Джеймс Паттерсон - The Red Book

“Any deals in particular, before he died?”

She nods, remembering. “Well, the Stratton Tower, obviously.”

Stratton . One of the words Valerie had written in her notes. “The Stratton Tower?”

“The…you know, the Stratton International Hotel and Tower. By the river.”

Oh. Right. That new skyscraper built just north of the Chicago River.

“Every time I walk past that gigantic hunk of steel, I think of him,” she says. “He would’ve loved to have been a part of it. He worked for years on it.”

“He was, what, an investor?”

She sighs, like she’s talking to an unschooled child. “He was part of an investors’ group. They were trying to bring on more investors. He oversaw the due diligence.”

My knowledge of high finance begins and ends with Save what you can, pay your bills on time, and max out your 401(k). But even I know what due diligence means.

“Was Nathan running into any problems?” I ask.

I’m taking her back more than five years, and it’s not a fun return trip for her. I might have copped an attitude with her, catching her stepping out on her second husband with some young eye candy, but who knows what happens to people? For all I know, her life turned upside down after losing Nathan.

The frown on her face, the teary glaze in her eyes, makes that seem likely. So now I’m feeling guilty for ruining her night, but it’s too late to turn back now, and I need this information. And she deserves to know, just as much as I do, what happened.

“There was…maybe one thing,” she says.

Chapter 56

I LEAVE the restaurant with the promise of a name. And a return promise, given as Angela Dupree clutched my arm, her voice full of emotion, to let her know whatever I learn about her husband’s death.

Stratton, she said to me.

Stratton, Valerie wrote in her notes.

The Stratton International Hotel and Tower is just a hop down Michigan Avenue from the restaurant where I met Angela Dupree. Pedestrians are everywhere on the Mag Mile tonight, with the early taste of summer in the air. Chicagoans clutch good weather like it’s rare oxygen.

There it is, a massive structure of steel and glass towering over the north bank of the Chicago River, with gold-plated awnings, a semicircular drive where valets jockey Jags and Mercedes, where limos unload beautiful people in beautiful clothes.

“Guess it got built without you, Nathan,” I mumble.

More to learn about that. I have somewhere else to be right now. A mission I didn’t finish, interrupted by Carla. Time to return to K-Town.

There’s no more dangerous time on the West Side of Chicago than summer nights. Shootings increase exponentially as people venture outside. It ain’t quite summer yet, but it’s over eighty degrees, and it’s almost ten o’clock.

Clusters of people, mostly young, mostly male, populate the corners, sit on stoops smoking or drinking, laughing and goofing around. Everyone notices my ride, and if they look closely enough, the color of my skin. Am I a cop? If you live on the West Side, you don’t have to be committing a crime to fear the police.

I hit Kilbourn and take it down toward the expressway, toward the crime scene, the bullet-riddled house where four people died only days ago, including my Jane Doe, who went by Evie. Just north of that house and across the street, several bouquets of flowers lie against the front door. Someone else died recently, on the same block?

I park my ride, check the house. Dark, of course. Nobody living there since the shooting. I check my surroundings as I walk up the porch, snap on rubber gloves, and slip the key into the lock.

I open the door and hear something inside. Not so much movement as…the abrupt stopping of movement.

Or are my ears playing tricks on me?

Silence.

Then the unmistakable sound of something hitting the floor and breaking.

No tricks. Someone’s inside this house. And just heard me enter.

Chapter 57

IN THE blink of an eye, every possibility tidal-waves past me. Squatters escaping the elements. Crackheads, preying on vacant property. Low-rent thieves, picking at the carnage of a fallen beast, whatever they can grab and sell for drug money.

Or worse. Much, much worse.

“Police!” I call out as I reach for the weapon at my hip. “Who’s there?”

With the window boarded up and the front door closed, the streetlight outside doesn’t help. I’m in full darkness. I shuffle along the couch, the one where LaTisha Moreland drew her last breath, but I don’t make it to the hallway before I hear violent footfalls, the product of a quick decision to make a run for it.

I turn left toward the kitchen, hoping to cut off whoever it is from the opposite side, running my hand along the wall for a switch, catching it on the thermostat, racing into the small kitchen. A narrow beam of yellow light hits the wall in front of me—

I slam into something, a chair by the kitchen table, and fall forward, face-first, onto cold tile, as the wood above me splinters with multiple impacts. I turn in the direction of the gunfire, the back room, a flashlight now rolling on the floor, a roaming beam only inches off the surface.

But enough to light up the room a little. Enough to see a man, tall and lean, tight haircut, racing out the back door.

He’s gone before I can raise my weapon, much less return fire.

I pop to my feet and head toward the back door. There’s a window in the back, and I can see two figures running across the lawn, heading south. I stay low, in case they get any ideas about shooting me through the window, but they’re in full retreat now. I run through the back door and follow their direction toward the alley, the lighting better, at least, helped by a streetlight and someone turning on a light a few stories above me in the neighboring building.

I stop just short of the alley, stay low, spin, and turn to my right—west—with my weapon up. They’re faster than I am, well ahead, nearly out of the alley. The first one turns to his left onto the next street over from Kilbourn. The second one, not far behind him, does a quick half turn and fires a stray shot in my direction, not aiming, just trying to slow me down, but I’m in full chase mode now, as he follows his buddy onto the next street, whichever one of those K streets it is—I can’t keep them straight.

It hits me as I’m running. I know which K street. It’s Kolmar.

By the time I reach the end of the alley, the two men have hit the next street south, Van Buren, and turned right, increasing their distance. I make it to the intersection of Van Buren and Kolmar; by then, the two men have put far too much real estate between us for me to have any chance of catching them.

I put my hands on my knees and catch my breath, my injured ribs screaming at me. My knee is banged up, too, something I didn’t notice during the chase, with the adrenaline flowing, the result of tripping and falling over that kitchen chair. It probably saved my life, probably was the difference between the intruder’s bullets hitting the wall and hitting me somewhere from the neck up.

I don’t call it in. It’ll be too late. And I’ll have to answer too many questions.

I have plenty of questions of my own. But I may have an answer or two as well.

I look up at the intersection, at the POD camera, corner of Van Buren and Kolmar.

“I got you, bitches,” I whisper.

Chapter 58

I HEAD back to Shiv’s house, shaky from the adrenaline, limping a bit, but I’ll live.

The flashlight the shooter dropped is still on the floor by the back door. I flip on lights as I make my way to the kitchen. I find a brown lunch bag in a cabinet and carefully use it to scoop up the flashlight, just in case he was dumb enough to leave prints. I don’t want to touch the flashlight’s on-off switch and smudge a possible thumbprint, even with my rubber gloves, so I carry the bag around like it was a luminaria on Christmas.