Zack stares at the summons.

“You’re a tough guy to find, Zack Yellin. No known address. I’ve been looking for you in GreenGirls for days.”

77.

77.

Detective Lopez is in the gallery of the courtroom.

He sees the defendant texting on his phone.

You’re not supposed to use your phone.

And who the hell would you be texting when you’re on trial for wrongful death?

Emily is a few seats away from Lopez.

She, too, sees the defendant looking down at his phone.

It occurs to her that Zack could be texting him. A shiver runs down her spine.

The Zack she no longer knows. Why would he do that?

She sees Joey smiling a little. Why?

The assassin—sitting there, smiling.

She dutifully records it in her notes. Reporting on the behavior of the defendant. He’s smiling.

She feels like retching.

78.

78.

Will gets a text from Karloff. What the fuck?

Followed by a phone call before Will can even respond. “What the fuck?”

A live call from Karloff is always a bad sign.

“What?” Will sits up. He hears the trouble in Karloff’s voice.

“Nothing happened,” says Karloff.

“How do you know?”

“You hear me? Nothing’s happened.”

Someone must be watching for Karloff, thinks Will. Someone in the courtroom. Someone else who’s going to be killed and doesn’t know it.

“He’s looking at the phone. He dials a number, for fuck’s sake, and nothing happens. Why the fuck not? A glitch in the technology?”

It’s a glitch. But not in the technology, thinks Will. It was as dumb and direct a wireless technology as you could use. And there’d be no signal decay, given the range of just a few yards. For Will, it was totally straightforward work.

The problem was human error, he was sure. Entering the digits wrong? But much more likely not entering them, because Joey has figured it out. How could he though? It was pretty much impossible someone would just see it, Will is sure of that, especially someone like Joey, and from what Will has just heard from Karloff, the guy was still using his phone. Or trying to. So clearly he has no idea.

“Is there any other way to detonate it?”

Will shrugs. “I can build another one,” he says.

“How long will that take?”

“Buy the phone. Wire it. Just a few hours. Ready for day two of the trial tomorrow morning.”

“Great.” Relief, enthusiasm, energy. Will hears all three.

“But someone has to get close enough to sync it.” Will is immediately sorry he brought up this solution, this line of thinking.

“How close is that?”

Will’s stomach sinks. “It means getting into the courtroom somehow.”

“Then do it somehow,” says Karloff. And hangs up.