James Patterson - Swimsuit

“That goes for me, too.”

I put the media card into my back pocket and went down the hall to the bathroom, sluiced cold water over my face and the back of my scalp. When I looked up, Amanda was standing in the doorway. She said, “Take it all off.”

She helped me with my bloody shirt, undressed herself, and turned on the shower. I got into the tub and she got in behind me, put her arms around me as the hot water beat down on us both.

“Go to New York and talk to Zagami,” she said. “Do what Henri says. Zagami can't turn this down.”

“You're sure about that?”

“Yeah, I'm sure. The thing to do is keep Henri happy while we figure out what to do.”

I turned to face her. “I'm not leaving you here alone.”

“I can take care of myself. I know, I know, famous last words. But really, I can.”

Mandy got out of the shower and disappeared for long enough that I turned off the water, wrapped myself in a bath towel, and went looking for her.

I found her in the bedroom, on her tiptoes, reaching up to the top shelf of her closet. She pulled down a shotgun and showed it to me.

I looked at her stupidly.

“Yeah,” she said. “I know how to use it.”

“And you're going to carry it around with you in your purse?”

I took her shotgun and put it under the bed.

Then I used her phone.

I didn't call the cops, because I knew that they couldn't protect us. I had no fingerprint evidence, and my description of Henri would be useless. Six foot, brown hair, gray eyes, could be anyone.

After the cops watched my place and Mandy's for a week or so, we'd be on our own again, vulnerable to a sniper's bullet – or whatever Henri would or could use to silence us.

I saw him in my mind, crouched behind a car, or standing behind me at Starbucks, or watching Amanda's apartment through a gun sight.

Mandy was right. We needed time to make a plan. If I worked with Henri, if he got comfortable with me, maybe he'd slip, give me convictable evidence, something the cops or the Feds could use to lock him up.

I left a voice-mail message for Leonard Zagami, saying it was urgent that we meet. Then I booked tickets for me and Mandy, round trip, Los Angeles to New York.

When Leonard Zagami took me on as one of his authors, I was twenty-five, he was forty, and Raven House was a high-class specialty press that put out a couple dozen books a year. Since then, Raven had merged with the gigantic Wofford Publishing, and the new Raven-Wofford had taken over the top six floors of a skyscraper overlooking Bloomingdale's.

Leonard Zagami had moved up as well. He was now the CEO and president, the crcme de la cheese, and the new house brought out two hundred books a year.

Like their competition, the bulk of RW's list either lost money or broke even, but three authors – and I wasn't one of them – brought in more revenue than the other 197 combined.

Leonard Zagami didn't see me as a moneymaker anymore, but he liked me and it cost him nothing to keep me on board. I hoped that after our meeting he'd see me another way, that he'd hear cash registers ringing from Bangor to Yakima.

And that Henri would remove his death threat.

I had my pitch ready when I arrived in RW's spiffy modern waiting room at nine. At noon, Leonard's assistant came across the jaguar-print carpet to say that Mr. Zagami had fifteen minutes for me, to please follow her.

When I crossed his threshold, Leonard got to his feet, shook my hand, patted my back, and told me it was good to see me but that I looked like crap.

I thanked him, told him I'd aged a couple of years while waiting for our nine o'clock meeting.

Len laughed, apologized, said he'd done his best to squeeze me in, and offered me a chair across from his desk. At five feet six, almost child-sized behind the huge desk, Leonard Zagami still radiated power and a no-bullshit canniness.

I took my seat.

“What's this book about, Ben? When last we spoke, you had nothing cooking.”

“Have you been following the Kim McDaniels case?”

“The Sporting Life model? Sure. She and some other people were killed in Hawaii a few? Hey. You were covering that story? Oh. I see.”

“I was very close to some of the victims -”

“Look, Ben,” Zagami interrupted me. “Until the killer is caught, this is still tabloid fodder. It's not a book, not yet.”

“It's not what you're thinking, Len. This is a first-person tell-all.”

“Who's the first person? You?”

I made my pitch like my life depended on it.

“The killer approached me incognito,” I said. “He's a very cool and clever maniac who wants to do a book about the murders, and he wants me to write it. He won't reveal his identity, but he'll tell how he did the killings and why.”

I expected Zagami to say something, but his expression was flat. I crossed my arms over his leather-topped desk, made sure my old friend was looking me in the eyes.

“Len, did you hear me? This guy could be the most-wanted man in America. He's smart. He's at liberty. And he kills with his hands. He says he wants me to write about what he's done because he wants the money and the notoriety. Yeah. He wants some kind of credit for a job well done. And if I won't write the book, he'll kill me. Might kill Amanda, too.

“So I need a simple yes or no, Len. Are you interested or not?”

Leonard Zagami leaned back in his chair, rocked a couple of times, smoothed back what remained of his white hair, then turned to face me. When he spoke, it was with heartbreaking sincerity, and that's what really hurt.

“You know how much I like you, Ben. We've been together for what, twelve years?”

“Almost fifteen.”

“Fifteen good years. So, as your friend, I'm not going to bullshit you. You deserve the truth.”

“Agreed,” I said, but my pulse was booming so loudly that I could hardly hear what Len said.

“I'm verbalizing what any good businessman would be thinking, so don't take this wrong, Ben. You've had a promising but quiet career. So now you think you've got a breakout book that'll raise your profile here at RW and in the industry. Am I right?”

“You think this is a stunt? You think I'm that desperate? Are you kidding?”

“Let me finish. You know what happened when Fritz Keller brought out Randolph Graham's so-called true story.”

“It blew up, yeah.”

“First the 'startling reviews,' then Matt Lauer and Larry King. Oprah puts Graham in her book club – and then the truth starts leaking out. Graham wasn't a killer. He was a petty thug and a pretty good writer who embellished the hell out of his life story. And when it exploded, it exploded all over Fritz Keller.”

Zagami went on to say that Keller got late-night threats at home, TV producers calling his cell phone. His company's stock went down the toilet, and Keller had a heart attack.

My own heart was starting to fibrillate. Leonard thought that either Henri was lying or I was stretching a newspaper article beyond reality.

Either way, he was turning me down.

Hadn't Leonard heard what I said? Henri had threatened to kill me and Amanda. Len took a breath, so I seized the moment.

“Len, I'm going to say something very important.”

“Go ahead, because unfortunately, I only have five more minutes.”

“I questioned it, too. Wondered if Henri was really a killer, or if he's a talented con man, seeing in me the grift of a lifetime.”

“Exactly,” Len said.

“Well, Henri is for real. And I can prove it to you.”

I put the media card on the desk.

“What's that?”

“Everything you need to know and more. I want you to meet Henri for yourself.”