James PATTERSON: The Big Bad Wolf

What a merry-go-round today was going to be. First, it was Gwynnie’s birthday, and the party for twenty-one of her closest school buddies, eleven girls, ten boys, was scheduled for one o’clock at the house. Lizzie had rented a bouncy-house, and she had already prepared lunch for the children, not to mention for their moms or nannies. Lizzie had even rented a Mr Softee ice cream truck for three hours. But you never knew what to expect at these birthday gigs – other than laughter, tears, thrills and spills.

After the birthday bash, Brigid had swimming lessons, and Merry had a trip to the dentist scheduled. Brendan, her husband of fourteen years, had left her a ‘shortlist’ of his current needs. Of course everything was needed a.s.a.p.s , which meant as soon as possible, sweetheart .

After she picked up a T-shirt with rhinestones on it for Gwynnie at Gapkids, all she had left to buy was Brendan’s replacement dop-kit. Oh yeah, and her hair appointment. And ten minutes with her savior at Parisian, Gina Sabellico.

She kept her cool through the final stages – never let them see you sweat – then she hurried to her new Mercedes 320 station wagon, which was safely tucked in a corner on the P3 Level of the underground garage at Phipps. No time for her favorite Rooibos tea at Teavana.

Hardly anybody was in the garage on a Monday morning, but she nearly bumped into a man in a BMW logo sweatshirt. Lizzie smiled automatically at him, revealing perfect, recently whitened and brightened teeth, warmth, sexiness – even when she didn’t want to show it.

She wasn’t really paying attention to anyone – thinking ahead to the fast-approaching birthday party – when a woman she passed suddenly grabbed her around the chest as if Lizzie were a running back for the Atlanta Falcons football team trying to pass through the ‘line of spinach’, as her daughter Gwynne had once called the maneuver. The woman’s grip was like a vise – she was strong as hell.

‘What are you doing? Are you crazy?’ Lizzie finally screamed her loudest, squirmed her hardest, dropped her shopping bags, heard something break . ‘Hey! Somebody, help! Get off of me! ’

Then a second assailant, the BMW sweatshirt guy , grabbed her legs and held on tight, hurt her, actually, as he brought her down on to the filthy, greasy parking-lot concrete along with the woman. ‘Don’t kick me, bitch!’ he yelled in her face. ‘Don’t you fucking dare kick me.’

But Lizzie didn’t stop kicking – or squealing either. ‘Help me. Somebody, help! Somebody, please!’

Then both of them lifted her up in the air as if she weighed next to nothing. The man mumbled something to the woman. Not English. Middle-European, maybe. Lizzie had a housekeeper from Slovakia. Was there a connection?

The woman attacker still gripped her around the chest with one arm and used her free hand to push aside tennis and golf stuff, hurriedly clearing a space in the back of the station wagon.

Then Lizzie was roughly shoved inside her own car. A gauzy, foul-smelling cloth was pushed hard against her nose and face, and held there so tightly it hurt her teeth. She tasted blood. First blood , she thought. My blood . Adrenaline surged through her body and she began fighting back again with all her strength. Punching and kicking. She felt like a captured animal striking out for its freedom.

‘Easy,’ the male said. ‘Easy-peasy-Japanesee… Elizabeth Connelly.’

Elizabeth Connelly? They know me? How? Why? What is going on here?

‘You’re a very sexy mom,’ said the man. ‘I see why the Wolf likes you.’

Wolf? Who’s the Wolf? What was happening to her? Who did she know named Wolf?

Then the thick, acrid fumes in the cloth overpowered Lizzie and she went lights out. She was driven away in the back of her own station wagon.

But only across the street to the Lenox Square Mall – where Lizzie Connelly was transferred into a blue Dodge van that then sped away.

Purchase complete .

Early on the morning of 16 September, I was oblivious to the rest of the world and its problems. This was the way life was supposed to be, only it rarely seemed to turn out so well. At least not in my experience, which was limited when it came to anything that might be considered the ‘good life’.

I was walking Jannie and Damon to the Sojourner Truth School that morning. Little Alex was merrily toddling along at my side. ‘Puppy’, I called him.

The skies over D.C. were partly cloudy, but, now and then, the sun peeked through the clouds and warmed our heads and the backs of our necks. I’d already played the piano – Gershwin – for forty-five minutes. And eaten breakfast with Nana Mama. I had to be at Quantico by nine that morning for my orientation classes, but it left time for the walk to school at around seven-thirty. And that was what I’d been in search of lately, or so I believed. Time to be with my kids.

Time to read a poet I’d discovered recently, Billy Collins. First I’d read his Nine Horses , and now it was Sailing Alone Around the Room . Billy Collins made the impossible seem so effortless, and so possible.

Time to talk to Jamilla Hughes every day, often for hours at a time. And when I couldn’t, to correspond by e-mail, and, occasionally, by long, flowing letters. She was still working homicide in San Francisco, but I felt the distance between us was shrinking. I wanted it to and hoped she did too.

Meanwhile, the kids were changing faster than I could keep up with them, especially little Alex, who was morphing before my eyes. I needed to be around him more and now I could be. That was my deal. It was why I had joined the FBI, at least that was part of it.

Little Alex was already over forty inches and thirty-five pounds. That morning he had on a pinstriped overall suit with an Orioles cap. He moved along the street as if a leeward wind were propelling him. His ever-present stuffed toy, a cow named ‘Moo’, created ballast so that he listed slightly to the left at all times.

Damon was lurching ahead to a different drummer, a faster, more insistent beat. Man, I really loved this boy. Except for his fashion sense. That morning he was wearing long jean shorts, ‘Uptowns’, and a gray tee with an Alan Iverson ‘The Answer’ jersey over it. His lean legs were sprouting peach fuzz, and it looked as if his whole body was developing from the feet up. Large feet, long legs, a youthful torso.

I was noticing everything that morning. I had time to do it.

Jannie was typically put together in a gray tee with ‘Aero Athletics 1987’ printed in bright red letters, sweatpant capris with a red strip down each leg, and white Adidas sneakers with red stripes.

As for me, I was feeling good. Every now and again someone would still stop me and say I looked like the young Muhammad Ali. I knew how to shake off the compliment, but I liked to hear it more than I let on.

‘You’re awfully quiet this morning, Poppa.’ Jannie laced her arms around my free arm and added, ‘You having trouble at school? Your orientation? Do you like being an FBI agent so far?’

‘I like it fine,’ I said. ‘There’s a probationary period for the next two years. Orientation is good, but a lot of it is repetitive for me, especially what they call “practicals”. Firing range, gun cleaning, exercises in apprehending criminals. That’s why I get to go in late some days.’

‘So you’re the teacher’s pet already,’ she said and winked.

I laughed. ‘I don’t think the teachers are too impressed with me, or any other street cops. How’re you and Damon doing so far this year? Aren’t you about due for a report card or something?’