Joe, grim-faced, got out of the chair and came around the desk. Sandra was still looking at Ruskin as he put his hands on her shoulders.
“Shit,” she said, starting to make a move to get down on one knee to have a closer look at him. But Joe held her back.
“There’s nothing you can do,” he said mournfully, keeping her in front of him.
“Jesus, what happened?” she said. “It was a bump on the head. He was alive when I left here. Wasn’t he?”
Joe nodded. “He was. But soon after you left, he was making some noises, and I checked on him. A few seconds later and he was gone. But he did say something.”
“What?”
“He said he was sorry.”
Sandra’s eyes went wide. “I knew it. I knew it.”
“He said he helped Kyle. Put a stick into Lisa Carver’s computer when she got sick, passed it to Kyle. And that allowed Kyle to introduce the virus into the system.”
Sandra was stunned. “He told you all that?”
“Yeah.” Joe’s voice softened. “He never had any idea that it would be this bad, that the cars would become deadly, hunt people down.” Joe shook his head sadly. “He just, he never wanted anything like that to happen.”
Sandra blinked. “How’d he manage to tell you all that in the time I was gone?”
Joe nodded. “You know what I think? I think he knew he was dying and there were things he needed to get off his chest. Fast.”
Sandra looked again at the body of Ruskin on the floor. “He hated her. He hated Lisa Carver. He told me, before you got here. God, what a horrible man.”
Joe grimaced. “I don’t know. Maybe... maybe sometimes people have good intentions that can go horribly wrong.”
She gave him a sharp look. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing,” he said quickly.
Sandra shifted past him and looked at the open laptop. “So where does that leave us? I mean, okay, he said he was sorry, but did he tell you how to make it stop?”
As she looked at the screen, her eyes widened. There was something on it. An Arrival logo across the top. Notes, numbers, fields in which to enter data.
Sandra’s jaw dropped. “Are you in?”
Joe smiled, nodded.
“You got into her laptop?”
“Before Ruskin died, he gave me the password.”
“You’re kidding.”
Joe’s cheek twitched. “No. Like I said, I think he knew it was his last chance to do the right thing.”
Sandra looked skeptical for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay, okay, tell me what you’ve found.”
Joe got into the chair and moved the cursor around the screen. “This is where I tell you I’ve got good news and bad news. I’ve already given you the good news, which is that I got the password.”
“What was it, anyway?”
“Huh?”
“The password. What was the password?”
“Her daughter’s name.”
Sandra took a moment, then said, “Say again?”
“It’s Zenia, but spelled backward. A, I—”
“I get it,” Sandra said. Then quietly, “Ruskin told you this.”
Joe nodded. “She’d change it daily. The name part stays the same but it had to be followed by the previous day’s numeric date.” He shrugged. “So, that worked, and I’m in, but the bad news is, I can’t figure out how to get into the brains of the Arrival system.”
“Okay,” Sandra said, her voice very quiet. “You think there’s a chance?”
Joe shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll keep trying. Thing is, there’s so much else going on—” at which point he grabbed his cell phone off the desk and waved it in the air “—that I’m needed in a hundred other places right now.” His face went grim. “Something huge went down at the ferry terminal. Help was coming but the Arrivals launched an attack.”
Sandra sighed, bit her lip. “Katie and Archie are out there somewhere. I’ve got to find them. You do what you can here. I’m going. That bike in the hall. Is it yours?”
“For now. You’re not going out there.”
“I am. I’m going home.”
“I told you, the kids weren’t—”
“When they show up — and they will show up — I’m going to be there.”
He nodded his understanding.
“I’ve still got Lisa Carver’s phone. Anything happens, call me,” she said, moving for the door.
“Got it.” He waited a second, then said, “Hey.”
She stopped.
“I love you,” he said.
Sandra did her best to crack a smile and slipped out of the room.
Thirty-Nine
Why couldn’t she say it? Why couldn’t she tell him she loved him, too? Would it have killed her to say those three words?
Joe thought about how that woman had no idea of the lengths he’d gone to, the risks he’d taken, to make a life for them. Not just for the two of them, but for her children, as well.
No fucking idea at all.
And he’d done those things because he loved her. He loved her so much.
But oh no, saying it back to him, that was too hard.
Okay, okay, maybe his timing was off. She was thinking about her kids. Understandable. She had other things on her mind.
But when this was over, when the dust settled, he was sure she’d see him in a positive light. This crisis, as bad as it was, was an opportunity. It was a chance for her to see him in a leadership role. A heroic role. He really was Chief Brody, but instead of saving Amity from a big fish, he was saving Garrett Island from a thousand murderous cars.
Admittedly, there was one major difference. Chief Brody had not invited that shark into the waters off Amity’s beaches. Chief Brody did not create the crisis.
Joe Bridgeman was well aware of the role he’d played in what had happened today. He wasn’t blind to what he’d done. But Your Honor, he pleaded in the imaginary courtroom in his mind, I’m guilty with an explanation. When he speculated to Sandra about how he thought Ruskin never meant for things to get this out of hand — all bullshit, of course, given that Ruskin was not even remotely responsible for the sabotaging of the Arrival network — Joe was, in effect, formulating his own defense, in the event what he’d done became known. He could never have imagined the venality of the virus, its tremendous potential for harm.
He’d never have made a deal with Brandon Kyle had he known that anyone would get hurt.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Joe had asked Kyle during one of their meetings.
Kyle had laughed. “Some of the press may get squirted with windshield washer fluid. Maybe the doors won’t open. Maybe one of the cars will drive off by itself right into a telephone pole.”
“But no one’ll get hurt, right?”
“I can’t promise a tire won’t run over someone’s foot, but that would be about the worst of it. The last thing I want is for anyone to get hurt. Now, tell me again how much you said you need to put your mother in a home?”
“I wouldn’t call it a home,” he’d said. “Funny about that word. It’s so nice, except when you use it to describe a place to put parents. I like to call it a seniors’ living center. It’s a very nice place. Lots of activities. There’s the monthly apartment fee itself, then they provide meals, and she’s not as steady as she used to be so when she has to go to the bathroom—”
“Would three hundred thousand cover everything for a few years?”
Boy, would it ever.
He knew he should have told Kyle to get lost. In fact, he probably should have called the FBI and set up a sting. Corporate sabotage was a crime. But Joe had to give Kyle credit. The man had come prepared. A shrewd operator, that’s what he was.