Read The Blue Nowhere for Free Online Page A

around talking. Like us.”

CHAPTER 00000100 / FOUR
    F or a terrible half hour Wyatt Gillette had sat in the cold, medieval dungeon, refusing to speculate if it would really happen—if he’d be released. He wouldn’t allow himself even a wisp of hope; in prison, expectations are the first to die.
    Then, with a nearly silent click, the door opened and the cops returned.
    Gillette looked up and happened to notice in Anderson’s left lobe a tiny brown dot of an earring hole that had closed up long ago. The cop said, “A magistrate’s signed a temporary release order.”
    Gillette realized that he’d been sitting with his teeth clenched and shoulders drawn into a fierce knot. With this news he exhaled in relief. Thank you, thank you. . . .
    “Now, you have a choice. Either you’ll be shackled the whole time you’re out or you wear an electronic tracking anklet.”
    The prisoner considered this. “Anklet.”
    “It’s a new variety,” Anderson said. “Titanium. You can only get it on and off with a special key. Nobody’s ever slipped out of one.”
    “Well, one guy did,” Bob Shelton said cheerfully. “But he had to cut his foot off to do it. He only got a mile before he bled to death.”
    Gillette by now disliked Shelton as much as the burly cop seemed to hate him.
    “It tracks you for sixty miles and broadcasts through metal,” Anderson continued.
    “You made your point,” Gillette said. To the warden he said, “I need some things from my cell.”
    “What things?” the man grumbled. “You aren’t gonna be away that long, Gillette. You don’t need to pack.”
    Gillette said to Anderson, “I need some of my books and notebooks. And I’ve got a lot of printouts that’ll be helpful—from things like Wired and 2600. ”
    The CCU cop said to the warden, “It’s okay.”
    A loud electronic braying came from nearby. Gillette jumped at the noise. It took a minute to recognize the sound, one that he’d never heard in San Ho. Frank Bishop answered his cell phone. The gaunt cop took the call, listened for a moment, flicking at a sideburn, then answered, “Yessir, Captain. . . . And?” There was a long pause, during which the corner of his mouth tightened very slightly. “You can’t do anything? . . . Okay, sir.”
    He hung up.
    Anderson cocked an eyebrow at him. The homicide detective said evenly, “That was Captain Bernstein. There was another report on the wire about the MARINKILL case. The perps were spotted near Walnut Creek. Probably headed in this direction.” He glanced quickly at Gillette as if he were a stain on the bench and then said to Anderson, “I should tell you—I requested to be removed from this case and put on that one. They said no. Captain Bernstein thought I’d be more helpful here.”
    “Thanks for telling me,” Anderson said. To Gillette, though, the CCU cop didn’t seem particularly grateful for the confirmation that the detective was only halfheartedly involved in the case. Anderson asked Shelton, “Did you want MARINKILL too?”
    “No. I wanted this one. The girl was killed pretty much in my backyard. I want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
    Anderson glanced at his watch. It was 9:15. “We should get back to CCU.”
    The warden summoned the huge guard and instructions were given. The man led Gillette back down the corridor to his cell. Fiveminutes later he’d collected what he needed, used the toilet and pulled on his jacket. He preceded the guard into the central part of San Ho.
    Out one door, out another, past the visitors’ area—where he’d see a friend once a month or so—and the lawyer-client rooms, where he’d spent so many hours working on the futile appeal with the man who’d taken every penny that he and Ellie had.
    Finally, breathing fast now as the excitement flooded into him, Gillette stepped through the second-to-the-last doorway—into the area of offices and the guards’ locker rooms. The cops were waiting for him