Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Thirty

Nicholas wordlessly handed his phone over to Jesse.

There was a text, from what had been Charlie Farrell’s number. All the letters in lowercase. Some words running together. Jesse recognized his old friend’s distinctive style. Charlie had been a thumb user. Jesse had never gotten the hang of that. But the older he got, and as much dexterity as he had lost, he was happy he could still properly grip a baseball.

Jesse copied the text, sent it as a message to himself, handed the phone back to Nicholas.

“Where’s this been?” Jesse said. “You get texts stacked up like planes waiting to land at Logan?”

“I actually think I might know,” Nicholas said. “A few months ago my girlfriend and I were in a group chat, a bunch of couples making a plan to go away for the weekend. And while that was going on, some texts just got lost to the ether. I did some research. It’s more common than you think, texts coming to you late, or just getting lost, even if they say ‘delivered.’ ”

“Gives you the creeps,” Jesse said. “Like Charlie talking to us from the other side.”

“Trying to tell us something,” Nicholas said. “Just after the fact.”

Jesse felt himself smiling.

“Not just a cop to the end,” he said. “After the end.”

“Is any of this making sense to you?” Nicholas said.

“Just this,” Jesse said. “We know the guy who killed Charlie took his phone. Maybe he got around to reading his text messages, and saw what he wrote to you, and decided you had to know something.”

“We just have no idea about what.”

Jesse said, “Maybe your grandfather figured out where the scam and spam calls were coming from, and who was behind them.”

“And that was worth killing him over?”

“What I’m going to find out,” Jesse said. “Something else you can take to the bank.”

Nicholas looked down at his phone again.

“Trouble in Paradise,” he said.

“Not the first,” Jesse said.