The Confessor Read Online Free PDF Page A

many others.
    ‘Ez, we’ve talked about this. Listen to me. Hall
kidnapped
you. You didn’t do one single thing.’
    They’d been here before. Harry considered playing the ‘if’ game again . . .
    If
your father hadn’t gotten hold of the torture videos, Geiger would be alive.
    If
Harry had read Hall’s job request on the website and decided not to follow it up, Geiger would be alive.
    If
Geiger had turned down the job when Harry presented it to him, he would still be alive.
    . . . but instead, Harry just said, ‘It
isn’t
your fault, Ez.’
    ‘Then why is he dead, Harry?’ Ezra looked stricken, sick with remorse. ‘He jumped into the river to save
me
, Harry. He died saving
me
. God . . . I can feel his hands grabbing me, pulling me free, shoving me up to the surface . . .’
    Ezra sniffled. Guilt is not something children are meant to feel in great strengths. They’ve not developed antibodies against the virus. They are helpless against the spread of infection. The boy’s shoulders did a slow rise in time with his sigh.
    ‘I see him, y’know.’
    ‘What do you mean – ‘see him’?’
    ‘Happens all the time. He’s crossing the street . . . walking out of a store. I mean – it isn’t
him
– just somebody who looks like him, but for a second I think—’
    ‘Ezra, I’m back! Dinner in ten!’ It was a woman’s voice.
    The boy’s head snapped to the side. ‘Shit . . . gotta go. Bye.’ He grabbed the top of the laptop and swung it down. The screen went dark.
    ‘Bye,’ Harry mumbled, felt the familiar flinch of helplessness in his gut, and pushed his dinner away. So much damage. Pieces of them all, scattered over the land.
    Everything was broken.

3
     
    The lights were set on dim. The video freeze-frame on the center screen of the monitor bank was a street study of light and dark grays – looking down on figures waiting to be set loose into action. The rest of the room was a fuzzy netherworld of unknown dimensions. The tech pulled at his moustache while he did a habitual, back-and-forth rock in his task chair. It squeaked with each motion.
    ‘Stop,’ she said from the shadows behind him, and put a hand on the top of chair’s back, freezing it. ‘Do not do that.’
    He straightened his glasses on his nose and pointed at the screen. ‘Where’d this come from?’
    ‘One of our ex-contractors works for NYPD in surveillance. He saw this, had a hunch – thought we might like to see it.’ She leaned down over his shoulder for a closer look.
    ‘Basic urban surveillance setup,’ the tech said. ‘Cameras on lampposts. Most people don’t even notice them. Low-rez. Lots of bleed. You can get this stuff online at Spies-R-Us.’ He glanced at her, hoping for a grin. She smelled really good.
    ‘You smell good. Lavender?’
    She turned her head the minimal amount of degrees to ensure eye contact.
    ‘Willie, I’m tired. If you hit on me I will hit you back, and it won’t be a figurative gesture. It will hurt much more than having to listen to one of your dumb lines. Yes?’
    ‘Yup,’ he said, and straightened up in the chair.
    She was used to it. She’d always known she was pretty – ripe cheekbones and an aquiline nose framed by wavy, sand-colored hair – but it was her eyes, a rare violet, like amethyst, and bizarrely bright. ‘Liz Taylor eyes’, her mother called them. They’d been a curse all her life. When she was a child, relatives and friends were forever leaning huge faces down into hers, crunching her cheeks – ‘Look at those
eyes
!’ When puberty came knocking, every female body in her grade seemed to bend and curve except hers – but her eyes stopped every testosterone-soaked teen in his tracks. Now, in her job, they were an unwanted feature, a marker – and could lead to trouble far more dangerous than wrestling in the backseat of a car. She took hazel contact lenses with her when she went into the field.
    ‘Let’s go, champ,’ she said. ‘Do your stuff.’
    The