Izzy thinks.

“Anyway, perp picks Sinclair up. Pulls into the park, just drove around the gate, which is where we got these tire impressions. Shoots him multiple times in the car—less noise that way, but the Scoutmaster still heard it—then drags him to the toilet. The drag marks start near the tire tracks.”

“Are the tracks useful?” Tom asks. “Please say they are.”

Ganzinger shakes his head. “We got a computer match right away, because they’re nice and sharp. Toyo Celsius II. They come on Toyotas, Highlanders, RAV4s. Other models, too, like Priuses, but the vehicle that made these is bigger. I think it was a Toyota sedan.”

“Of which there are roughly a gazillion in this state,” Izzy says. “Did the guy have a sign?”

“Sign?” Ganzinger looks blank.

“Hitchhikers sometimes hold up signs with their destinations on them.”

“We didn’t find anything like that,” Ganzinger says. “Do you want to poke around a little?”

Izzy and Tom look at each other. Tom shrugs. Izzy says, “We should get back to the city. I’ve got a dog-and-pony show to attend. If you get any interesting hits on those fingerprints, let us know.”

“Will do. You guys have a nice day.”

On their way back to their car, Tom says, “It would be a nice day if the guy stopped to take a piss after propping the guy on the bench seat.”

“And braced himself against the wall with his fingertips,” Izzy adds. “Wouldn’t that be a world. You want to drive?”

5

In Iowa City, Kate and Holly are consulting with Detective Daniel Speck in the office of the Radisson’s manager. Corrie has gone in search of new luggage for her boss. Holly doesn’t love the girl going out on her own, but Corrie has her marching orders, and at least she can’t be mistaken again for the woman the stalker is really after. At least Holly hopes not.

Kate is furious about the ruination of her L.L.Bean suitcases, but glad the bitch who did the deed didn’t have time enough to rip them open and trash her clothes.

Holly is also interested in clothes, but not Kate’s. She asks the manager what sort of outfits the Radisson chambermaids wear. He tells her blue dresses with scalloped collars. Holly turns to Detective Speck. “I’m pretty sure I saw the woman who did it. She was on the third floor, pretending to push a trolley. Wearing a brown dress that looked very… very housekeeperly.”

“I’ll check the security footage,” Speck says, “but if she knew enough to keep her head down…”

“She did when she brought the card with the anthrax in it,” Kate says. “And in Reno she was wearing a wig.”

Detective Speck says, “She’ll be in the wind by now.”

If so, it will be blowing her on her way to Davenport , Holly thinks. If not, she’ll be at the Macbride tonight. Maybe with a gun .

“Are you going to talk about this tonight, Kate?” Holly asks. “Or at your press conference?”

“Damned right I am.”

Keeping her voice mild and (she hopes) nonconfrontational, Holly says, “This woman will love that.”

Kate gives her a startled look that turns thoughtful. “How can I not? I can’t look like I’m covering it up. That would make me seem ashamed.”

Holly sighs. “I see that, but can I make a suggestion?”

“Go on.”

“Keep it brief. Make it seem almost like a joke. And maybe… call her a coward?”

“Wouldn’t that be egging her on?” But Kate is smiling. She likes it.

“Yes,” Holly says. Sometimes the best thing you can do is force the issue. And from now on she’ll be carrying her gun. “Because the sooner this person is caught, the sooner my job will be easier.”

Speck says, “The writing on the door, now.”

“Exodus, chapter 22,” Holly says. She opens her iPad and reads. “?‘If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.’?”

Kate gives a short laugh with no humor in it. “Heard it before, just without the attribution. The God-botherers love it. That verse is actually about assault—guys brawling and knocking over a pregnant woman and causing her to miscarry. Do you know what the Bible actually says about abortion? Nothing. Zilch. So they twist this.”

“That’s the first verse,” Holly says. “The next one goes, ‘And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life.’?” She closes her pad. “To this woman, Kate, you’re the mischief-maker.”

“Have you thought about canceling tonight?” Speck asks.

Kate gives him a frostbite smile. “Not a chance.”

6

Maisie buzzes Trig at quarter past one and reminds him it’s D-Day, as in dentist. “You better get going now if you want to be on time, because the crosstown traffic builds up early on Friday.”

