James Patterson - Gone

It didn’t thrill me to see my young teenage kids standing there holding firearms, but it was what it was. Teaching the older kids how to use a gun was a thoroughly necessary evil. Because the thing was, Perrine really, really didn’t like me. Not only had I broken his nose when I arrested him, but I’d actually killed his homicidal wife in a raid.

If the ruthless drug lord ever found out where we were, there was no way he would stop at killing just me. My children needed to be able to defend themselves.

Mary Catherine came down the porch steps and handed me the 30.06 deer rifle.

I quickly put it to my shoulder and peered through its telescopic sight at the car. It was a Ford Taurus. The driver seemed to be the only person in it. I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like a woman.

The car disappeared briefly as it drove down alongside a small ridge below the house. When it reappeared, it was close enough for me to see the driver’s face.

I squinted again through the rifle before I lowered it. I stood there, blinking, as I watched the car come. I actually knew who it was.

“What’s up, Mike?” Seamus said.

“It’s OK. Put the guns back into the cabinet. It’s OK. We’re safe.”

“Who is it?” Mary Catherine said as the car pulled into the driveway. Before I could answer, the sedan stopped and its door opened, and a woman got out. My old pal and partner, Special Agent Emily Parker from the FBI, took off her sunglasses and smiled as she stared back at everyone glaring at her.

“Hi, Mike. Hi, Mary Catherine. Hi, Seamus,” the FBI agent said. “Long time no see. So this is where you have been hiding yourselves.”

Mary Catherine promptly left Mike and Special Agent Parker outside and went in to put on coffee.

After she locked up the shotguns in the front-hall gun cabinet, she went into the kitchen and washed out the coffee filter and threw in several scoops of Folgers. As she placed some scones in the oven to warm them, she heard a sudden commotion coming from the family room.

When she walked in, everyone was yelling and laughing as Ricky and Fiona flung each other around the room in an epic tug-of-war over the TV remote. The volume on an inanely cackling SpongeBob SquarePants episode rose and fell as they went sprawling onto the couch. Mary Catherine crossed the room and immediately turned off the blaring set.

“Out!” she said, snatching the remote and pointing it at the back door. “The lot of ya. No more TV. No more video games. I don’t want to see hide nor hair of any of you in this house for the next hour, at least. I know your father ordered you inside, but this is ridiculous. The shame of it, to be in here like a tribe of screaming baboons, wrestling while your father is out there with a guest. Now get going out that back door!”

After they left, Mary Catherine tidied up the living room and went to the front door to see what was taking Mike so long. Mike and Agent Parker were still out by the car, talking. She folded her arms as she stood at the screen door, watching them.

Mary Catherine had met Emily Parker before, when Mike had worked with her on other cases, back in New York. She could see that the agent’s coppery auburn hair was as thick and lustrous as ever as the wind tossed it around. Mary Catherine looked the agent over meticulously. She was so stylishly out of place in the farmhouse side yard, in her heels and nice office clothes. Then Mary Catherine looked down at herself, her hoodie, her old jeans.

“Coffee’s ready,” she finally called through the screen door.

Parker went into the powder room to freshen up as Mike came into the kitchen.

“Hey, something smells good,” he said.

“Scones,” Mary Catherine said as she split one with a butcher knife. “Fresh from the oven. So, what’s the story with your FBI friend? Is something up?”

“I’m not sure yet. She said she needs to talk to me about a case,” Mike said, taking a bite of a scone.

“Are the phones down or something?” Mary Catherine said.

Mike shrugged as he chewed, a puzzled look on his face like he actually wasn’t sure what was going on. But Mary Catherine knew Mike. He was a bad liar. Playing dumb was definitely not his forte. Something was going on. Something bad. As if they needed that now. As if they needed more turmoil.

“Well, I’ve put on coffee for you two,” Mary Catherine said, heading for the back door. “The kids are all outside, so you’ll have the place to yourselves.”

“Oh. Thanks for going to all the trouble, Mary Catherine,” Mike said. “This looks great. I appreciate it.”

“No trouble at all,” Mary Catherine said quietly as she turned her back on him and went out through the shrieking back door.

Emily and I brought the coffee and the scones into the dining room.

I stole a sidelong look at Parker as she reached into her bag. She was as attractive as I remembered. Besides being smart and quite pretty, even north of thirty-five, there was this delightful, hard-to-describe, brave, and bright-eyed girlish quality to her that made people-men especially-sit up quite straight when she entered a room.

Actually, she was more attractive than I remembered, I thought, as the light caught the copper in her hair. Had she lost weight? No, I realized. She had actually put on a little. Wow. It really suited her. I realized now that she had been too thin when we’d worked together, sort of bony. She was curvier now, more voluptuous.

She was also more chic than I recalled. Her looser, fuller hair was salon cut, her cream-colored blouse made of silk. My breath caught a little when I got a whiff of her perfume. Oranges? Flowers? It smelled expensive. Delightful indeed.

“This has to be about Perrine,” I said quickly as she straightened up and placed a laptop on the table. “Something bad, or why would you come in person? Let me guess. He killed someone I know. One of my neighbors. The super of my building?”

She shook her head.

“No, Mike. It’s almost worse than that,” Parker said, slipping on a slim pair of red-rimmed reading glasses. “We’re getting crushed. The massive federal and local task force put together to capture Perrine is in shambles after all these Mob murders. Each strike was carried out by highly trained professional mercenaries with an almost surgical precision. We have no forensics and absolutely no leads. That’s why the assistant director himself sent me out here to talk to you. My mission is to, quote, ‘pick your brain.’ ”

“Pick my brain?” I said. “At least this won’t take too long. How long have you been on the task force?”

“Oh, about two days. There I was, happily reading in my Behavioral Science cubicle at Quantico. Then somebody told the director that you and I had worked closely together on some other cases, and now here I am.”

I stared at her.

“The FBI director told you to talk to me?”

“I guess they didn’t know if you would want to cooperate. Apparently, you were dismissed pretty harshly by the bureau after Perrine broke out of the courthouse. I guess I’m what you would call an official Department of Justice I’m Sorry card.”

“Well, I must say, the director has good taste in stationery, but ‘pick my brain’? That’s the new plan? That does sound pretty desperate.”

Parker moved her glasses down to the end of her pert, upturned nose.

“Is it? You’re the most tenacious investigator I’ve ever worked with, period. You’re also the only one who’s ever actually caught Perrine, Mike.”

“Sure, I caught Perrine, but then I lost him,” I said.

Something flashed in Parker’s intelligent blue eyes.

“Bite your tongue. You did not lose him, Mike. He wasn’t in your custody when he escaped. You and I both know that he bought off a whole bunch of people in order to get out of that courthouse. You weren’t the one who was paid to drop the ball.”