He has a camera somewhere in here.

Yes, that’s it. That’s the only thing that makes sense.

Timothy tried calling the number back but got a message that the line had been disconnected.

Your dad is alive. He’s the one.

He killed Mom. He’s been killing people all along.

Timothy set down the phone and began tearing his living room apart, looking for whatever his father was using to watch him.

++++

Timothy’s father received word from his sources that Christie Ellis, Patrick’s wife, was at the Metro Medical Center.

He left to go see her.

So much to do to make this work. So many pieces in play.

It was time to start clearing the board.

++++

While Ralph and I were discussing whether or not to leave and visit one of Transit Corp’s distribution centers to follow up on the possibility that they were working with Blake to ship the Selzucaine, I received word that Calvin was going into surgery.

Apparently, the CT scan had revealed that the extravasation was extensive enough to require immediate attention.

While I was processing that, Marcus Rockwell returned my call from earlier.

“Agent Bowers, I was told you wanted to speak with me.”

“Yes.” I cut to the chase. “Marcus, someone has been live-streaming suicides through Krazle, and I want to know if there’s anything you can do to help us verify the identity of the people involved—and also stop the live streams.”

He let out a sigh. “This issue, this type of streaming, has created more headaches than anything else for us. It’s too late to change things, of course—almost every online social networking service provides some type of live-streaming option. And, when that’s the case, you’re going to have people stream things that should never be broadcast to the world.”

“How do you monitor things? Keep inappropriate content offline?”

“We’ve hired thousands of staff to keep tabs on things, and we’re using advanced AI to identify postings that don’t meet our usage standards of conduct, but there’s no way to be everywhere at once, and in the end, the users will always be one step ahead of content monitors.”

“You mean censors.”

“We opt for a less incendiary term.”

“Senator Murray mentioned that you’re working in the area of quantum encryption.”

“We all are—there’s a lot riding on it. Listen, I’m not sure how I can help you except to assure you that we’re doing all we can to stop abuses in the area of online content.”

“What about the people involved in the filming? If I have a name, can you pull his profile?”

“Our usage agreement ensures people’s privacy.”

“If someone is influencing your users to take their own lives, then that’s murder.”

“Okay. I see where you’re going.” He was right with me. “A murder investigation would supersede our privacy agreement.”

“Yes. It would.”