James Patterson - Don’t Blink

“Who the hell are you?”

“At three in the morning, I’d say I’m your worst fucking nightmare. Agree or disagree?”

Then he stepped away from the headlights, slipping back into the darkness.

Shit! Where is he? I thought.

And – the far scarier thought – where is he heading?

SPRINTING OUT OF the guest room, I called to Kate and Elizabeth. With one hand I was dialing 911; with the other I was groping for a light switch in the hallway.

Kate beat me to it. Flick!

The hallway lit up brightly as my eyes locked onto hers. She’d come rushing out of her bedroom like her house was on fire. Sweats, T-shirt, panicked expression.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Nick, what’s going on?”

“Yeah, what is it?” asked Elizabeth, emerging from her room at the same time.

They both got their answer as the voice of the 911 operator suddenly chimed in on my phone. It was a woman. Very calm and sure of herself, thank goodness. An emergency professional.

Like that speed talker in those old FedEx commercials, I gave her the address. “There’s a man outside the house,” I said next. “I think he’s about to break in. He’s armed.”

Like a bolt, Kate ran over to Elizabeth, grabbing her hand. “Come with me,” she said. “Right now.”

She led Elizabeth to the stairs heading up to the third floor, the attic.

“Wait, I want to stay with you guys,” Elizabeth pleaded.

“No,” insisted Kate. “You go up into that attic and lock the door behind you. No matter what you hear, you do not open that door. Do you understand?”

Elizabeth nodded, fighting back tears. She reached out for the railing, only to stop and turn around. Suddenly, she dashed down the hall. Just from my voice she knew exactly where I was.

“Be careful, Uncle Nick,” she said, plastering me with a hug. Then she dashed back to the attic stairs, climbing them so fast I almost forgot she couldn’t see the steps.

Meanwhile, Kate had disappeared into her bedroom. I was about to call out to her when she returned.

“What the hell is that?” I asked.

But I could see it plain as day. She was holding a handgun.

My sister!

The Northeast liberal who once referred to the NRA as the Nincompoop Republican Army.

“Things change,” she said. “Here, take it.”

I didn’t merely take it, I grabbed it. “Thanks.” “It’s loaded,” she added.

“I hope so. It’s not much good if it isn’t.”

She rolled her eyes and for a moment we were kid brother and big sister back in Newburgh. But only for a moment.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

“We listen. We wait for the police to get here.” If they can find the house…

Edging to the top of the stairs, I peered down to the first floor. Would he smash a window? Shoot the lock off the door at point-blank range?

I stared at Kate, raising my index finger to my mouth.Shhh.

We both held our breath. For a second I thought I heard Elizabeth upstairs in the attic. God, how frightened she must have been.

“What do you think?” whispered Kate after a minute or so went by. “Is he gone or what?”

I was about to answer when we heard it. Only it wasn’t exactly the sound I expected. It was a car’s engine.

Were the police here?

I rushed back to the window in the guest bedroom, staring out at the driveway. No, the police weren’t there.

Neither was anyone else.

The driveway was empty, his car gone. Mr. Sunrise Diner, whoever he was, had scared the living bejesus out of us.

But nothing more.

Why?

Who the hell was that bastard?

What did he want from me?

OKAY, MAYBE POLICE protection isn’t such a bad idea after all…

Besides, it was a little hard to say no to it after I was the guy calling 911 in the middle of the night. By morning, as David Sorren put it, I had “seen the light.” Yeah, he was pissed at me, but he was also very relieved that I’d called him, if for no other reason than they hadn’t caught the guy who’d been shooting at me.

“He was on a rooftop that connected in the back to a brownstone on the next block,” explained Sorren. “We never had a chance to get him.”

“Do you think it was the same guy who killed Derrick?” I asked.

“Does it really make a difference? I mean, c’mon, Nick, it’s time to get real.”

Good point. “Either way, I’m still a target, right?”

“Exactly. Which is why I’m sending the first two-man shift of patrolmen assigned to you out to Connecticut right away. They’ll bring you back to your apartment,” he said. “And Nick?”

“Yeah? I’m here. I’m listening to every word, David.”

“Don’t even think about taking off again. You got that?”

“Got it.”

Fair enough. I deserved that. I also deserved the incredibly sick feeling I had in my stomach for having put Kate and Elizabeth in danger. What the hell had I been thinking? That the Mafia had an honest-to-God moral code against hurting women and children?

In the back of the police car that came and got me, I had plenty of time to mull that over. I also made a promise to myself to keep Courtney out of this. If she would listen to me, that is.

“Okay, here’s how it works, Mr. Daniels,” said Officer Kevin O’Shea, one of the two cops who had driven me back into Manhattan. We were in my apartment, although not before he and his partner, Sam Brison, had first scoped it out with their guns drawn.

“You wear this on your body at all times. At the first sign of trouble, any trouble, you press this panic button.”

O’Shea handed me a necklace fashioned from a sneaker shoelace and what looked like a cheap, plastic garage-door opener. James Bond and Q, this wasn’t.

I put the device on, glancing down. The panic button, appropriately bright red, was the size of a quarter and hung right smack in the middle of my chest.

“It looks more like a target, if you ask me,” I joked. Apparently I wasn’t the first.

“Yeah, we get that a lot,” said Brison.

He went on to explain how one officer would always be posted outside my door while the other would be in the lobby after securing any and all doors in the basement. If I had a visitor – the kind that didn’t want to kill me – the doormen had been instructed to clear the person with the cops first, then with me. There would be no exceptions.

“Any questions, Mr. Daniels?”

“What if I want to go out?”

“Like where?” asked O’Shea with a squint of his eyes.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Like, the movies or something.” “The movies? Did you just say the movies? I don’t think you’re catching on to what’s happening to you.”

“It was just an example.”

He shook his head. “No, you don’t go to the movies or anywhere else. For the time being, this is where you need to stay. Safe and sound in your apartment.”

“Okay then, I have one more question. How long is ‘for the time being’?”

“Until you’re told otherwise.”

Well, that clears everything up…

The two officers started to leave. There was really nothing more to say. Still, I couldn’t help myself.

“Be careful, guys, okay?” I said.

I meant it, too. But I could understand how it must have sounded strange to the two of them. They exchanged odd glances before looking back at me.

“We will,” said Brison casually.

“No, I’m serious,” I said. “People have an awful way of dying around me.”

HAD I EVER wondered what it felt like to be under house arrest, I now had my answer. Problem was, I’d never wondered.