Time Clock Hero Read Online Free PDF

the time being.  But do what you gotta do.”
    Phoenix reached into his desk and pulled out a piece of gum, but he didn’t unwrap it.  He just stood there holding it, looking hard at Chief Cobb.  “I’m being set up.”
    “The missing persons’ case?”
    Phoenix, without the least hesitation, looked at him and said, “What else could it be?”

Chapter 4
     
    The cell phone on the nightstand buzzed early and inconveniently, walking itself to the edge of the wooden table before Phoenix grabbed it.   When he got it right side up, he held it close to his face.  He tried to read the caller ID, squinting through the predawn fog in his eyes like a man needing glasses.  No number.  A name instead: Alaia Jenkins.
    “I told you never to bother me at home … what? … one more time? … Where? … gunshot wound to the chest?  I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
    He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and landed on the floor.  Phoenix, wearing nothing but his plaid boxer shorts, stood up.  He stayed in place for a few seconds, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and shaking his head like a punch-drunk sailor.  He looked at the time on his phone, blinding himself in the process.  Four-Thirty a.m.  Not even the dead were awake yet and, if they were, they were not to be messed with.
    The dull roar of traffic, a forever-permanent part of the Nashville soundscape, seemed to come straight through the walls of his apartment overlooking I-24.  He could sleep through it without a hitch, maybe because he’d been forced to listen to it for so long.  How he heard his phone vibrating and sizzling on the table was a mystery.
    Phoenix walked to the bathroom, hating once again the same morning routine, only with renewed fury.  Twelve and half minutes it would take him, no more and no less, to undress, shave, bathe, dry himself, put on deodorant, get dressed, slip his wallet into his pants, then the keys, and finally strap on his thirty-eight – only he’d left it at the office.  He wondered if anyone had designed a time-released Oblivium.  Then maybe he’d be able to wake and be numb to the morning routine.
    If his wife Tracy had been here, she would have been up with him.  He could almost hear her in the kitchen, starting the coffee, putting together a couple of eggs and two slices of toast, calling him and telling him it was ready.  And nobody did breakfast like Tracy – eggs, over easy without broken yolks, toast buttered all the way to the edge like a painter doing canvas.  OJ mixed with tea.  She’d leave quickly though, with a “Bye! Bye! Bye!” and a bone-crunching hug.
    He grabbed a chocolate Kellogg’s breakfast bar.  He’d get coffee later.
    I-24 and Harding place never looked so peaceful during the day.  It would be a rolling roadblock in half an hour.  He took the airport exit east and drove onto Harding Place without a hitch.  The air was cold, and the glare of the street lights seemed garish, as they always did in the morning darkness.  He arrived at the precinct at five on the nose, parked, and noticed a parked ambulance.  He fobbed his way in through the rear door and took the elevator to the second floor.
    Chief Cobb and Alaia were waiting.
    “And so the plot thickens,” Alaia said, with her eyes on Phoenix.
    “No press, yet,” Chief Cobb said, yawning.  “But by now, one of the paramedics is probably on the phone selling the story.  Let’s go.”
    When the elevator doors opened onto the third floor, Phoenix stepped off the elevator.  His shoes clicked smartly against the hard, white-tiled floor, and the smell of the lab, always pungent with chemicals, but maybe too strong this morning, hit him hard enough to make his head hurt.  Maybe it was alcohol – maybe something else.  But the air was so thick with it a fly wouldn’t have had a chance.
    Phoenix saw five police officers standing in the hall with coffee cups in their hands. Two paramedics loitered with them.  They all