“Turn it off, Holly.” Hodges doesn’t like the way she’s looking at the screen—that wide-eyed stare, so much like Jerome’s a few minutes ago.

She moves too slowly to suit Jerome. He reaches over her shoulder and crashes her computer.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she says reproachfully. “I could lose data.”

“That’s exactly what the fucking website is for,” Jerome says. “To make you lose data. To make you lose your shit. I could read the last one, Bill. In the blue flash. It said do it now.”

Holly nods. “There was another one that said tell your friends.”

“Does the Zappit direct them to that . . . that thing?” Hodges asks.

“It doesn’t have to,” Jerome says. “Because the ones who find it—and plenty will, including kids who never got a free ­Zappit—will spread the word on Facebook and all the rest.”

“He wanted a suicide epidemic,” Holly says. “He set it in motion somehow, then killed himself.”

“Probably to get there ahead of them,” Jerome says. “So he can meet them at the door.”

Hodges says, “Am I supposed to believe a rock song and a picture of a funeral is going to get kids to kill themselves? The Zappits, I can accept that. I’ve seen how they work. But this?”

Holly and Jerome exchange a glance, one that Hodges can read easily: How do we explain this to him? How do you explain a robin to someone who’s never seen a bird? The glance alone is almost enough to convince him.

“Teenagers are vulnerable to stuff like this,” Holly says. “Not all of them, no, but plenty. I would have been when I was seventeen.”

“And it’s catching,” Jerome says. “Once it starts . . . if it starts . . .” He finishes with a shrug.

“We need to find that repeater gadget and turn it off,” Hodges says. “Limit the damage.”

“Maybe it’s at Babineau’s house,” Holly says. “Call Pete. Find out if there’s any computer stuff there. If there is, make him pull all the plugs.”

“If he’s with Izzy, he’ll let it go to voicemail,” Hodges says, but he makes the call and Pete picks up on the first ring. He tells Hodges that Izzy has gone back to the station with the SKIDs to await the first forensics reports. Library Al Brooks is already gone, taken into custody by the first responding cops, who will get partial credit for the bust.

Pete sounds tired.