Better Off Dead by Child Lee & Child Andrew

Author:Child, Lee & Child, Andrew [Child, Lee & Child, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, Mystery, Crime, Suspense, Adventure
ISBN: 9781984818508
Amazon: 1984818503
Goodreads: 56663329
Publisher: Delacorte Press/Random House
Published: 2021-10-26T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 31

I made it five yards, then stopped. Because of the guy’s phone. I was going to need to use it. Which meant I would have to unlock it. Which could be a problem.

The phone was the kind with just a screen. There were no numbered keys. No button to press, to read a fingerprint. I raised it and its screen lit up. The whole thing buzzed angrily in my hand. A message appeared. It said, “Face ID Not Recognized. Try Again?” Heaven help any phone that recognized my face, I thought. Then I turned back to the car. Returned to the driver’s door. Opened it, and held the phone level with the guy’s nose. It buzzed angrily. I lowered it and tried again.

No success.

I figured the problem must be the guy’s jaw. It had been broken by the airbag. The phone must keep a record of the shape of its owner’s face. That was different now. Its outline had changed. I tried pushing the guy’s chin up with my fingers, then lined up the phone. No luck. I shifted his jaw a little to the side. Tried the phone again. It still wouldn’t unlock. It buzzed again, more angrily than before. A new message appeared. “Passcode Required to Enable Face ID.”

Six circles popped up below the text. They were small and hollow and bunched up together in a horizontal line. Below them there were ten circles with the numbers 0–9. They were arranged like a conventional keypad. I touched the zero. The first small circle turned gray. So, the phone had a six-digit PIN. Far too many combinations to have a reasonable chance of cracking it. Not without knowing something about the dead guy. Something to narrow the odds. I hit the zero five more times, just in case. The other small circles filled in. The phone buzzed angrily. “Passcode Incorrect. Try Again?” I thought, Maybe. But not there. Not standing in the sun next to a car with two dead bodies inside it. And not when there was another avenue I could try.

I walked around to the rear of the car and popped the trunk. The other guy’s body was all the way forward, piled up against the seats. It must have slid there with the force of the collision. I reached in, grabbed the guy’s belt, and pulled him back. I checked his pockets. Found another phone. Another one with no keys. It also asked for a Face ID. I wrestled the guy onto his back. Shuffled him down so that his face wasn’t in the shadows. Held the phone level with his nose. It buzzed, and unlocked itself.

Getting one of the phones unlocked was good. But not perfect. I had no idea how long it would be until it locked itself again. Thirty seconds? A minute? Ten? However long it took it was no problem while I was near the car. I could use the guy’s face to reactivate it. The issue was I didn’t want to stay near the car.

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