Read Online SPYWARE BOOK by B. V. Larson - Free Book Online Page A

into life and soon rolled up the onramp.

. . . 71 Hours and Counting . . .

    It was almost eight o’clock when the fingerprint crew left, taking with them six copies of Justin’s school photos. Sarah went to the bathroom to wash her face. After drying off, she opened up the hamper and felt silent tears run down her cheeks. She ignored them, letting them slide down to her chin and grow cold before they fell and splattered her bare feet.
    The bathroom had the classic look of any California tract home from the last century. Wallpaper depicted baskets of unlikely-looking flowers of blue and pink on a background of beige. The chromed towel rack was of the cheap-motel variety, and tended to fall off the wall at inopportune times. There were signs of Justin’s passing everywhere, plainly evident to the trained eye. Sarah noted the splattered droplets of toothpaste on the mirror. Of the four towels in the bathroom, only one of them was in its place, and that one hung oddly, as if it had been grabbed and yanked upon, but not quite firmly enough to pull it down. Two others lay in wads of blue terry cloth on the checkerboard vinyl floor. The fourth she held in her hand.
    But none of these things had brought on her tears. It was when she opened the hamper, which overflowed with underwear, socks, shorts and t-shirts, that she saw the sweatshirt. There, stuffed in among a dozen dirty items, was the red sweatshirt that she had insisted that he take with him this morning in his backpack. He had ditched it, stuffing it in the hamper rather than carrying it all day. It was ironic, she thought, that only this morning her biggest concern had been Justin’s sweatshirt.
    She closed the hamper and padded down the hall. As she walked through the house, it seemed as though she was a stranger here, or rather that this house was one that she had lived in long ago. She stepped into the sunken living room/dining room combination. She recalled that when they had bought the house, the original floor plan had called it the ‘great room’.
    “I’ve got to do something,” said Ray, talking to the coffee table. He sat on an off-white leather couch with his elbows on his knees and his hands pressed up into his cheeks. He took up a cork disk that served as a coaster.
    Sarah watched him for a moment and recalled how much trouble she had gone through to train Justin to use them. Ray tossed the coaster away and leaned back on the cool soft leather cushions. Sarah silently joined him, trying to force herself to relax. That backfired immediately. The couch, too, reminded her of Justin. He loved nothing better than to jump from the loveseat to the sofa and back again. Numerous scoldings and punishments had only taught him to be more discreet about it.
    Leaning forward again with a sigh, Ray grabbed up the TV controller flipped and it on. The screen flashed, dimmed, then slowly brightened. It was Nickelodeon. Sarah wondered if Justin had had time to watch a cartoon this afternoon before—before whatever happened—or if it had just been left there from this morning.
    Ray flipped to CNN Headlines and together they watched without seeing and listened without hearing. TV was good for that sort of thing, she thought. Sometimes it served to empty your head and numb your mind. When she was sick she always watched a lot of TV as it took her mind off of all the painful toxins that the bacteria were generating in her body.
    Sarah broke the silence. “Have they called yet?”
    “Nothing yet. I’m sure they’ll pick him up soon,” Ray told her with all the confidence he could muster in his voice.
    “It’s getting dark,” she said in a hushed voice. “He didn’t take his sweatshirt. It’s still here.”
    “The night is a warm one, Sarah,” said Ray, but she could tell that it was almost more than he could do to keep his voice from cracking. “He’ll be fine.”
    Sarah went to the front window and gazed out at the darkening streets.
    “Did you pick up his