James Patterson - Judge & Jury

The garage door suddenly started to open.

A white Audi backed out. I focused closely. The glass was tinted, but the driver's window was rolled down. I could see.

It was him. Remlikov! He was wearing sunglasses, but I recognized him immediately. My heart jumped as if it had been jolted with an electric shock.

And someone else was in the car with him. I shifted the lens. It was a boy. In the passenger seat. He looked about ten, maybe younger. The Audi backed out and turned around in the driveway. I could clearly see Remlikov now.

I found you, Remlikov. I found you, you bastard!

The Audi pulled out onto Yehudi Street and drove away.

I remained there for a few minutes, making notes about the house. Today, I didn't want to follow. I had promised Andie. I got back in the car and drove away.

As I went by the house, I paused for a second in front of the mailbox. I pulled the latch. Quickly, I filtered through and grabbed the most innocuous-looking junk mail I could find. They had junk mail here, too, in Israel.

Back at the hotel, I opened the door to find Andie on the bed taking a nap. She stirred."What'd you find?"

"I found the house. It's nearby. I'll take you there tomorrow."

Andie sat up. She nodded, a little tentatively.

"And this, " I said, tossing the piece of junk mail, a solicitation from a local rug cleaner, on the bed."Souvenir. His name isn't Remlikov or Kollich.

"It's Richard Nordeshenko."

"LOOK!" NICK POINTED toward the modern, glass-ringed house a hundred feet below."That's him! That's Remlikov."

Andie focused the binoculars. She spied the man-thin, dark, not so large, not so scary. A surge of anger tightened her chest.

She hadn't known how she would feel when she saw the man who killed her son. And now that it was happening, now that he was only a few yards away, she knew it wasn't what she wanted. It made her stomach cramp.

"I see him." Andie's fingers gripped the binoculars even more tightly. Behind her, Nick squeezed her arm.

"Does he look familiar?"

"No." She wished he did. She wanted to feel deep hatred for him. Revulsion. Something. So this was the killer? The man who took her whole world away? She shook her head again."No. I've never seen him before."

"He lives with his wife and son."

"He has a boy? " That, Andie hadn't expected. Did his family know? The terrible things he'd done? When they were sitting at their meals or kicking a ball between them or whatever the hell they did? How could someone with a child do these horrible things?

"He goes out every day around this time," Nick said, gazing through his own binoculars."At four, he drives his son."

"Nick." Andie put down the glasses and looked at him, teary-eyed."I don't think I can do this. I know I'm supposed to hate this man. Look what he did to me. I know what we need from him. I know what we have to do. It's just that… You sonovabitch, " she spat toward the house. She turned her eyes away.

"Just do what you have to do," she said angrily."You were right. You are right."

Suddenly the garage doors started to open again. Nick glanced at his watch."There he goes."

The man who had killed her son stepped out of a door from inside the garage. He was wearing a white, short-sleeved shirt, tan slacks, and sunglasses. He looked around for a second, then climbed in the Audi and started the car.

"Every day. Same time. There's the boy."

Andie turned and brought the glasses up again. The boy couldn't have been much more than eleven or twelve. A little older than Jarrod. He was innocent, she told herself, of whatever the father had done."Where are they going?"

"I don't know. I want to follow them. Are you okay with that?"

Andie nodded. This scum. This bastard. How could he play the loving father when he knew what he had done?

The boy stepped out of the house and met the car, which was backing around in the driveway.

Andie focused closer. He was carrying a book and what looked like a portable computer. The cover of the book came into view. She didn't know why she was even interested.

Chess.

The boy climbed into the Audi.

"Come on," Nick said. He tossed his binoculars into the backseat."Let's go. I don't want to fall too far behind."

Andie nodded, about to put down the lens, taking one more sweep of the car backing up to the front of the house.

Then, as if she'd been plunged into an icy pool of water, she exclaimed,"Oh my God, Nick!"

The shock of what she had just seen sent a violent, nauseating force through her. She became covered in perspiration as flashes of the horrible memory invaded her brain."Oh, Jesus Christ, no."

"What?" Nick put the car back in park.

"Look in the house!" Her jaw tightened, and her mouth was so dry she could barely spit out the words."You see that man?"

Nick grabbed the binoculars from her.

He saw the man standing near the front window, hands on hips, in sweatpants and a white Guinness T-shirt, watching Remlikov drive away.

"That's him!" The blood drained out of Andie's face. She could see his long blond hair in her mind's eye.

"That's the same man I saw running from the van!"

THE NEXT DAY, Andie stayed back at the hotel while I tracked Remlikov's movements. I followed him and his son down the mountain to his chess lessons on Hassan Street, in the center of town.

At night, I held on to her tightly. Seeing that man had brought everything back-the bus, the explosion, Jarrod. I saw in her face the same pain as that day in the ER after it all happened: the events suddenly fresh and vivid again.

That night I was sure she was asleep, but she was just lying there in the darkness, wide awake. Once or twice, I felt her shudder, then she turned away from me and buried her head into the pillow."It's okay," I whispered, and wrapped my arms around her, trying to make her strong. But I knew it wasn't okay. I knew the hurt was fresh and new. This face from the past complicated everything.

On the next night, just before dawn, I was lying in bed thinking, tracing the first rays of light as they washed over the room.

"Do you know how you're going to do this?" Andie asked, surprising me.

"Yes." I turned to her.

I had a plan. I was just afraid to share it. I knew it wouldn't go over well with her.

We had to get to Remlikov. The problem was, he rarely left the house. I couldn't burst in there, guns blazing. We needed Remlikov alive. I knew there was only one way-one leverage.

The boy.

There was no way around it, and I knew how troubling this would be for her. Also, I needed Andie's help. So I told Andie what had to be done-that it involved the boy.

"It's going to be dangerous," I said, shifting onto my elbow.

I knew precisely what I was asking. The boy was innocent, just as Jarrod was. But we had to get at Remlikov through the one thing that he loved most-just as he had taken the one thing from her that she loved most.

"Nick." She shook her head."I can't do that."

"We're not looking for a favor from him, Andie. We're squeezing a killer for a piece of information that could get us all killed. It's the only way he's vulnerable. I told you before we came how hard this was going to be."

"Do you know what you're asking? You're asking me to do the same thing to another mother that's just happened to me."

"I know what I'm asking, Andie." I reached for her."I'm not a killer, Andie. But these people are."

She stared back at me, thinking I was suddenly capable of the same violence and evil that had taken her son.

"I give you my word, whatever happens, the boy won't be harmed."