Cookie Cutter Man Read Online Free Page A

phone lay against the wall in pieces of plastic and a few tangles of
colored wire.
    But I didn’t really throw it, did I? Daniel asked himself. I
thought I just unplugged it.
    The chest of drawers no longer had any drawers; they had
been pulled out and emptied on the carpet. Looking over the wreckage brought
agony to the front of Daniel’s brain; he closed his eyes and took a pill.
    “Daniel? What happened?”
    His mouth was dry. “I didn’t do this.”
    “Tell me what happened!”
    Sure. But would she believe him? “I was looking for a bug
and—”
    “There aren’t any roaches, remember?”
    “Not a roach. A bug .”
    “Daniel ...”
    “A fucking bug ! You know a ... a bug , goddammit.”
    “What are you talking about?” Echo shouted, making his head
quiver.
    Daniel took a deep breath. “A bug. A surveillance bug. As in, I think we’ve been—”
    “You thought our place was bugged ?” she asked in a
hushed voice.
    “ Yes .”
    “Why would you think that?” She was finally able to at least
partially grasp the gravity of the situation. She knew what had been paying
most of the bills.
    Daniel looked at her. She sat, glowing gently in the light
from the candle, and he had no choice but to tell her everything. Well, almost everything ... being followed by the station wagon, the spook downtown. He left
out the part about thinking the little boy was a cop and what the stranger had
told him, those words still clanging through his mind. Nor did he mention the
phone call he’d gotten. He told her about looking for a bug.
    “... but I didn’t do this. No way did I do this.” He
wondered if she believed him.
    “Daniel ...”
    “Was it this bad when you first came home?” he asked.
    “What? I ... no. I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
    Daniel saw more tears swelling in Echo’s eyes and tried to
console her, he put his arm around her and she jerked away, scooting out of his
reach. He could almost hear his heart break, could feel it in his stomach,
bubbling away in the digestive acids.
    “I’m sorry but ... I can’t ... I’m going to bed. We’ll talk
in the morning.” She stood and looked at him. “Are you coming?”
    “Soon,” Daniel said, his voice coming out low, a whisper, a
nothing.
    She nodded and wiped her eyes, then turned and went into the
bedroom. He could hear her soft gasp of surprise when she hit the lights, and
heard the sounds of her cleaning up.
    Daniel stood, fighting the dizziness, and walked to the
kitchen. His blood had congealed into a nasty jelly covering most of the cheap
tile. It took him an hour to half scrape, half soak the mess off the floor. He
used an entire roll of paper towels, which now sat as a gruesome lump in the
trash.
    Daniel had taken care of the worst of it; the rest could
wait for morning. He knew how to get bloodstains out. Eight hours wouldn’t make
a difference.
    The pill he’d taken earlier wore off, and he was weak in the
knees from the pain. He took two more from the bottle the doctorbug had given
him and collapsed on the couch. After they kicked in he would go to bed, but
until then he was liable to pass out again if he tried to walk across the room.
    Fuzzy pharmaceutical warmth spread through his tired body,
soaking up the agony in his thumping head in much the same way he’d soaked up
the blood. Daniel dozed on the couch and was almost asleep when the television
clicked on.
    The picture was static, a black and white rolling blur that
became a clear image: a face. It was the face of the harbinger that had hopped
into the station wagon and disappeared.
    Then the stranger spoke. “Anybody in there? Just nod if you
can hear me.”
    Daniel’s tongue had somehow grown a winter coat, sticky and
revolting in his mouth, preventing him from responding.
    “OK. This is gonna have to be short, Dannyboy, so listen
good.”
    “How did you—”
    “Don’t interrupt me. I got a minute from now until they
notice this. Have you been contacted by anyone?