Джеймс Паттерсон - The Red Book

“I’m saying Val didn’t know the combo to the safe. She couldn’t have opened it for herself or for some intruder who forced her to open it. You didn’t even write the combo down, did you? Dad taught us that. Pick a combo you’ll never forget, so you don’t have to write it down, so it’s never written anywhere, so no child or spouse could ever get into that safe. We have the same combo, right? Mom’s birthday. Ten twelve forty-nine.”

I turn away from her, cover my face with my hands.

This isn’t…

No.

It can’t be…

No.

“And there’s no way in the world you left that safe open, kiddo. C’mon—you told me more than once that the last thing you’d ever want to do is leave your wife, with her history of depression, home alone with a gun. That safe was closed and locked.”

I must have. I must have left it open.

My body shaking so hard that the words hardly come out. “You’re saying I killed her. I killed my own wife.”

My back still turned to her. I hear her footsteps as she walks up behind me.

“I’m saying that the person who walked into that bedroom that day may have been you in body. But it wasn’t you. It was a man devastated and racked with grief, walking through a fog, probably drunk from the Jameson he downed on the car ride home. And right or wrong, no matter how you beat yourself up about it, it was a man who was hurt and angry that his wife wasn’t there for Janey when she died. Put all that together—”

“No.” The only word shooting through my brain.

“I don’t know how it happened,” she continues. “Neither do you. Maybe, maybe, I don’t know, you—maybe you said, okay, you’re so depressed, you wanna die, go ahead, Val, here’s the gun—”

“No. No. She was already dead when I got there.”

“That’s just not possible, honey.”

I spin around, nearly hitting her, she’s so close behind me. I grab her by the arms. “How can you say these things to me?”

“You think I want to?” All composure lost now, her face all tears, her words garbled.

“You think I’d forget killing her? I might forget some details, but you think I’d forget that I removed the Glock from the safe and killed my own wife?”

“That’s exactly what you’d forget!” she cries. “Because it’s too horrible to remember!”

“No. She was already dead.” I throw her to the side, open the car door. “She was already dead because they killed her. They killed her! You understand?” I point at her. “Don’t follow me! Don’t ever talk to me again!”

Patti collapses to the ground, pure torture across her face, tears pouring out, chest heaving.

I put the car in Reverse and drive away.

Chapter 93

MY WIFE was already dead when I found her.

Close to eight now. The sun has fallen, at least behind the buildings.

I park in the same spot, around a quarter of a mile from the industrial park.

She was already dead. They killed her.

I wouldn’t forget that. No bullet to the brain would make me forget that.

No amount of traumatic exertion on my brain would make me forget that .

I punch the steering wheel. They killed her.

The street is all but deserted. No people; almost no traffic.

Then a car approaches from the opposite direction, traveling east, toward me.

Slows by the industrial park.

I raise my binoculars, catch a glimpse of the only person in the car, the driver.

That’s one of them. The shorter, stockier of the two guys. The front-seat passenger in the 4Runner in K-Town. The first one of the two caught on the POD camera when I chased them from Shiv’s house.

His car turns into the industrial park. I lose my sport jacket, get out of my car, hustle across the street, and make it to the park entrance. Peek down the corridor. The car has stopped by the gate, the same one Sadie opened. The guy gets out to unlatch it, then slides it open wide enough for a car to pass.

That stocky build. Definitely one of the two guys.

He gets in the car and pulls it in. Returns to the gate and slides it closed.

Now I start running, despite the extra weight from the double holster, the three sidearms, and the other accoutrements. But I run like I’m capable, which is pretty fast when I put my mind to it.

I get to the fence and peek in.

The guy is just closing the car door, balancing a pizza box in his hand.

One box. One pizza. Enough for a few people, not a large crew.

Four people. Sadie said four people lived there, if she was telling the truth. Three, minus Evie.

But if she was telling the truth, two men.

This is one of them.

I walk over to the latch, open it slowly, as the man walks up the concrete steps to the front door.

Slide it open just a tiny bit to angle through—the less noise the better—and draw my Glock.

He’s pulling on the front-door lever, balancing the pizza box in the other hand, as I race toward the concrete steps.

“Police: don’t move.” I say it loud and firm enough for him to hear me, not enough for the whole neighborhood to hear.

He doesn’t move. I bound up the concrete steps, put the gun against his head.

“What’s your name?”

“Sergio.”

“Who’s inside, Sergio?” I ask.

“Inside here?” Accent, thick. Thick like his neck and shoulders.

“You got two seconds to answer.”

“Just me and a girl.”

“What girl?”

“Sadie.”

“You’re lying to me, you’re dead. You get that, right?”

“I am not lying.”

With my free hand, the one not pressing a Glock into his skull, I grab the pizza box and Frisbee it. Then I clutch his shoulder.

“Go,” I say. “But do it slowly.”

Sergio opens the door. We walk into a vestibule, a small area with a half door and window, like a ticket window at the movies, boarded up. Otherwise, nothing to do but open another door directly in front of us, a solid wooden door, no window.

“Open it,” I say, my pulse banging.

He opens it. I push him forward, gripping his shoulder, pressing the Glock against his skull.

Inside is darkness. An airy feel, like high ceilings; a wide space, but black as pitch.

Can’t-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face dark.

Sergio keeps walking. After two, three steps, I hold him up.

“Turn on the lights.”

“No lights in here.”

“What? Bullshit.”

“Not bullshit.”

“You walk through a dark room?”

“Yes. No choice.”

It’s possible. Would make for a good hideout, a good place to stow your sex slaves, having a room like this that people wouldn’t think to traverse in the pitch dark.

But a slight tremble to his voice, those last words.

This is all wrong.

I throw my arm around his neck, a choke hold, as he tries to slide out of my grasp.

That’s when the first bullet buzzes my ear.

Chapter 94

I TIGHTEN my choke hold on Sergio as bullets shower down on us, pummeling his body, my human shield. It’s only seconds before he goes limp as bullets hit the floor behind us, too, and from different angles.

Muzzle flashes from up high, at ten o’clock and two o’clock.

Two shooters spread maybe thirty yards apart. From a high vantage point. With night vision.

Every advantage.

I can’t hold Sergio up forever. So I fall back, pulling him on top of me, and spray bullets from my Glock to my right, having no idea in this darkness where I’m shooting, just my best approximation of the source of the muzzle flash, hoping it’s close enough to make the shooter stop and duck for cover, at least temporarily.

The bullets keep coming from the other side, automatic-weapon fire, AR-15 or something, peppering Sergio’s dead body, one hitting my forearm around his neck, searing pain, but I let go of Sergio and I’m dead.