Джеймс Паттерсон: The Red Book

After ninety seconds that feel like an hour, we reach the road where the van crossed back over the tracks. Carla is cool and calm as she relays the developments. “All units, we need to seal off this perimeter. Sheriff 1, you call it; you know this area.”

I floor the Taurus, which responds with its souped-up police-model engine. At least this road is paved, so we can make progress. But so can the van. With the cherry lit up on the dashboard and the siren blaring, I hit nearly ninety miles an hour, hoping nobody or no thing jumps out into our path. I can’t afford to lose the van. We’ve probably got it pinned down now, but that’s not the problem.

The problem is the girl and what he’ll do to her if he feels cornered.

“There, Harney, there—”

We catch a glimpse of the van, turning left yet again. Completing the square.

He’s going back home?

“Suspect is heading north,” Carla calls in. “Air 6, you got it?”

I push the Taurus as hard it can go, then skid into a left turn onto a dirt road, nearly wiping out. “This is the same road,” I say. “The same one where we first saw him.”

Carla calls it in, now on familiar ground. But the driver has the advantage.

We see the van make its final turn up ahead.

“He did all this just to circle back and get home,” says Carla. “What’s so special about back home?”

I pound the brake as we slide into a turn, reaching the turnoff the van just took.

“We’re about to find out,” I say.

Chapter 4

WHEN WE reach the turnoff, we see a DO NOT ENTER sign chained across the path. That makes no sense. How did the suspect get through it and reattach it?

Whatever. I blast the Taurus through, the sign splitting apart before I could hit it.

“Some kind of automatic gate,” says Carla, checking her weapon, adjusting her vest. “Who the hell is this guy?”

We follow a winding road, slowing to navigate the turns. Too slow to overtake the van.

“C’mon…”

Up ahead, the van pulls up to a house of brick and stone, the garage door opening. The van roars inside. Behind us, the sirens of law enforcement—state, county, city—come blaring from Rawlings Road.

The van screeches into the garage. The man pops out. The van’s back doors open. He reaches in and pulls out…

…a girl, African American, tied at the hands and feet. Bridget Leone.

Carrying the girl in his arms, the man rushes into the house as we reach the property and squeal to a halt.

I run into the garage, seeing the door to the house ajar. My Glock out and high, I push the door open and shout, “Chicago police!”

I’m in a kitchen, red light flashing in a high corner. An intruder alert?

We race into a sparsely furnished family room—a couch and chair but not much else. A door to the left. To the right, a sliding glass door onto a patio.

And another red light flashing in the corner.

“Bridget! Bridget Leone?” Carla calls out. She tries the door. It opens into a staircase leading down.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a figure running through the back yard. It’s our offender, the ball cap and build matching the description.

“Bridget!”

A faint but clear “Yes!” comes from the basement.

“I got the perp; you get the girl,” I say to Carla.

I push open the sliding glass door and leap off the patio onto the grass a good ten feet below. I ignore the pain in my ankle and start running.

It’s a thick net of trees, a natural fencing, but I saw where he went in, and I see his hat on the path. I run with my Glock at my side. The path is narrow, the footing uneven. I try to watch for an ambush while running at top speed in an area this asshole knows and I don’t.

Advantage: asshole. But I have some wheels when I’m motivated, and I get the sense this guy does not.

Then I hear him up ahead, his labored breathing, the sound of his footfalls. He comes into my view, running with all he’s got, but it isn’t enough.

“Police!” I shout as best I can while sprinting, my chest burning, my ankle throbbing. I make a decision, stop, aim, and fire at a tree in front of him.

The wood splinters. The man cowers, slowing down.

Then he stops.

“Hands up and turn around!” I shout, shuffling toward him, both hands on the Glock.

He raises his hands. Turns around.

Beady eyes, greasy dark hair, thick nose. A large head rising from a long, skinny neck and sloping shoulders. Big ears protruding off his head like those of some cartoon character. The bandage dangling from his face, the sweat overpowering the adhesive, revealing a decent scar.

“Drop to your knees!” I command.

He doesn’t. Instead, with a poker face, he makes a word with his lips.

“Boo.”

Then he looks over my shoulder, past me.

“Drop to your—”

Then I realize he wasn’t saying boo .

He was saying boom.

My phone buzzes in my pocket.

Behind me, a deep, thundering explosion. I turn to see the roof blowing off the house, a massive ball of orange and black, the sides of the house caving in.

The entire house, reduced to ash and rubble within five seconds.

I turn back. The suspect has started running again, turning into the thicket of trees and disappearing.

I look back and forth, then holster my weapon and start running back to the house.

Chapter 5

I BAT away tree branches and stumble over a hole along the path as black smoke fills the sky. I feel the searing heat before I reach the clearing.

When I push through the final branches into the back yard, I’m hit with an oven blast of heat and dark soot and dust. I nearly stumble over a young African American girl lying in the grass, facedown, wearing a T-shirt and shorts.

“Bridget?” I bend down, touch her neck for a pulse. “Bridget Leone?”

She opens her eyes, nods, looks up at me.

I cover my hand with my mouth so I can breathe. “Are you okay? Can you move?”

She manages to nod, squint at me, cough.

Around the other side of the house, a state police trooper and a county sheriff’s unit come running. I flag them down. Eventually, they see me through the smoke. “This is Bridget,” I say, while my eyes whip back and forth for Carla. “Get her out of here!” But before I do, I lean into her ear. “Bridget, where’s my partner?”

Still dazed, she shakes her head. She doesn’t know.

The troopers gather her in their arms and rush her away from the blaze, the poisonous soot, the scalding heat.

“Suspect went through that clearing!” I shout to the sheriff’s deputies, pointing. “I don’t think he was armed, but I can’t be sure! Go! And get the chopper on him! Go!”

I push them as I soldier forward, my mouth covered by the crook of my arm, taking quick, greedy breaths as I move forward. “Carla!” I shout. “Carla!” Each time breaking into a coughing spasm.

By now, more than a dozen officers are on the scene in their various uniforms. I grab two and yell, “There’s a Chicago police detective here somewhere!”

Mini fires are scattered around the rubble, but the house was all brick and concrete, mostly stamping them out. The real problem is the air quality—beyond treacherous and making it almost impossible to see through the thick blanket of dust and soot.

What I can see: a house, leveled. Parts of a roof and walls scattered about. Utter wreckage. Carla could be anywhere.

“Carla!” I call out, and others join me, calling out her name. Knowing without acknowledging it that if she was still inside the house, she has no chance. But the girl got away, so she probably did, too.

It gets darker by the second. I pull out my Maglite and shine it around. A rescue squad is spraying the remaining fires.