Trig thanks her and wishes her a pleasant weekend. His Toyota is parked next to Maisie’s Nissan Rogue on the side of the building. He seatbelts up and starts to back out, looking to his right because he doesn’t want to scrape Maisie’s car. He sees something alarming and jams on the brakes. Lying in the passenger footwell of his car is the hitchhiker’s sign, the side reading OR WHEREVER facing up.

There are a few droplets of dried blood on it.

How could you be so stupid? he asks himself. No, it’s not an ask, it’s a yell, and it isn’t him. It’s his father. Trig can almost see Daddy in the passenger seat, Daddy in his brown workpants with the chain holding his wallet. Do you want to be caught? Is that what this is?

“No, Daddy,” he mutters. That “wanting to be caught” stuff is so much psychobabble. He was just upset, anxious to get out of the state park.

But Maisie parked right next to him. What if she glanced in his car window and saw the sign? Saw the droplets of blood?

She didn’t. She would have said something.

Would she?

Really?

Trig gets out, goes around to the passenger side, and after a quick look to make sure he’s alone, grabs the sign and tosses it in the trunk. There’s an incinerator barrel behind the office at Elm Grove, where he now lives, and he can dispose of the cardboard sign in it this evening. The residents aren’t supposed to use it—air pollution—but most of them do, anyway, and the management winks at it.

He gets back into the car and arms sweat from his forehead. She didn’t see it. I’m sure of it .

Almost sure of it .

Maybe I should think about—

But he cuts that off. Amputates it. Think about shooting Maisie? Well-meaning, slightly overweight, always-thinking-about-Ozempic Maisie? Never!

Never? Really?

Is that a thought… or a voice?

He looks in the rearview mirror and for a moment sees Daddy, now back there instead of in the passenger seat, grinning. Then he’s gone.

7

Rothman, Trig’s dentist, points to the wall-mounted TV screen, where an X-ray of Trig’s teeth is currently on view.

“Number eighteen, your second molar.” He sounds like a funeral director. “It has to come out. No way to save it. Infection underneath.” Then he brightens. “Good news, your insurance will cover eighty per cent of the expense. May I go ahead?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not if you don’t want to keep taking an antibiotic for a low-grade gum infection. And you might consider wearing a night guard. You grind your teeth, and that poor molar has taken the worst of the abuse.”

Trig sighs. I thought the possibility of getting arrested was my only problem today. “Go ahead.”

“I’ll localize the area, but I recommend nitrous oxide to make the experience as pleasant as possible.” Rothman considers. “Well… extraction is never pleasant, but more comfortable.”

Trig considers. He doesn’t have a drug problem, alcohol was his downfall (not to mention a certain bullheaded certainty, a dubious gift from his father), but he’s heard that people under nitrous can be… what’s the word? Indiscreet? But with a rubber bite block holding his mouth open, he’ll be incapable of saying anything but oooo and aaaa .

“Nitrous, by all means,” he says.

After several pain-killing injections, Rothman’s second-in-command puts on the nasal hood and instructs Trig to breathe through his nose only. “And relax.”

Trig does. For the first time since Annette McElroy, he relaxes completely. He’s barely aware of Rothman’s poking, prodding, drilling, and—finally—wiggling the bad tooth back and forth in its socket, cajoling the roots to let go.

Must finish up as rapidly as possible , he thinks, so I can also let go . This isn’t an entirely new thought, but his mind has been set free and the one that follows it is. Suppose I could be like the tailor who got seven at a blow?

Seven would be too many, but suppose he could finish with several at a blow? Including the one who’s most guilty? Is there a way that could be done?

With his mind floating free of anxieties, Trig sees that it could happen. And if it did, it would turn his crusade into a worldwide sensation; Trump getting shot in the ear would pale beside it. He’s not interested in being famous (so he tells himself), but suppose his actions could start a useful conversation about how often the innocent are branded as the guilty? There’s going to be one—possibly two—famous women in town the following week, and if there was a way to make them part of the atonement for Alan Duffrey’s death…

“Just finishing up,” Rothman says.

“ Iiii uhhh ayyy ,” Trig replies.

“What was that?”

But Trig only smiles as well as he can around the block in his mouth.

Innocents must pay.