James Patterson - Swimsuit

I stepped into the room, calling her name, and the door slammed behind me. I swung around and tried to make sense of the impossible.

A black man was holding Mandy, his left arm crossing her chest, his right hand with a gun to her head. He was wearing latex gloves. Blue ones. I'd seen gloves exactly like those before.

My eyes went to Mandy's face. She was gagged. Her eyes were wild, and she was grunting a wordless scream.

The black man grinned at me, tightened his hold on her, and pointed the gun at me.

“Amanda,” the man said. “Look who's home? We've been waiting for a long time, haven't we, sweetheart? But it's been fun, right?”

All the fragments of information came together: the blue gloves, the familiar tone, the pale gray eyes, and the stage makeup. I wasn't mistaken this time. I'd heard hours of his voice piped directly into my ear. It was Henri. But how had he found us here?

My mind spun in a hundred directions, all at once.

I'd gone to Paris out of fear. But now that Henri had come to my door, I wasn't afraid anymore. I was furious, and my veins were pumping a hundred percent adrenaline, lifting-a-car-off-a-baby-carriage kind of adrenaline, the running-into-a-burning-building kind of damn-it-to-hell rush.

I whipped the.38 out of my waistband, pulled back the hammer, yelled, “Let her go.”

I guess he didn't believe I would fire. Henri smirked at me, said, “Drop your gun, Ben. I just want to talk.”

I walked up to the maniac and put the gun's muzzle against his forehead. He grinned, gold tooth winking, part of his latest disguise. I got off one shot at the exact moment that he kneed me in the thigh. I was sent crashing backward into a desk, the wooden legs shattering as I went down.

My first thought – had I shot Mandy? But I saw blood flowing from Henri's arm and heard the clatter of his gun sliding across the wooden floor.

He shoved Mandy away from him, hard, and she fell on me. I rolled her off my chest, and as I tried to sit, Henri pinned me – with his foot on my wrist, looking down with contempt.

“Why couldn't you just do your job, Ben? If you'd just done your job, we wouldn't be having this little problem, but now I can't trust you. I only wish I'd brought my camera.”

He leaned down, bent my fingers back, and peeled the gun from my hand. Then he aimed it – first at me, and then at Mandy.

“Now, who wants to die first?” Henri said. “ Vous or vous?”

Everything went white in front of my eyes. This was it, wasn't it? Amanda and I were going to die. I felt Henri's breath on my face as he screwed the muzzle of the.38 into my right eye. Mandy tried to scream through her gag.

Henri barked at her, “Shut up.”

She did.

Water filled my eyes then. Maybe it was from the pain, or the fierce regret that I'd never see Amanda again. That she would die too. That our child would never be born.

Henri fired the gun – directly into the carpet next to my ear, deafening me. Then he yanked my head and shouted into my ear.

“Write the fucking book, Ben. Go home and do your job. I'm going to call you every night in L.A., and if you don't pick up the phone, I will find you. You know I'll do it, and I promise you both, You won't get a second chance.”

The gun was pulled away my face. Henri grabbed up a duffel bag and a briefcase with his good hand and arm, slammed the door on his way out. I heard his footsteps receding down the stairs.

I turned to Mandy. The gag was a pillowcase pulled across the inside of her mouth and was knotted at the back of her head. I plucked at the knot, my fingers trembling, and when she was free, I took her into my arms and rocked her back and forth, back and forth.

“Are you okay, honey? Did he hurt you?”

She was crying, saying she was fine.

“You're sure?”

“Go,” she said. “I know you want to go after him.”

I crawled around, feeling under the spindly legs and ruffled skirts of the wall-to-wall collection of antique furniture, saying, “You know I've got to. He'll still be watching us, Mandy.”

I found Henri's Ruger under the dresser and wrapped my hand tightly around the grip. I twisted open the blood-slicked doorknob and shouted to Mandy that I'd be back soon.

Leaning heavily on the banister, I walked off the pain in my thigh as I made my way down the stairs, trying to hurry, knowing that I had to kill Henri somehow.

The sky was black, but the streetlights and the large and perpetually booked Hôtel du Louvre next door had just about turned night into day. The two hotels were only a few hundred yards from the Tuileries, the huge public garden outside the Louvre.

This week some kind of carnival was going on there: games, big rides, oompah music, the works. Even at this late hour, giddy tourists and folks with kids flowed out onto the sidewalk, adding their raucous laughter to the sharp shocks of fireworks and blaring car horns. It reminded me of a scene from a French movie, maybe one that I'd watched somewhere.

I followed a thin trail of blood out to the street, but it disappeared a few yards from the front door. Henri had done his disappearing act again. Had he gone into the Hôtel du Louvre to hide? Had he lucked out and caught a taxi?

I was staring through the crowds when I heard police sirens coming up the Place André Malraux.

Obviously, shots had been reported. Plus, I'd been seen running around with a gun.

I stuffed Henri's Ruger into a potted planter outside the Hôtel du Louvre. Then I gamely limped into the lobby, sat in an overstuffed chair, and thought about how I would approach the agents de police.

Finally, I was going to have to explain Henri and everything else to the cops.

I wondered what the hell I was going to say.

The sirens got louder and louder, my shoulders and neck stiffened, and then the looping wail passed the hotel and continued on toward the Tuileries. When I was sure it was over, I reclaimed Henri's gun, made my way back to the Singe-Verts, and climbed the stairs like an old man. I knocked on the door to my room, said, “Mandy, it's me. I'm alone. You can open the door.”

Seconds later, she did. Her face was tear-stained, and there were bruises at the corners of her mouth from the gag. I opened my arms to her, and Mandy fell against me, sobbing like a child who might never be soothed again.

I held her, swayed with her for a long while. Then I undressed us both and helped her into bed. I shut off the overhead light, leaving on only a small boudoir lamp on the night table. I slid under the covers, and took Mandy into my arms. She pressed her face to my chest, tethered herself to my body with her arms and legs.

“Talk to me, honey,” I said. “Tell me everything.”

“He knocked on the door,” she finally said. “He said he had flowers. Is that the most simpleminded trick ever? But I believed him, Ben.”

“He said they were from me?”

“I think so. Yeah, he did.”

“I wonder – how did he know we were here? What tipped him? I don't get it.”

“When I unlocked the door, he kicked it open and grabbed me.”

“I wish I'd killed him, Mandy.”

“I didn't know who he was. A black man. He wrenched my arms behind my back. I couldn't move. He said? oh, this makes me sick, ” she said, crying again.

“What did he say?”

“ 'I love you, Amanda.' ”

I was listening to Mandy and hearing echoes at the same time. Henri had told me that he'd loved Gina. He'd loved Julia. How long would Henri have waited to prove his love to Mandy by raping her and strangling her with those blue gloves on his hands?