It rang no bells at the time, but there was that faint vibration, and now he knows why. He met a skinny girl with buzz-cut hair at Discount Electronix back in 2010, when he, Jerome, and Holly were closing in on Brady. Even six years later he can remember what she said about her co-worker on the Cyber Patrol: It’s something with his mom, betcha anything. He’s freaky about her.

“Are you still there?” Norma sounds irritated.

“Yeah, but I have to go.”

“Didn’t you say there’d be some extra money if—”

“Yeah. I’ll take care of you, Norma.” He ends the call.

The pills are doing their work, and he’s able to manage a medium-fast walk back to the office. Holly and Jerome are at the window overlooking Lower Marlborough Street, and he can tell by their expressions when they turn to the sound of the opening door that they’ve been talking about him, but he has no time to think about that. Or brood on it. What he’s thinking about are those rigged Zappits. The question ever since they started to put things together was how Brady could have had anything to do with modifying them when he was stuck in a hospital room and barely able to walk. But he knew somebody who almost certainly had the skills to do it for him, didn’t he? Someone he used to work with. Somebody who came to visit him in the Bucket, with Babineau’s written approval. A punky chick with a lot of tats and a yard of attitude.

“Brady’s visitor—his only visitor—was a woman named Frederica Linklatter. She—”

“Cyber Patrol!” Holly nearly screams. “He worked with her!”

“Right. There was also a third guy—the boss, I think. Do either of you remember his name?”

Holly and Jerome look at each other, then shake their heads.

“That was a long time ago, Bill,” Jerome says. “And we were concentrating on Hartsfield by then.”

“Yeah. I only remember Linklatter because she was sort of unforgettable.”

“Can I use your computer?” Jerome asks. “Maybe I can find the guy while Holly looks for the girl’s addy.”

“Sure, go for it.”

Holly is at hers already, sitting bolt upright and clicking away. She’s also talking out loud as she often does when she’s deeply involved in something. “Frack. Whitepages doesn’t have a number or address. Long shot, anyway, a lot of single women don’t . . . wait, hold the fracking phone . . . here’s her Facebook page . . .”

“I’m not really interested in her summer vacation snaps or how many friends she’s got,” Hodges says.

“Are you sure about that? Because she’s only got six friends, and one of them is Anthony Frobisher. I’m pretty sure that was the name of the—”

“Frobisher!” Jerome yells from Hodges’s office. “Anthony Frobisher was the third Cyber Patrol guy!”