Джеймс Паттерсон: The Red Book

“Nathan Stofer?” Patti says. “ That’s your question?”

I glare at her. “My way,” I remind her. “My call.”

Disco coughs, sputtering.

“Disco, how do you know Nathan Stofer?”

His head lolls to the side. “I…killed that man.”

“How?” I ask. “Where? Why?”

“I shot him…in parking garage downtown.”

“Why?”

“The general…”

“Give me his name.”

“I need…ambul—”

“Tell me the general’s name!”

“General…Kostyantin…Boholyubov.”

“What about him?”

“This man Sto—Stofer…was stopping the general from being in…business deal. The…Stratton hotel.”

“And what did the general do about that?”

“He…told me…to kill him.”

“And you did?”

He nods.

I nudge his shoulder. “Give a verbal answer for the recording device.”

“Yes,” says Disco, “I did.”

“Billy, what are you doing?” Patti says. “We don’t have time .”

“Do you know why Antoine Stonewald pleaded guilty to Nathan Stofer’s murder?” I ask.

Disco nods. “I threatened…his family…if he did not.”

“Did Antoine Stonewald have anything to do with Nathan Stofer’s murder?”

“No.”

I turn off the recorder.

Just as the faint sounds of an ambulance’s siren grow louder, having responded to Patti’s call for a 10-52—an ambulance.

Disco hears it, trains his fading eyes on me. “You…already called…ambulance.” His words a bare whisper. A small smile crosses his face, as if he admires the deception, one bullshitter conning another.

“Did you kill Val?” Patti shouts at Disco. “Did you kill Billy’s wife?”

She kicks his foot, some boot he’s wearing. Disco faintly grimaces and shuts his eyes. He may not make it to the ambulance.

As he lies on his back, the blood follows the path of gravity back through the entrance wound by his kidney, forming a pool beneath him.

“Did you kill Billy’s wife?” Patti shouts again.

The paramedics rush through the backyard and get to work on Disco. Patti and I back up and let them do their work.

“You didn’t ask him,” she says, half question, half accusation.

“Ran out of time,” I say. “I went in order of importance.”

“Order of importance ? Suddenly something’s more important than knowing how Val died?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” I say.

Because I can’t bring Valerie back. But I can save Antoine, precisely the thing Valerie was trying to do before she died.

It’s what she would have wanted.

This audio recording, with both Patti and me as witnesses, will exonerate Antoine Stonewald. And help take down General Boholyubov, if he hasn’t escaped to some country without an extradition treaty. Valerie wanted to free Antoine, save these girls, and punish the traffickers. It took me four years, but I finally completed her mission.

“You said you were gonna kill him.” She flips a hand. “Instead, you get him medical care.”

“Right.”

Patti gives me a sidelong glance. “I suppose you’re gonna say Val would’ve wanted that, too.”

That’s exactly right. But suddenly I can’t speak, too choked up with emotion. Patti, using her twin superpower detector, finally gets it, pulls me into a hug.

“She was a better person than I am,” I whisper. “She was stronger than me. God, I miss her so much.”

I say those words without tears, feeling some strength in a newfound connection with Valerie. Regret, no doubt, that I didn’t do more to understand what she was going through at the time. But cognizant enough, objective enough with the benefit of hindsight, to cut myself a little slack, too—I was focused on our beautiful little Janey.

Both of us, in our different ways, were doing the best we could.

That’s gonna have to be enough.

The paramedics working behind us lift Disco onto a gurney and rush off with him. Maybe they can save him. I don’t love his chances.

“Maybe he pulls through,” says Patti. “And maybe he’ll tell you the truth.”

“That’s a lot of maybes,” I say. “In the meantime, we have work to do. We have to see about all those girls, make sure they’re getting treatment and help them find their way home. Plus,” I add, “tomorrow we go see Antoine in prison and deliver him the good news.”

Patti raises her eyebrows, makes a face. “After all this, you didn’t even ask him the question.”

I watch the ambulance pull away. Police squadrols pulling up, too. This sleepy little corner of the city is about to turn into a circus.

“I didn’t need to ask him,” I say. “I already know what happened to Valerie.”

Chapter 110

THE PRISON just came off lockdown today, apparently, so most inmate visits had been canceled. But when I told them it was official police business, not just some social call, they allowed me a visit.

Patti’s with me, sitting in the private interview room, her legs bobbing up and down nervously.

Neither of us has slept. It was a long night. Every one of the girls we rescued from that basement—official count of thirty-two—is addicted to Oxy, so Social Services has been working overtime, literally, to try to locate any next of kin while making sure they’re going through detox.

The truth is that the path forward for these girls will be rough. Some may never overcome their addictions, not to mention their years of sexual abuse. And many of them may not have any family to which they can return.

All we could do is give them a chance.

The questions last night came from every which way as the department tried to sort out this mess. Principal among them is why a decorated police captain such as Dennis Porter was found dead next to a house linked to a human trafficker, and why the two of them seemed to have so much to say to each other over burner cell phones.

They can’t ask Porter that question, obviously. And it remains in doubt whether Disco will ever answer that question. He’s still in a coma following surgery.

There’s gonna be a lot to talk about today at SOS—not to mention headquarters, at 35th and Michigan. But for now, we’re here in the prison for me to deliver some news.

The door opens. His leg irons drag along the floor. He stops when he first sees me, then Patti. He takes his seat as the guard locks his wrist shackles to the table.

“So you didn’t get yourself killed after all,” my father says to me.

It’s the first time I’ve seen Pop since he was hauled off to prison. He looks like a shrunken version of himself, weak and tired, pale and weathered.

His eyes travel to my lap, to the book resting there.

“I came here to thank you,” I say.

Chapter 111

MY FATHER being who he is, the circumstances being what they are, Daniel Collins Harney is unsure how to respond. “Thank me,” he says.

“I want to thank you for covering up what happened to Valerie. You were concerned that the authorities might think it was a homicide, so you steered it toward a suicide finding. Called in a favor with the medical examiner, right? He was suspicious, but you leaned on him to call it suicide.”

Pop looks at Patti, realizes she gave up that info to me.

“You were the chief of detectives, after all,” I say. “You could control as much as you wanted. So you basically hijacked the whole investigation and drove it to only one conclusion.”

Pop gives me a sidelong glance. “We wanted to protect you,” he says.

“ Patti wanted to protect me. Patti did. You had someone else’s protection in mind, didn’t you, Pop?”

He folds his arms. “I don’t know what you’ve cooked up about me, son, but whatever it is—”