Джеймс Паттерсон - The Red Book

He was always larger than life to her, the proud, commanding chief of detectives, the baritone voice and erect posture, the man who took over any room he entered. Now he’s a soft-spoken, stooped, broken man.

“You look slimmed down,” he says. “You’ve been running again.”

“No,” she hears herself say, steeling up. “You don’t get to do that.”

She looks at him. His eyebrows dance. “Okay,” he says tentatively. “At least tell me how you’re do—”

“No.”

“Right, right, I get it. Patti, listen, there’s so many things I’ve wanted to say—”

“No!” She pounds the table. “This isn’t a reunion, okay? You can’t just…” Her throat chokes up.

Her father gives up, crosses his arms, waits her out. The hurt on his face—so unfair that he can look hurt, that he gets to be the victim.

He coughs into his fist, a nasty sputter, deep and wet, the shackles connecting his hands jangling. He doesn’t look well. He probably isn’t well.

But he doesn’t get her pity.

“I’m here about Billy,” she says.

He clears his throat, cocks his head. “He okay?”

“He’s been talking about Val. He’s become convinced she didn’t commit suicide.”

He brings a hand to his forehead. “Oh, Jay-sus, no. Even with the autopsy report.”

“Even with that.”

“He never saw the original one, did he?”

“No,” says Patti. “I actually had a copy, but I burned it.”

“Thank Christ for that.” Her father opens his hands. “You said he’s ‘become convinced.’ So he doesn’t know ?”

She shakes her head. “He doesn’t remember. He says it was all a haze.”

Her father nods, takes a deep breath. “He never told us what happened. Never talked about it. Not once, afterward. I figured, maybe the whole thing was like what you said—a haze. Or maybe he remembered it clear as day and just…didn’t wanna tell us.”

Patti had thought the same thing. She and her father talked about it all the time back then. “And even if he did remember,” she says, “he may not now. After, y’know, being shot in the head last year and having those memory issues. That ring a bell?”

He shoots her a look. “We gonna do that now? Or talk about Billy?”

He’s right. She needs to stay focused. “Well, whether the trauma back then fucked with his memory, or whether he’s blocked it out over time, or that gunshot injury from a year ago did it—as of now, he doesn’t remember what happened.”

“Okay, well, that’s a blessing,” he says. “So why the doubt all of a sudden?”

“He’s…he’s got it in his head that some sex traffickers killed her, that some case Val was working on—they had to shut her up. It’s total nonsense.”

“Better than the truth,” he says.

“Not if he’s going to hunt down the traffickers and kill them.”

Her father deflates. “That’s what he’s gonna do?”

“He says so. You ever know Billy not to keep his word?”

“Jay-sus.” His head lolls back. “Tell me about these traffickers.”

“He says they come from Ukraine. A former general, a bunch of ex–special operations thugs.”

He shakes his head. “He’s gonna get his ass killed.” He leans forward, looks at her squarely. “There’s only one choice,” he says. “You have to tell him the truth.”

She knows. Deep down, she’s known it for a long time. But no matter what else she may feel or think, he’s still her father, and maybe she just needed to hear him say it.

“But how in the hell do I do that?” she says. “How do I tell my brother that he killed his own wife?”

Book III

Chapter 85

FOUR YEARS ago. Patti didn’t go far from the house that afternoon.

She wasn’t sure why. She’d sat with Billy in the hospital for more than an hour after it was over, after Janey had been pronounced dead, after Billy had said his final good-byes, after Billy had tried, by her count, twelve times to reach Val by phone.

When she dropped him off at his house, he said he wanted to go in alone to break the news to Val.

But Patti didn’t go far. Just drove to the coffeehouse a couple of blocks away.

And worried.

Billy had just stared off in the distance on the car ride home. The fog of overwhelming grief, though he’d known this day was coming. But more than grief. Anger, too. No—anger didn’t do it justice.

Betrayal—that was it. Billy had held his daughter’s hand as she died, told her how much he loved her. Val should have been holding the other hand, should have been whispering in Janey’s other ear.

“She should’ve been there,” he said on the ride home from the hospital.

“People deal with this stuff in different ways,” Patti said. She felt like a shrink on a TV show, hearing herself, but it didn’t make it untrue.

“She should’ve been there.”

At a stoplight, Patti reached into the back seat for a bottle of Jameson she’d been planning to smuggle into the hospital at some point, to help Billy take the edge off during one of his overnight stays. “Have a hit of this,” she said.

Billy stared at the bottle as if he’d never seen one before. He hadn’t touched the sauce the whole time he’d stood vigil in the hospital, over a month in total.

Then he snatched it from her hand and, like a pro, unscrewed the top, raised the bottle to his mouth, leaned back, and opened his throat.

At least half the bottle was gone before Patti grabbed it from him. “Hey, easy, easy. You’re out of practice.”

Billy wiped at his mouth and looked out the window. “She couldn’t have at least kept her phone by her side in case I called? That was too much to ask?”

She looked at him. Didn’t know what to say. “This is tough for her, too, Billy. She has that depression thing on her best day. Now, with all this—she’s just…dealing with it the best she can.” Patti couldn’t believe she, of all people, was defending Val. Their roles had been opposite over this last month, Patti and her not-so-veiled criticisms, Billy making excuses for Val. But Billy was too far gone for diplomacy now.

“Let me go in with you,” she said when she pulled up to the curb outside Billy’s home.

“No.”

“You think Val’s in there? Or at work?”

“The fuck should I know? Maybe if she’d answer her phone.”

“Let me come in with you.”

“No.” Billy opened the car door, then looked back at Patti. How far he had fallen in this last month, the torture he’d endured, his lifeless, bloodshot eyes rimmed with dark circles, the downturn of his mouth. His whole world had cratered.

“I’ll come by later,” she promised.

And she didn’t go far. She couldn’t. She had to hover, stay close, remain on call. She drove to the coffeehouse down the street, nursed an extra-shot cappuccino. Felt the rush of the caffeine buzz. Worried about her brother.

Her cell rang thirty minutes later. Billy. She felt relief.

Then she heard what he had to say. She rushed out of the coffeeshop, jumped into her car.

His front door was unlocked. She bounded up the stairs and into Billy’s bedroom.

Felt herself slow. Heard faint breathing.

“Billy,” she said for some reason. Some instinctive need to announce her presence. Reached for the weapon at her side. Thought better of it.

She could already sniff it. She’d smelled it a hundred times.

She leaned forward and peered into the bathroom.

Massive blood spatter on the wall, in the freestanding tub, a pool on the floor.

Billy, sitting Indian-style on the floor.

Valerie, eyes wide and vacant, mouth agape, resting in Billy’s lap. The entry wound under her chin, a clean contact wound.