Chapter 26

Maybe a commuter pass was in order. This was the second train ride in less than a week out to Maplewood.

Annabelle could be thanked for spreading the word around the office that Jerome was sick enough to go to the hospital, and a phone call confirmed he had been admitted. The green light for another trip to New Jersey. It had to be done tonight or it would be too late. Once the hospital figured out what was wrong with Jerome, the health department and the police would be called in, and surely Jerome’s house would be searched.

The path from the station to Highland Place was now a familiar one. The streets were quiet, and none of the few people passing by paid any attention to the visitor. Walking with assurance, as if belonging there, the visitor went around to the back of the unlit house. The first window was locked, but the second one slid right open.

Trusting fools, these suburbanites.

It was a struggle to get through the ground-floor window. The mask and gloves were donned as a precautionary measure. Though the tube in the coat pocket was carefully wrapped, there was no way of knowing exactly where Jerome had opened his cheery birthday card.

The flashlight cast its yellow glow around the kitchen, then into the dining room and through the living room. The beam led the way up the stairs to the small bedroom that served as an office. A computer sat amid the clutter on the desk. After it was switched on, it took only a few minutes to find the right file and just a little while longer to erase it. All that work, pages and pages of manuscript, obliterated with just the tapping of the Delete key.

Jerome must have printed out a hard copy as well—there it was in the top desk drawer. The folder was taken from its berth and replaced with the test tube.

The police would find the anthrax and think that Jerome had exposed himself.

How was anyone to know that a bit of the tube’s contents had been put aside just in case it was needed? You need so little to do so much damage.