James PATTERSON - The Big Bad Wolf

Bound tightly by rope.

Gagged with tape.

So she couldn’t call out for help. Lizzie couldn’t scream – except inside her head.

Please help me .

Somebody, please!

I’m here! I’m right here!

I don’t want to die .

Because that was the one thing he’d told her that was certain – he was going to kill her .

But no one could hear Lizzie Connelly. The party went on, and got larger, noisier, more extravagant, vulgar. Eleven times during the night, stretch limousines dropped off well-heeled guests at the large, waterfront house in Fort Lauderdale. Then the limos left. They would not be waiting for their passengers. No one noticed, at least no one let on.

And no one paid any attention when these same guests left that night – in cars they hadn’t arrived in . Very expensive cars, the finest in the world, all of them stolen.

An NFL running back departed in a deep maroon Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible worth $363,000, ‘made to order’, from the paint to the wood, hide, trim, even the position of the intercrossed Rs in the cockpit.

A white rap star drove off in an aqua blue Aston Martin Vanquish priced at $228,000, capable of zero to a hundred in under ten seconds.

The most expensive of the cars was the American-made Saleen S7 with its gull-wing doors, the look of a shark, and 550 horsepower.

All in all, eleven very expensive, very stolen automobiles were delivered to buyers at the house.

A silver Pagani Zonda priced at $370,000. The engine of the Italian-made racer barked, howled, roared.

A silver-and-orange-trimmed Spyker C8 Double IV with 620 horsepower.

A bronze Bentley Azure Convertible Mulliner – yours for $376,000.

A Ferrari 575 Maranello – $215,000.

A Porsche GT2.

Two Lamborghini Murcielagos – yellow-gold – $270,000 apiece, named, like all Lamborghinis, after a famous bull.

A Hummer H1 – not as hot as the other cars maybe, but nothing got in its way.

The total value of the stolen cars was over three million dollars; the sales came to a little under two.

Which more than paid for the Sacher tortes flown all the way from Vienna.

And besides, the Wolf was a fan of fast, beautiful cars… of fast, beautiful everything .

I flew back to D.C. the next day and was home at six that night, finished work for the day. At times like this, I almost felt that maybe I had my life back. Maybe I’d done the right thing by joining the Bureau. Maybe… As I climbed out of the ancient black Porsche, I saw Jannie on the front porch. She was practicing her violin, her ‘long bows’. She wanted to be the next Midori. The playing was impressive, to me anyway. When Jannie wanted something she went after it.

‘Who’s the beautiful young lady holding that Juzeh so perfectly?’ I called as I trudged up the lawn.

Jannie glanced my way, said nothing, smiled knowingly, as if only she knew the secret. Nana and I were involved in her practices, which featured the Suzuki method of instruction. We modified the method slightly to include both of us. Parents were a part of practice, and it seemed to pay dividends. In the Suzuki way, great care was taken to avoid competition and its negative effects. Parents were told to listen to countless tapes and attend lessons. I had gone to many of the lessons myself. Nana covered the others. In that way, we assumed the dual role of ‘home-teacher’.

‘That’s so beautiful. What a wonderful sound to come home to,’ I told Jannie. Her smile was worth everything I’d gone through at work that day.

She finally spoke. ‘To soothe the savage beast,’ she said. Violin under one arm, bow held down, Jannie bowed and then began to play again.

I sat on the porch steps and listened. Just the two of us, the setting sun, and the music. The beast was soothed .

After she finished practice, we ate a light dinner, then hurried over to the Kennedy Center for one of the free programs in the Grand Foyer. Tonight it was ‘Liszt and Virtuosity’. But wait – there was more. Tomorrow night we planned to attack the new climbing wall at the Capital Y. Then, with Damon, it was a videogame extravaganza featuring Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem and Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos .

I hoped we could keep it up like this. Even the videogames. I was on the right track now and I liked it. So did Nana and the kids.

Around ten-thirty, to complete the day just right, I got hold of Jamilla on the phone. She was home at a decent hour for a change. ‘Hey,’ she said at the sound of my voice.

‘Hey back at you. Can you talk? This a good time?’

‘Might be able to squeeze in a couple of minutes for you. I hope you’re calling from home. Are you?’

‘Been here since around six. We had a family night at the Kennedy Center. Big success.’

‘I’m jealous.’

We talked about what she was up to, then my big night with the kids, and finally my life and times with the Bureau. But I had the sense that Jamilla needed to get off after about fifteen minutes. I didn’t ask if she had anything going for tonight. She’d tell me if she wanted to.

‘I miss you way out there in San Francisco,’ I said and left it at that. I hoped it didn’t come off as not caring. Because I did care about Jam. She was in my thoughts all the time.

‘I have to run, Alex. Bye,’ she said.

‘Bye.’

Jamilla had to run. And I was finally trying to stop.

The next morning I was told to attend a key-person meeting about the Connelly kidnapping, and the possibility that the abduction was connected to others in the past twelve months. The case had been upgraded to ‘major’, and it had the code name ‘ White Girl ’.

An FBI Rapid Start team had already been dispatched to Atlanta. Satellite photos of the Phipps Plaza Shopping Center had been ordered in the hope that we could identify the motor vehicle the unidentified suspects (known as UNSUBS) had used to get there before driving away in the Connelly station wagon.

There were about two dozen agents in a windowless ‘major case’ room at the Bureau in Washington. When I arrived, I learned that Washington would be the ‘office of origin’ for the case, which meant the case was important to Director Burns. The Criminal Investigative Division had already prepared a briefing book for him. The important entry point for the FBI was that a federal judge’s wife had disappeared.

Ned Mahoney from HRT sat down next to me and seemed not just outgoing, but friendly. He greeted me with a winking, ‘Hey, star.’ A tiny, dark-haired woman in a black jumpsuit plopped down on the other side of me. She introduced herself as Monnie Donnelley and told me she was the Violent Crimes research specialist attached to the case. She talked extraordinarily fast, lots of energy, almost too much.

‘Guess we’ll be working together,’ she said and shook my hand. ‘I’ve already heard good things about you. I know your résumé. I attended Hopkins too. How about that?’

‘Monnie’s our best and our brightest,’ Mahoney interjected. ‘And that’s a gross understatement.’

‘He’s so right,’ Monnie Donnelley agreed. ‘Spread the word. Please, I’m tired of being a secret weapon.’

I noticed that my boss, Gordon Nooney, wasn’t in the room of at least fifty agents. Then the meeting on White Girl began.

A senior agent named Walter Zelras stood in the front and started to show slides. He was professional, but very dry. I almost felt as if I’d joined IBM or Chase Manhattan Bank instead of the Bureau. Monnie whispered, ‘Don’t worry, it’ll get worse. He’s just warming up.’