James Patterson - Now You See Her

The Jump Killer, or whoever he was, had been shot dead. Trying to escape in the drug dealers’ boat, he had fired on the coast guard ship. The coast guard guys returned the favor with their fifty-caliber machine gun.

As I was taken aboard, I actually saw his blown-apart body, floating facedown in the water, under the ship’s floodlight. I didn’t need any grief counseling. If anything, my only regret was that I hadn’t been able to do it myself.

“Slowly now,” Dippel said. “Who was the big guy we shot?”

“Captain Bill Spence,” Charlie said. “He’s a client of mine, or he was. He drugged us and threw me overboard. I woke up in the water on my back with two gallons of salt water in my stomach. I saw the yacht’s running lights and dog-paddled toward them for what seemed like three hours. The go-fast speedboat pulled alongside when I was about a couple of hundred feet away. When the Mexican guys boarded the yacht, it took everything I had to drag myself onto their boat, and I used its radio to call you.”

The tall red-haired sailor clicked his pen again. “And the Hispanic men are?”

“Mexican drug dealers,” I said. “Spence abducted women and brought them out to sea and sold them to drug runners who raped and killed them at their sick parties. Which was exactly what would have happened to me if Charlie hadn’t called you.”

“How do you know all this?” Agent Holden wanted to know.

“Spence told me!” I yelled. “Don’t you understand? I wasn’t kidding when I said I knew that Justin Harris didn’t kill Tara Foster. Spence was the Jump Killer. He was the man who tried to abduct me all those years ago. He’s been abducting and selling women since Miami Vice was popular. Not only that, he said the chief of police was involved. Peter Fournier was his partner. In fact, he said Peter ran the drug trade in Key West.”

“That one I can’t understand,” Dippel said. “Peter Fournier? I know him. I’ve eaten at his house. Our kids are on the same baseball team. That can’t be right.”

“You think you feel stupid? I married the man,” I said. “Spence also said Peter had hired him to kill me before I got away.”

“It all actually makes sense now,” Charlie said, shifting the frozen beans to his other hand. “The captain became my client and good buddy right around the time it came out in the local paper that I was representing Justin. He would ask about the case all the time. And I thought he was just a crime buff or something. He was the one who actually offered the free cruise for us to celebrate!”

Holden frowned. “What a goddamn mess,” he said. “This is what you call taking it easy, Baylor?”

Agent Holden left the room to make some calls. An hour later, at around four a.m., he came back in and told us we could leave.

“Your story seems to pan out so far. I checked the registration on the yacht. Peter is actually listed as one of the owners. I also just got off the phone with my agent in charge. We’re putting round-the-clock surveillance on Fournier. Until we grab him, I want you out of here, Miss Bloom, or Fournier, or whatever the hell your name is. I want you to get checked out at the hospital and then get on the first flight out of here this morning, and don’t think this is all over. We’ll be keeping an eye on you. And you, Charlie. You can bet your ass I’ll be in touch.”

WE SKIPPED THE HOSPITAL and went straight to the airport, stopping only to swing by Charlie’s house so I could get changed and grab my bags.

The sun was rising behind the smudged Plexiglas window of the airport waiting area when Agent Holden called Charlie on his cell an hour later. Charlie excused himself to take the call.

“Holden just got to Spence’s house with the state CSI team,” Charlie said, clicking his phone shut as he came back inside. “Hopefully, they’ll find evidence that’ll link that psycho son of a bitch to Tara Foster’s murder as well as to the disappearances of all those other women. He said the place looks like a landfill, so it’ll probably take awhile.”

Charlie shook his bruised purple head. “What a night, huh? Do I know how to party or what?” he said as they called my plane.

“Charlie, listen. I need to tell you something,” I said. “I left something out.”

“No,” Charlie said. “Please. Not more.”

“It’s going to come out, and I want you to hear it from me first. It’s about how I met Peter.” I took a breath. I felt a weight shift inside me, the weight of so many years of holding it all in.

“Seventeen years ago, when I was on spring break, I’d been drinking and got behind the wheel, and I accidentally killed a man. Peter was the first cop on scene. He helped me. He got rid of the body.”

“What?” Charlie said.

“Yes, Charlie. That’s how we met. That’s probably why I married him. He protected me from going to jail. I’m just like him, Charlie. Corrupt. You need to stay the hell away from me. Everyone does. My whole life is just one big lie. I guess it always has been.”

Charlie stared at me. He winced, looking away. I could see tears in his eyes, pure hurt. It killed me to see him like that. He opened his mouth to say something, then he closed it again.

“Charlie,” I said, starting to cry myself.

“I’m leaving,” he said a moment later.

And that’s just what he did, without another look back.

I SOMETIMES have trouble sleeping on planes, but not this time. I slept all the way to Atlanta, and after I switched planes I put my head back and went out like a light switch again. I didn’t wake up until we were touching down in New York.

I was in my apartment an hour later, showered and in my own bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, when my wall phone rang.

Please let it be Charlie, I prayed, answering it.

“I just heard!” my boss, Tom Sidirov, yelled triumphantly. “You pulled it off! You actually saved a guy on death row. Home run! Grand slam! Come in right now. We’ll go to lunch. I need to hear all about it.”

“I’d love to, Tom,” I said. “But I just got off the plane. How about tomorrow? I’m zonked.”

“Of course, of course. Rest up for the TV cameras. I already called the PR guys. The firm’s going to milk this thing for all it’s worth. I’m so proud of you. I’ve been gloating to all the other partners all morning. We’ll do a victory lap tomorrow. I knew you could do this, kid.”

After I hung up, I wondered how jazzed Tom was going to be when he found out that I’d been lying to the firm, that I’d killed a man in a drunk-driving accident and covered it up, and that my name wasn’t Nina Bloom.

Oh, well. I’d find out soon enough.

Then I heard the lobby buzzer in the kitchen.

“Who is it?” I said, pressing the Talk button.

“It’s me, Mom,” said Emma.

“Emma!” I yelled. Well, at least I had someone who’d stand by me.

“Baby, I missed you so much!” I said.

“Mom, c’mon,” Emma said. “Buzz me in already.”

I pressed the Door Open button and unlocked my apartment’s front door before I went back into the bedroom. I was unzipping my suitcase when I noticed the message indicator on my cell. Someone had called while I was in the shower.

“Listen, Nina,” Charlie said, sounding out of breath.

Thank God. Charlie did want to speak to me again.

I heard the front door open.

“Hey, Em!” I called behind me. “Hold on. I’m in the bedroom. I’ll be right there.”

“The FBI tracked Fournier to a hotel room up in Key Largo. When they went to arrest him half an hour ago, they found something horrifying. His wife and two young sons were dead, shot execution-style in the back of the head. Fournier wasn’t there. No one has seen him. They think he’s been gone for at least twenty-four hours. The FBI is putting out an APB on him right now. Whatever you do, don’t go back to your apartment. Call me pronto. I need to know that you’re OK.”