Джеймс Паттерсон - The Inn

The drive-by shooting took only seconds; the house was blasted with noise and destruction for less than a minute before the car outside skidded on the gravel and sped away. But it felt like much longer as I cowered on the floor, my face in the carpet, listening to the screams of my friends.

Their voices rose at once, a confused wailing.

“Oh my God! Oh my God! Help!”

“What happened?”

“Is everyone all right?”

Susan burst through the door beside me and ran through the room to the front of the house. I followed. The car was gone. We grabbed at each other; her nails bit into my arms and shoulders.

“Are you—”

“Are you okay? I’m okay!”

“I’m okay.” Susan ran her hands over herself, gripped her hair. “Jesus!”

Nick and Effie were bent over Angelica on the floor. The author was clutching her upper arm as blood ran between her fingers. Pieces of her exploded manuscript marked with slashes of a red pen were in her hair. Susan dashed to the medicine cabinet. Doc Simeon hadn’t decided the coast was clear yet and remained under the table, his eyes huge and his mouth downturned.

“How bad is it?” I went to Angelica.

“I’ve been shot,” she said, her voice more wonder than surprise. “Can anyone believe it? Someone shot me. Someone shot me! In my own home!”

I heard a groaning on the porch and ran out there to find Vinny slumped sideways in his wheelchair. A bullet had shattered the hub of the left wheel, collapsing the wheelchair to one side. I grabbed the ancient gangster under the arms and lifted him onto the bench on the porch.

“Motherfuckers!” he howled, shoving me off as I set him on the bench. “You know, I came here hoping I’d been shot at from a moving vehicle for the last fucking time, Robinson.”

“I’m sorry,” I said for some reason.

“All those guys inside okay?”

“Angelica got hit in the arm.” I couldn’t catch my breath. I saw the blood on him, fell to my knees, and lifted his thin, useless leg. “Looks like you got one too.”

Vinny pulled his tattered trouser leg tight, revealing two bullet holes. “Fuck!”

The fury was descending on me fast, falling on me like a red-hot cloak, tightening around my neck. I found myself grinding my teeth and staring helplessly at the road between the trees, daring them to return. “You see anything, Vinny? You see the car?”

“Black Escalade,” Vinny and I said at the same time.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

SUSAN AND I put Angelica and Vinny in the car to take them to the hospital, and Nick decided he wanted to come along too, so I was relegated to the back seat to make room for his long legs. Then, before I could close the car door, Effie slipped onto my lap, leaving only Doc and Neddy Ives to guard the house. I tried to protest over the sound of Angelica’s wailing, but it seemed the journey would be a family affair.

Dark thoughts swirled as I watched the trees roll by. Effie turned and looked at me, seemed to sense my trepidation, and hugged my head to her chest briefly. It was an unusual gesture for her, and I should have felt comforted. But I took it to mean she knew that I blamed myself for all this. As we pulled into the hospital, I worked my phone out of my pocket and texted Marni.

Call me immediately.

We waited in the emergency room for two hours, no one speaking, the television playing a documentary about sharks. I watched the big, beautiful animals gliding through the depthless blue and felt a hunger for Cline’s blood shimmering through me. By midnight I had resorted to reading pamphlets about Zika virus to distract myself from violent thoughts.

I turned when Sheriff Spears walked through the automatic doors. He was stunned by the sight of us all. I hardly noticed the gurney behind him, the bundle of white sheets that three paramedics took straight into the emergency room.

“Clay.” I went to him, Nick at my side. “You heard about the house? Did Doc Simeon call you?”

A strange stiffness had come into Clay’s face. It was an expression I had seen plenty of times in my career, emotion barely held in check, a jaw locked, trapping fury or sadness inside. He glanced at the others, then took my arm and led Nick and me outside into the freezing night.

We huddled under the blazing red emergency sign.

He didn’t beat around the bush. Cops never do.

“I’m sorry, Bill.” Clay eased the words out carefully. “Marni’s dead.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

I COULDN’T LOOK at Clay, at the truth of it burning in his eyes. I turned and put my hands on the wall, pressed my forehead against the cold bricks. Some deep, dark corner of my mind knew that this was exactly where I had been standing when they told me Siobhan hadn’t made it. I’d been drenched in sweat, having driven like a madman to the hospital after receiving the call. My legs were shaking now as I tried to focus on the mist of my breath in the light of the illuminated sign.

It was Nick who asked the questions I couldn’t bear to.

“Mitchell Cline had a big party at his place tonight,” Clay said quietly. “Hundreds of people there. Marni was last seen alive hanging around the pool area. The party spilled out into the street and the beach and the woods behind the house. They found Marni in the woods about a half an hour ago, unresponsive. The paramedics are calling it an overdose.”

“Where’s Cline? Have you arrested him?” Nick asked.

“We have no—”

“Tell me you’ve arrested him!” Nick barked.

“There’s no reason to.” Clay sighed. “We have no cause. There were hundreds of people at that party, and anyone could have given Marni whatever it is she took. It could have happened on or off Cline’s property, we can’t confirm anything at this stage. If we—”

Nick punched the neon sign beside my head, shattering the fiberglass and splintering the light inside, darkening the first E in Emergency . I didn’t intervene when he grabbed the steel casing of the letter and ripped it off the wall, taking the M with it, and smashed the letters into the pavement. I could barely breathe but I managed to get out some words as Nick stormed off toward the end of the lot, pushing over anything that wasn’t bolted down.

“Didn’t they try?” I asked.

“They tried,” Clay said. “But she was cold when the party-goers found her. Someone started CPR then and the medics carried it on.”

Clay put a hand on my shoulder. It was like he wasn’t touching me at all. The weight and warmth of it had no effect. I stood in the cold and tried not to scream.

“Bill,” Clay said. “We’re going to find out what happened. I’ll chase down everyone at that party and get all their photos. My team and I will talk to witnesses. I’m going to do everything I can do to make this right.”

“Yeah,” I said, frightened by the sudden evil intent in my own voice. “So am I.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

THE MIND SHUTS down in these situations and the body does what it can to maintain calm. I followed impulses that came from nowhere, getting a cab home from the hospital, walking into the house without talking to anyone, climbing the stairs to Marni’s room. The cluttered space smelled like her, the way everything seemed to smell of Siobhan after she’d been lost to me. I lay down on the floor on the fluffy pink rug and let the hateful thoughts rage.

I had done this.

The circle had closed. I had stood in the very same spot at the very same hospital where a man had told me that another woman in my care had died in the woods.

Between the internal blows I threw at myself, I had visions of Cline, his throat in my hands. I listened to the house fill with people, all talking and crying. The air was full of questions that had no answers. How had this happened? Why had she gone to the party when she’d said she’d be home? When had she been invited? Who invited her?