Джеймс Паттерсон - Killer Instinct

“I understand,” he said. He truly did. “And I’m sorry.”

Darvish turned back to the minibar, grabbing two bourbons. Jim Beam. It suddenly didn’t matter what he chose for them to drink. Quickly, he poured the little bottles into a couple of glasses next to the empty ice bucket. “Hope you like it neat.”

“Neat is perfect,” said Sadira, standing. “The way it should be.”

She met him halfway across the carpet, her fingers gently grazing his as she reached for one of the glasses from his outstretched hand.

Again, Darvish smiled. How could he not?

It was the way she was looking at him. The adulation in her eyes. She made him feel so alive. So powerful. Tonight, he was more than a professor at MIT. He was Superman. Invincible.

“What should we drink to?” asked Darvish.

Sadira didn’t hesitate. It was meant to be. “To seeing each other for who we really are,” she said.

Two

DARVISH WATCHED as Sadira made quick work of her bourbon. Was she looking for liquid courage? Perhaps she truly was nervous, he thought.

“Shall we have another?” he asked.

“No, I’ve had enough,” she said before producing a smile of her own. “At least as far as the drinking goes.”

English wasn’t Darvish’s first language. Or even his second. After Persian and Arabic, English was actually a distant third. But he was still pretty sure that was a highly suggestive double entendre.

Sadira promptly handed Darvish her glass and cozied up to him, her head nestling against his shoulder. Her long, dark-brown hair smelled like lavender.

“Have you ever been tied up, Professor?” she asked.

Forget liquid courage. It was as if he’d slipped something into her drink. Only he hadn’t.

Tied up? Darvish shuffled his feet awkwardly. “Only in traffic, I’m afraid.”

Sadira began loosening his tie. “Are you afraid now?”

The professor was speechless. Aroused beyond belief, but still speechless. Sadira began to laugh.

“Oh, you should’ve seen your face just now!” she said, pointing. She was kidding. Of course she was kidding. She didn’t really want to tie him up.

“You got me,” said Darvish.

“Do I?” Sadira brushed her full lips against his before whispering softly in his ear. “Trust me, I want you to be able to use your hands with me.”

She let go of his tie and turned toward the bed, motioning over her shoulder for him to follow.

Darvish took one step, however, and stopped. Something was happening.

The room had begun to move. It was spinning. Slowly at first, then faster and faster. He tried to focus, but his vision had gone blurry, as if there were Vaseline smeared on his glasses. He could barely see Sadira or anything else. He felt dizzy. Nauseated. His knees were beginning to wobble.

“Something’s wrong,” he said.

“No,” said Sadira, reaching for her purse on the chair. She removed a pair of latex gloves, sliding them on. “Everything’s going exactly as planned.”

The combination of drugs she’d slipped into Darvish’s drink at the bar while he was in the bathroom was finally kicking in—with a vengeance. Stronger versions of his prescribed OxyContin and diclofenac, plus lots and lots of sildenafil, a.k.a. Viagra.

Darvish reached out for Sadira, the two empty glasses of bourbon slipping from his hands. “Help me,” he begged. “Help me…”

The professor had about two minutes of consciousness left. Three, at most.

Sadira would indeed help him. To the bed, at least. That’s where she needed the professor to be. After pulling down the covers and messing up the sheets a bit, she helped him lie down.

“Here,” she said, propping up his head on the pillows. She wanted it to look as if he’d been watching TV.

So far, so good. But still so much to do.

Sadira thoroughly washed the glass she had drunk from, spic-and-span, before returning it to its place next to the ice bucket. Darvish’s glass was then positioned on the bedside table next to him.

Keeping the gloves on, she grabbed the remote and ordered a movie. The hotel offered a selection of six pornos. The choice for Professor Darvish was a no-brainer. Naughty College Co-eds.

Ironically, while the minibar charges weren’t itemized on the hotel bill, the movie selections were. Titles included.

Sadira checked on Darvish again. He was out cold, officially unconscious.

It was time to finish the job.

Unbuckling the professor’s belt, she undid his trousers and pulled them down around his ankles. Next, she rolled him over onto his stomach and grabbed one of the little bottles of bourbon.

Those latex gloves weren’t just for avoiding fingerprints.

“Bottoms up, Professor,” Sadira whispered. Then she made the bottle disappear inside his rectum. Completely.

Because all perfect murders have one thing in common.

They never look like murder.

Book One Nothing Is Sacred,

No One Is Safe

Chapter 1

THERE’S NOTHING quite like walking into a room packed with more than a hundred students and not a single one is happy to see you…

If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost take it personally.

“Good morning, class,” I began, “and welcome to your final exam in Abnormal Behavioral Analysis, otherwise known as Professor Dylan Reinhart messing with your impressionable minds for a little while in an effort to see if you actually learned anything this glorious spring semester. As legend correctly has it, I never give the same test twice, which means that all of you will be spared any repeat of a previous exam, including my personal all-time favorite, having everyone in the class write and perform an original rap song about Sigmund Freud’s seduction theory.”

I paused for a moment to allow for the inevitable objection from the brave, albeit delusional, student who thought he or she might finally be the one to appeal to my better judgment, whatever that was.

Sure enough, a hand shot up. It belonged to a young man, probably a sophomore, wearing a rugby shirt and a look of complete consternation.

“Yes, is there a question?” I asked.

He was sitting in the third row, and best I could tell, it had been three days since he last showered. Finals week at Yale is hell on personal hygiene.

“This isn’t fair, Professor Reinhart,” he announced.

I waited for him to continue and plead his case diligently, but that was all he had to offer. There was no rehearsed speech on how all the other professors give their students a study guide or at least explain what they should expect on the final.

“That’s it?” I asked. “That’s all you’ve got for me? This isn’t fair? ”

“I just think we should’ve had a chance to prepare for this test,” he said. “The only thing you told us was that we all had to bring our cell phones.”

“Yes, I see. Clearly a miscarriage of justice,” I said. It was a little early in the morning for the full-on Reinhart sarcasm, but sometimes these kids left me no choice. I turned to the rest of the class. “With a show of hands, how many of you agree with your esteemed colleague here? How many think that what I’m doing is unfair?”

Literally every hand went up.

I so love it when they make it easy for me…

“Wow, that’s pretty impressive,” I said, looking around the room. “You’re all in agreement. All for one and one for all. Kumbaya!”

Mr. Rugby Shirt in the third row all but pumped his fist in victory. “Does that mean you’ve changed your mind, Professor Reinhart? You’re postponing the test?”

Silly rabbit.

“No, it means the test has already begun,” I said. “Now everyone please take out your cell phones and place them directly in front of you. It’s time to see how united you all really are. ”