James Patterson - Thriller - Stories to Keep You Up All Night

Composing herself, Maura peered into the rearview mirror and noticed a gray Cadillac a few cars away. Its lights were on. Hadn't she seen the same car outside George's office just minutes ago? Her heart started racing. Had George's call to her been tapped? Were the kidnappers watching her right now? Maura slowly eased back into traffic. Seconds later the Cadillac pulled out and followed just a few cars behind. It was impossible to read the plates. Fumbling in her purse, she grabbed her cell phone and dialed.

"Hello," answered a familiar voice. "Hack, thank God you're there."

Taylor "Hack" Burgess was one of her students at Caltech-a Ph.D. candidate specializing in nanotechnology, the creation of submicroscopic electronic sensors with limitless possibilities. A fellow grad student once claimed that the brilliant, spectral, antisocial Burgess put the "eek!" in geek. His potential was infinite, assuming he could keep out of jail. His passion was the source of his nickname, and Maura was constantly chastising him for hacking into supposedly inaccessible systems. Burgess called it research.

"Hack, listen carefully," Maura said urgently. "I can't explain why, but I need you to do some research for me." "For you, anything."

She gave him Audra Meadows's name, address and date of birth, and added, "I need to know anything and everything you can find out about her. Has she been arrested? Been in court? Chaired fund-raisers? Gotten honored? Anything at all. Get into any system you can think of. It's urgent."

"Aren't you going to tell me to be careful?" "Do whatever you have to."

Maura checked the rearview. The car remained behind her. The sun, still low in the sky, made it impossible to get a good look at the driver. She stopped at a red light on Wiltshire. Her fingers were white on the steering wheel. I can't be this close and not know.

She grabbed her cell phone, took one deep breath and charged out of her car just as the light turned green. Horns blared as she raced back toward the Cadillac. She was able to see the silhouette of the driver now, but couldn't distinguish anything except a baseball cap and possibly sunglasses. As she approached, the Cadillac's tires screeched and the car lunged forward, smashing into an Acura, which spun forty-five degrees and rammed a VW.

Maura froze as the Cadillac then squealed into reverse and slammed into the car behind. There was the sickening crunch of metal and the car's air bag deployed. The Cadillac then made a sharp left into oncoming traffic. Cars spun out in all directions. Moments later the Caddy had disappeared down Wiltshire. Stunned, Maura reached for her phone. Hack answered on the third ring.

"Gray Cadillac. License plate California AZ3 something. That's all I got. Find a match."

From a distance she could hear sirens approaching. She used the time before the cruisers arrived to concoct a story of a stalled engine in her car, and road rage on the part of the driver of the Caddy.

Over the hours that followed, Maura was constantly checking to see if she was being followed. Finally, she decided to go to a hotel rather than to chance that her home phone or the house, itself, was bugged. She sent a note to George by messenger, instructing him to speak to no one, and to call her on her hotel-room phone from a pay phone. If she was being overly paranoid, so be it.

George had nothing new to report. Maura held her breath and asked again if he was prepared to honor the kidnappers' demand that he disfigure Audra Meadows.

"We can't let it come to that," was all he would say. "We just can't."

She slammed down the receiver and called Hack. "What have you learned?" she asked.

"A few things. It took a while for me to penetrate the DMV. They must have a new security guy. Their mistake was upgrading their SQL database to SP4 and that gave me the opening I needed."

"Hack, I don't care how you did it, in fact it's better I don't know. Just tell me what you've got."

"Okay. There are over three thousand California license plates that start with AZ3."

Maura's heart sank.

"Damn."

"Of those, I found less than twenty-five on Cadillacs. Half are owned by rental-car companies, the other half are residential, and none in the Los Angeles area."

"We're dead."

"Not so fast. Rather than risk a trace, I used the good ol' phone and dialed Avis and Hertz." Maura perked up.

"Go on."

"I pretended to be the police, inquiring about a hit-and-run. Anyway, it appears we have ourselves a bit of a coincidence. Yesterday the Avis by LAX rented their 2005 gray Cadillac to someone from Meadows Productions. It's Alec Meadows's company. I checked."

Bingo! Alec Meadows. Infidelity? Audra threatening to leave him? Whatever the reason, he so badly wanted to hurt his wife that he was willing to threaten David's life. But was he willing to carry out the threat?

Maura crouched behind a row of well-manicured hedges and scanned the Meadows estate through binoculars. She had arrived shortly after sunset and was now wondering if she should just chance calling the police. The place was vast, set well away from the main road, and surrounded by dense woods. It was possible David was inside. If not, she was hoping for some clue as to where he might be.

The fieldstone house was like a castle, with a three-car garage that might have once been a carriage house. Hack had given her a profile of Alec Meadows from data he gleaned off of several sources. Meadows made his fortune in entertainment, producing schlock teen horror movies and several successful TV shows. He had no criminal record. The marriage to Audra was his first, her second. They had no children.

We have your son.

We. Could that be significant? Who might be working with Alec Meadows? Had he hired professionals? Maura struggled to make sense of it all. Alec could have just as easily hired a thug to cut up his wife. Why risk a kidnapping? Then it hit her again. Maybe Audra wasn't the real target after all. Maybe the real target was George.

The glow of approaching headlights pierced the darkness. Hack was prepared to drive out and sabotage the security system so she could get into the house, but now he might not have to. Maura darted across the drive and dived into the bushes nearest the garage. Moments later the center door lifted and a large black Mercedes drove inside. Maura waited until the garage door was almost closed, then rolled underneath it, continuing until she was under the rear of the car. The exhaust pipe singed her arm. She was biting down on her lip to keep from crying out in pain when the Mercedes's doors opened and two sets of legs stepped out.

"Put this on, Audra, you bitch. Come to me when I am ready." The voice was unwavering, commanding, and filled with rage.

"Of course, Alec," she responded in a shallow whisper.

Maura remained motionless until she was certain they had gone inside. Then she climbed the short staircase and inched open the door to the house. She was in a dark hallway from which she could see into the kitchen. A figure opened the refrigerator door, casting an eerie shadow. Moments later, he left. His footsteps echoed through the cavernous home as he walked upstairs. Maura entered the kitchen, her eyes quickly adjusting to the dark.

She moved stealthily into the dimly lit living room. Her plan was to hide until they were both asleep, and then to begin her search in the basement. If there was some sort of motion-sensitive alarm, she would have to improvise.

Suddenly, there were footsteps at the top of the massive staircase. Her pulse hammering, Maura scrambled behind the sofa and flattened out. Alec entered the living room and turned up the recessed lighting over the fireplace. He was no more than ten feet from where she lay. Two paces to his right and he would be staring right at her.