Opening
Opening: A quiet funeral erupts into the novel’s most devastating turn: a bomb obliterates the wrong target, killing Janey and launching Hodges into a relentless personal war. These chapters flip triumph into terror, as Brady’s confidence shatters and Hodges’s grief hardens into a vow to take justice into his own hands.
What Happens
Chapter 91: The Send Button
From his car up the block, Brady Hartsfield studies the mourners exiting Olivia Trelawney’s service, waiting for his chance. He spots K. William Hodges instantly—“as big as a house,” wearing that unmistakable old-fashioned hat—and sees him walk off with Janelle "Janey" Patterson toward the back of the funeral home. Savoring the thought of one move ending both Hodges and the Trelawney line, Brady watches the procession creep into the street.
Sun glare makes the line of cars hard to read; the fedora makes everything easy. When the Toyota pulls out, Brady notes the hat on the driver and, though the passenger seat looks empty, decides he has what matters. He dials the burner phone stashed with the bomb. “I said you wouldn’t see me coming,” he murmurs—and hits send.
Chapter 92: The Last Laugh
Janey drives Hodges’s Toyota, having swapped vehicles with him minutes earlier. Reaching to turn on the radio, she hears a cell phone ringing and smiles, assuming Hodges has left his phone in the glove compartment again. The sound isn’t from the glove box; it’s behind her. Before the realization lands, a force shoves her seat forward. White swallows the world.
Chapter 93: Aftermath
The blast tears the street apart. Holly Gibney darts from her uncle’s car with Hodges right behind her. Pain clamps Hodges’s chest—an echo of his earlier suicidal despair—and for a heartbeat he hopes for a final exit. It passes. He drowns in self-reproach—if he’d used his father’s gun weeks ago, Janey would live—but the surge of Guilt and Responsibility cools into focus. This isn’t on him. It’s on the man who planted the bomb.
Flames gutter from the wrecked Toyota; a severed arm smolders in a black sleeve; a single high heel sits in a widening pool. Hodges grips a stunned Holly and slaps her lightly to pull her back. He tells her he loved Janey—and that no one can know. Holly, seeming catatonic, puts on sunglasses. As her mother, Charlotte, barrels in and clutches her, Holly slips Hodges the sunglasses case. Inside: her name, address, and number.
Chapter 94: The Countermove
Hodges calls Jerome Robinson, bluntly explaining the bombing and Janey’s death. He refuses the police: “The scumbucket killed her, I want his ass, and I mean to have it.” Committing to Vigilantism and Justice Outside the Law, he instructs Jerome to log into Debbie’s Blue Umbrella as “kermitfrog19” in an hour and send a surgical, taunting message designed to rattle Brady to the core. Jerome agrees immediately.
Sirens crowd the block. Hodges gently lays his suit coat over Janey’s severed arm, then walks to the officers, flashes his retired badge, and identifies the car as his—stating he should have been the driver. He asks them to call his former partner, Pete Huntley, and keeps his tears in check; they don’t fit the story he needs to tell.
Chapter 95: The Message Received
Brady returns home elated—his problem solved, in his mind. A nosy neighbor delays him; then he goes to his mother’s room and addresses the corpse of Deborah Ann Hartsfield, “thanking” her for the reminder to relock Hodges’s car. Her open eyes won’t stay shut. The celebration curdles.
He heads to his computer to outline his next move. A Debbie’s Blue Umbrella alert chimes. He opens a chat request from “kermitfrog19” and reads:
Missed me.
And here’s something to remember, asshole: I’m like your side mirror. You know, OBJECTS ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR.
...it’s PERP, not PERK.
...I’m going to kill you.
See you soon, mama’s boy.
Hodges is alive. He knows Brady’s online persona, his grammar tic, his crimes—and the one thing that cuts deepest: his mother. Panic obliterates Brady’s swagger. Home is no longer safe. He heads to the bathroom, shaves his head to alter his look, and prepares to bolt.
Across town, Hodges sits in an interrogation room with Pete Huntley, deliberately downplaying any link to the Mercedes Killer to keep the cops out of his private hunt.
Character Development
Hodges’s grief crystallizes into purpose while Brady’s certainty fractures. Secondary allies step out of the background with decisive, revealing choices.
- K. William Hodges: Grief for Janey spikes into cold resolve. He hides evidence of his love, lies by omission to the police, and embraces a private, lethal mission.
- Brady Hartsfield: Confidence collapses at the first real counterpunch. The “mama’s boy” taunt exposes his core vulnerability, sending him into paranoid flight and physical self-alteration.
- Holly Gibney: Amid shock, she acts with quiet precision, covertly arming Hodges with her contact info—an early sign of the capable ally she becomes.
- Jerome Robinson: Loyalty turns active. He steps into danger without hesitation, becoming Hodges’s indispensable partner in the digital counterattack.
Themes & Symbols
Hodges’s shift from cooperative retiree to hunter confirms the novel’s turn toward vigilantism. Rejecting procedure, he claims the right to judge and punish—fueling tension with law enforcement and reframing the conflict as personal, not institutional. In this light, his tenderness toward Janey’s remains reads as a last act of love before he hardens into an avenger.
Technology and Modern Crime cuts both ways. A bomb triggered by a burner phone annihilates a life; an online persona and a perfectly crafted message strike back, reversing the predator-prey dynamic. Digital spaces become battlegrounds where anonymity, language, and timing are weapons.
Symbols sharpen the tragedy. Hodges’s fedora—his badge of old-school detection—misleads Brady and becomes the fatal marker that kills Janey, turning nostalgia into catastrophe. The severed arm, which Hodges covers with his coat, embodies the brutality of Brady’s violence and the tenderness Hodges tries to preserve before he steps fully into vengeance.
Key Quotes
“I said you wouldn’t see me coming.” Brady’s private victory lap underscores his habit of narrating his own genius—moments before fate exposes his blindness. The line heightens the irony: he doesn’t see Janey.
“The scumbucket killed her, I want his ass, and I mean to have it.” Hodges drops the language of investigation for the language of possession and pursuit. This is the moment he declares a personal war, not a case.
“OBJECTS ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR.” Hodges weaponizes metaphor, mapping a rearview warning onto Brady’s future. The line promises proximity, pressure, and inevitability—terror delivered as a taunt.
“...it’s PERP, not PERK.” A petty correction becomes psychological flensing. By naming Brady’s tell, Hodges shows he sees into the killer’s private world, collapsing Brady’s illusion of invulnerability.
“See you soon, mama’s boy.” The coup de grâce targets the wound Brady can’t defend. By invoking his mother, Hodges turns Brady’s greatest source of identity into his greatest fear, triggering panic and retreat.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
This sequence resets the entire novel. Janey’s death transforms a cat-and-mouse chase into a vendetta that forges the trio of Hodges, Jerome, and Holly into a true team. Hodges’s embrace of extralegal justice narrows the runway for negotiation or restraint, driving the story toward a violent endgame. On the other side, Brady loses control and anonymity at once—forced into motion, forced into mistakes, and, for the first time, forced to look over his shoulder.