Read Time Clock Hero for Free Online Page A

down again and reached out and touched Albin’s right hand, then he grabbed it.  The hand twitched, strongly this time, and Phoenix let go of it in horror, dropping it as if he’d accidentally picked up a toad.  “Did you actually check for a pulse, Detective Jenkins?” 
    “Standard operating procedure,” she said.  “I checked his pulse when I arrived, and I guess he’s been dead since midnight.”
    “So, would you guess that Dr. Demachi is actually dead, Detective Alaia Jenkins?” Phoenix said, specially pronouncing her name slowly and emphatically.
    “What are you talking about?”
    Phoenix shook his head.  “And what if I told you he wasn’t?”
    “If you think he’s alive, then you’re probably out of your---”
    Dr. Demachi’s hands, both of them, began to twitch.
    Alaia’s eyes lit up.  And Chief Cobb, with alarm ringing all over his face, a face Phoenix had never seen him make before, stepped backwards, pulling Alaia along with him. 
    Dr. Demachi began to twitch again, monstrously and hideously, first in his hands, then in his arms and legs, like a defective marionette being jerked loose from its strings by a rabid dog.  His eye lids flicked open. His pupils were dilated to the size of quarters and blood red.  His head began to shake in bouts, first in short bursts from side to side, and then more violently, like an animal trying to ward off flies.  His shoulders, first the left and then the right, began to shrug, almost as if choreographed to the movements of some macabre movie trailer music.
    Dr. Albin Demachi stood up. 
    The officers backed up into the glass door, struggling against each other to get out, sloshing their wimp-colored coffee on everything within three feet.  They got the door open and moved quickly into the hall, two of them colliding and tangling as they hurried, falling over each other onto the hard white floor.  The paramedics followed them out, one of them yelling for his mother, and the whole lot of them, unsure about what was happening or what they should do, backed up and away from the lab doors as Dr. Demachi stood there quivering on his feet.
    Chief Cobb raised his hand to his chest as he stepped back, looking towards the door.  Alaia, her posture suddenly stiff, froze in place.  Phoenix reached into her jacket, pulled out her thirty-eight, and told her and Cobb to hurry out.  Dr. Demachi, looking like a plate full of quivering sushi, lunged.
    Phoenix placed the barrel of the gun against the forehead of his old friend and pulled the trigger. 
    A single shot rang out, well-aimed and perfectly-timed, and the bullet slammed into Dr. Demachi’s head, right between his eyes.  He stumbled backwards, wobbled for a few seconds, and tumbled against the metal cabinets of his workstation, ending up right where he started.
    A terrible and deep silence followed, which to Phoenix was worse than any noise he’d ever heard.  Hadn’t he just killed his friend Albin?  No time for that.  He stepped over Dr. Demachi’s body.  He found an evidence bag containing the needle, the same syringe found in the possession of June Buckner, sitting conveniently on top of the lab results report.  He put the bag into his pocket and slipped the folder into his waist band beneath his jacket.  He pulled out his Oblivium, shaking, and he took a long hit.  Then he moved away from the workstation just as Chief Cobb and the others returned.
    Phoenix turned to Cobb and then shook his head at Alaia.  “Thanks for making me kill Albin, Princess Alaia!”

Chapter 5
     
    Tuning in to the sound of passing cars - they’d been speeding by him since he’d stepped out of his Ford Focus, though none of them loud enough to disrupt his thoughts – Phoenix Malone suddenly became aware of the sidewalk beneath his feet, the vertical urban forest around him, and the cold, morning air piercing his light jacket and stinging his ears. 
    The city of Nashville was a dark city these days – dark in