Джеймс Паттерсон - The Red Book

Sadie walks up the concrete steps, opens a large metal door, and walks in.

I give it a good once-over. I consider using my phone to take some video, but there’s nothing complicated here. The fence isn’t locked. There’s only one way in.

I double back to look for an entrance on the other side. I don’t see any. Doesn’t mean there isn’t one. This was once a company’s small industrial village, and there could be all sorts of interconnecting parts, tunnels, and points of entry and egress. No way to know.

But at least I know where she lives now.

“See you all soon,” I whisper.

Chapter 90

I KILL the afternoon there, sitting in my car, parked a quarter of a mile from the industrial park. Waiting to see who arrives and who leaves. Waiting to see town cars with beautiful young prostitutes coming or going. Waiting to see eastern European thugs coming or going.

Nothing. No action in or out of the industrial park.

Not surprising. I thought I might get lucky, but prostitutes don’t see a whole lot of action by day. It’s night work.

Which is better anyway. I want to do this in the dark.

I head back to the station, do a little paperwork, chat with the crew, let time pass. I go online to learn about the layout of the industrial park. Don’t find much, only that it was once a private boarding school, converted decades ago by an auto-parts company into an industrial park. Then, in the nineties, the company moved out of the city. No architectural drawings. I don’t have time to get them through official means, and I don’t want to do this officially anyway.

I think of that kid, Rudolf Vacaru, getting out of prison and looking for his sister. I think of Evie, escaping her captors and trying to hook back up with her brother.

I think of Antoine Stonewald, rotting in prison for a crime he did not commit.

I think of Valerie, dealing with the crushing heartbreak of Janey’s stroke but staying vigilant, trying to free Antoine, to free girls kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery.

When the shift, such as it is, has ended, when the clock reaches seven and the place is nearly empty, I gear up.

A vest. My Glock at my hip, another at my ankle, a Sig in the small of my back. Spare mags if I run out.

A few other toys, too.

I throw a sport jacket over it all and head out.

When I reach the lot, Patti is standing there, leaning against my car.

Chapter 91

PATTI COMES off my car, crosses her arms, looks me up and down, sees my belt, sees the bulge in my ankle. “Looks like you got plans,” she says.

“What’s it to you?”

“Me? Oh, nothing. You’re just my brother.”

“Heading home,” I say.

“Great. Let’s grab a beer first. My treat.”

“Not in the mood,” I say.

“I’ll cook you dinner, then.”

“Patti, don’t mess with me.”

Her chin dips, eyebrows rise. “Then don’t mess with me and pretend like you’re going home when you’re armed like you’re about to invade bin Laden’s compound.”

I don’t answer. But I don’t try to pass, either, to get to my car. Whatever it is, I need to resolve this. I can’t have her on my back all night.

“You want to bust a bunch of sex traffickers, fine,” she says. “Great. I’ll help you. The force will help you. Get Sosh and whatever crew you need, me included, and let’s take ’em down. But going in solo to take on who knows what’s waiting for you in some kind of pathetic attempt at revenge—”

“Pathetic? They killed Valerie, Patti. I’m supposed to let that go?”

She looks at me, really looks at me, searches my eyes. “You don’t know that for a fact, do you? At most, they took credit for her death. I would, too, if I were them. You have questions, fine, let’s arrest them and interrogate them. But this suicide mission—”

“I don’t have time for this.” I angle past her, but she shoves me hard, knocking me off balance, and places herself between me and my car door.

“They didn’t kill Val,” she says.

“She didn’t kill herself. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe that.”

Her eyes narrow. Her head angles to the side. “You really don’t remember, do you? You don’t remember what happened.”

“I…”

A fog. That’s all it is now, a fog. A fog that only separates in my dreams, where it comes back with vivid, crashing clarity. But they aren’t true. My dreams aren’t true. They’re just dreams.

Patti answers for me, repeats herself. “You don’t remember what happened.”

“Okay, so maybe it was a tiny bit traumatic, okay? Is that okay? And maybe that fucking bullet I took to the brain last year didn’t help—”

“Of course it’s okay,” she says, tears in her eyes. “Of course it’s okay. But Billy, do you remember the aftermath? Do you remember ever asking yourself questions?”

“Do I—did I ask myself questions ? You mean questions like, why would my wife eat a bullet? Gee, sister, I only asked myself that question about a hundred thousand fucking times. And I got the same answer every time. She killed herself because she was overcome with grief and because I made her feel like shit for not being at the hospital every second of every day. She ran herself ragged trying to be there for our daughter and be there for her clients, and I gave her the guilt trip of all guilt trips. Were there other questions I was supposed to ask?”

“Billy—”

“Oh, here’s one. Maybe I was supposed to ask if someone had a motive to kill her. Maybe I should’ve looked through her case files and realized that she was about to expose a major sex-trafficking ring. Maybe if I’d been a little bit more of a detective and less of a grieving puddle of guilt and self-pity, I would’ve figured this out four years ago, and I wouldn’t be playing catch-up now.” I throw up my hands. “Were there other questions you had in mind?”

Patti closes her eyes, brings her hands together, as if in prayer, against her mouth.

“You came here to say something, Patti. Say it.”

She angles her hands toward me, as if sending her prayer my way.

“What question didn’t I ask?” I say.

She opens her eyes. Clears her throat.

She says, “How’d your Glock get out of the gun safe?”

Chapter 92

I DRAW back. “The—what? The gun? Valerie took it out of the safe.”

Even as I say the words, the ground beneath my feet suddenly feels uneven.

“What, the traffickers broke into the house and forced Val to open the safe, so they could kill her but make it look like a suicide, because she used your gun?” she says. “That’s your theory, right?”

“Why not?”

“Billy.” Her voice trembling. She steps toward me, but I step back. A tear falls down her cheek. “Billy, honey, Val didn’t know the combination to the gun safe.”

“Well, she…”

“She what? She didn’t know, Billy. She didn’t want to know. Remember? She wanted nothing to do with guns. She hated them. You know that.”

“Well, then, I guess I left it open,” I say. “I wasn’t exactly having the time of my life, either, Patti. All I could think about, day and night, was Janey, lying in the hospital. I was absentminded. Maybe I…I left it…left it open.”

Even as I say the words.

An earthquake inside my body.

“Your wife is depressed already, just normally,” says Patti. “And now she’s dealing with about the most gut-wrenching thing a person can deal with. And you left the safe wide open for her to access that gun? C’mon, Billy.”

I stumble backward, reaching out to a patrol car for balance. I shut my eyes and hold on for dear life.

“What are you…what are you saying to me?”