Джеймс Паттерсон - The 13-Minute Murder

Then she’d heard someone out in the living room.

She worked herself up into some tears, took the suppressor off her pistol, and then came out of the bedroom crying and shaking.

Of course they fell for it.

But now she needed to know what to do about them. She pressed a button on her prepaid burner phone and waited. The Client picked up immediately.

Mullen started to explain, but when she said the name “Beck,” the Client cut her off.

“He’s there? Morrison and Howard were supposed to bring him in. They lost him.”

“I’ve got him right here. He doesn’t suspect a thing. He thinks I’m the target’s wife.”

“We need him,” the Client said. “I want to know what Scott told him and who else he’s talked to.”

“I’ll bring him in,” Mullen said. “He’s with another woman. A doctor. What about her?”

“We don’t need her,” the Client said, and hung up.

Mullen put her phone away. Fine by her. That just made her job easier.

She went to the door and put on her best sad face. This was going to be a cakewalk. Beck and his girlfriend still thought she was the grieving widow. They’d stand there flat-footed and she could do whatever she wanted. Two in the face of the woman, and Beck would wet his pants in terror. He’d do whatever she told him after that.

They’d never see it coming. Nobody ever saw her coming.

Mullen opened the door, tears in her eyes, gun in her hand.

But the living room was empty.

Beck and the woman were gone.

Chapter 14

The woman came out of the bedroom. Beck couldn’t see her. But he could hear her.

He’d heard the door open, but the woman didn’t come out right away. Then she did and he heard the door close, quietly. He heard the woman’s soft footsteps on the carpet in the hallway, then the living room. He was certain he even heard the woman’s sharp intake of breath a moment later.

Then he heard the woman call for him. “Dr. Beck?”

He’d stopped thinking of her as Jennifer Scott. Because whoever she was, she was not the woman in Kevin Scott’s wedding pictures. Now she was just the woman who happened to be in their house. With a gun.

As soon as he’d seen that picture, he’d grabbed Susan and prepared to run out the front door. But the bedroom door began to open, and Beck didn’t think they could make it in time.

So he’d turned the other way and pulled Susan with him into the kitchen. They crouched behind the tiny island in the tiny space, their backs to the counter and the living room.

Now they were frozen, like children with their heads under the covers, hiding from some nightmare.

Beck had to remind himself: it was possible he was wrong. His brain was, by definition, not working properly these days. But it didn’t feel like he was wrong. And Susan seemed just as scared as he felt. She huddled next to him on the cheap tile floor of the kitchen. She took short, shallow breaths. As if she was afraid the woman would hear her breathing.

The woman moved carefully. Slowly. She didn’t act like a woman in her own house. She acted like a hunter, stalking prey.

Beck searched frantically for a weapon. There was a good set of knives in a butcher block on the island over their heads, but if he reached up for them, she’d see him.

He was facing the sink and the lower kitchen cabinets. They were right in front of him. The toes of his shoes were almost touching them. He’d have to find something in there.

He reached carefully. He opened the kitchen cabinet. There was a set of high-end cookware inside—probably bought on sale a long time ago. What was he supposed to do with that?

He heard the front door close, and then lock with an ominous click. They were stuck in here with her now. The woman moved toward them. Susan clutched his arm and huddled into him, as if she was cold and looking for warmth.

Beck pulled out a heavy, cast-iron frying pan and felt faintly ridiculous, like a character in some old sitcom.

He tried to shut the cabinet door quietly, but it slipped from his fingers and closed with a solid clunk.

Beck felt rather than heard the woman turn toward the kitchen. He could almost see her, like a hunting dog going on point.

“Dr. Beck? Dr. Carpenter? Are you in here? You’re really starting to worry me.…”

Beck needed something else. He needed a miracle. He opened the cabinet under the sink.

There was a creak as she crossed from the living room into the kitchen. Susan’s grip grew tighter on his arm.

It would only take another step and she’d be able to see Beck and Susan crouched behind the little island.

It was still possible he was wrong. That his brain was simply playing tricks on him.

But he thought of Susan. He had dragged her into this. He couldn’t let anything happen to her. He couldn’t let anyone hurt her.

He had to make a decision, and he had to make it now. He had to do something.

“Dr. Beck,” the woman said, and there was the edge of a cruel laugh in her voice. “You’re a little old to be playing hide-and-seek.”

He heard her take that next step. She was right on top of them.

He looked at Susan, and silently mouthed, Stay down.

Then he sprang up and faced the woman.

She had the gun they’d seen her holding before. Only this time, it was pointed right at Beck’s face.

Chapter 15

Beck didn’t hesitate. He put his arm forward and pressed the nozzle of the can of oven cleaner he’d found under the sink, and sprayed it directly in the eyes of the woman with the gun.

The woman shrank back and shrieked in pain as the chemicals hit her in the face. She waved the gun around wildly, bringing it back in Beck’s direction.

Beck swung the frying pan, with all his might.

He heard a clang and a gunshot, almost on top of each other. He felt something connect with the frying pan at the end of his arm, and lost his grip on it. It went tumbling to the floor. He went deaf in one ear and his vision went blank from a bright flare, and he realized that was the muzzle flash of the gun being fired. For a moment, he wondered if he’d been shot.

But he didn’t let it stop him. He leaped blindly over the kitchen island and slammed into the woman with all his weight.

They went down in a tangle of arms and legs. The woman was still screaming, but now in rage mixed with pain. They collapsed on the floor.

Beck somehow got on top of her. He blinked his vision clear and saw the woman he’d thought was Jennifer Scott underneath him. The oven-cleaner foam still clung to her face in places. The chemicals had scorched her skin, leaving vivid red burns. She was bleeding from burst capillaries in her eyes, and she stared up at him blankly, unseeing. She was blind. Probably for life.

For a split second, the doctor in Beck wanted to help her, even though he’d caused her injuries. He hesitated for just a moment, unsure of what to do. She had to be in tremendous pain.

But it didn’t even slow her down. She reached up, found Beck’s face with her hands, and immediately landed two hard punches to his head.

Beck tried to grab her, to stop her, but her fists were as fast as a boxer’s. She hit him again. And again.

It suddenly became painfully clear that this woman had killed Jennifer Scott. She had been trained, and probably knew a dozen ways to kill him with her bare hands, even as injured as she was.

She hit him again. Then her hands found his throat. She dug her thumbs into his Adam’s apple and started to squeeze.

He had to get up, get away from her.

With everything he had, Beck knocked her hands away from his neck, and staggered backward.

He fell on his ass and bounced into the kitchen island. He felt it come loose, pulling away from the floor.