Джеймс Паттерсон - The Black Book

All senses on high alert. My heart thumping so hard it might burst out of my body and smack against the ceiling, raining down blood and tissue.

I reach for my gun on the nightstand, feel relief when my fingers brush against the cold, smooth polymer frame. I grip it in my hand, curl my finger around the trigger.

I slip off my bed, my foot lowering gently to the soft rug, my body weight slowly transferring downward until I’m in a crouch.

The images still bombarding me, the echoes of noise and human voices.

Amy: You can trust me, Billy.

I have the little black book.

Patti: There is no little black book.

Kate: She knows about you and so do I.

Footsteps, a groan on the floorboard near the staircase. He’s coming upstairs.

Kate’s head whipping to the right, surprised.

Then not surprised.

Nodding.

What are you doing here?

There is no little black book.

I have the little black book.

“No,” I whisper to myself, shaking my head. No no no no—

It’s not that you can’t remember. You don’t want to remember.

My body inching forward along the rug, my weight quietly shifting, nudging forward like a caterpillar in the darkness of my bedroom.

The soft tap of a footstep.

Holding my breath now. My gun poised in front of me, my hands trembling, sweat dripping off my face, into my eyes, my skin on fire—

The soft tap, each step a negotiation with the floorboards in the hallway. He’s getting close now.

A rush of white noise between my ears, a freight train of pressure.

“No,” I whisper so quietly that the air barely escapes my mouth.

The figure appears in the doorway, dim light from a hallway window framing the vague outline of a man.

A man looking into the pitch darkness of my bedroom.

Dark turtleneck, ski mask: Stranger Danger.

His foot planting on the bedroom carpet, feeling emboldened. Easier to walk on carpet than on hardwood.

Two confident steps, then raising his gun and aiming it at the bed—toward the pillow, where my head would normally lie.

Pause. His eyes adjusting to the darkness. Something wrong. His target isn’t there.

Just like that, he spins in my direction, in the corner.

Kate’s head whipping to the right.

What are you doing here?

I squeeze the trigger once, twice, three times. Tiny muzzle flashes, little bursts of fire interrupting the darkness. Four, five, six. I don’t stop until the magazine is empty.

Return fire from his gun, muzzle flashes far bigger, clouds of orange dancing downward in the blackness like falling comets, until Stranger Danger smacks the floor and lies still.

I drop my Glock and brace myself, my fingers digging into the carpet as if holding on for dear life against a tidal wave of memories.

Memories. Not dreams.

Memories, vivid and specific, sights and sounds and smells, fear and hatred and pure horror, knocking me this way and that, stealing my breath, sending fire through my chest.

I find my oxygen, taking in delicious breaths in deep gulps, wheezing, gagging, unable to speak.

And when words return to me, all I can say is no.

No no no no no no —

“No!”

Ninety-Three

THE FOG lifted, replaced with white noise, the buzz of evidence technicians and police officers milling about.

“Let’s get you out of here.” Patti, a hand under my armpit, pulling me up. “Let them do their work.”

We step carefully around Stranger Danger, lying still on my bedroom carpet, the .45 still in his hand, his black sweater ripped open with bloody holes.

His ski mask raised to his forehead. A white male, late twenties or early thirties. A day’s growth on his face, a scar along the cheek, vacant eyes staring upward. He was dead before he hit the carpet.

“We’ll get his ID,” Patti says. “I’m sure he has a sheet.”

My father and Goldie standing in the hallway as the evidence technicians do their work inside the bedroom and along the hallway, tagging and photographing and dusting. Pop has his arm out as I approach, taking me in a half hug, Patti on my other side, the two of them propping me up like I was an invalid.

We go downstairs into the family room. A detective takes my statement. I don’t have much to tell him: I heard the rear door open, I hid in the corner of my bedroom, I unloaded on the intruder. An intruder I’ve never seen before.

My two brothers, Aiden and Brendan, who have come into town for the trial, try to fix the locks that have been busted tonight—the one on my back door, which was removed by the intruder, and the one on the front door, which the responding officers busted through.

My lawyer, Stilson Tomita, arrives a couple of hours into it, finding Patti and me on the couch.

My father and Goldie, talking to the responding detectives about the investigation and demanding round-the-clock protection for me.

Through it all, I sit on the couch with my head back on the cushion, my eyes closed. People are speaking quietly around me, assuming I’m asleep, hoping I’m asleep, that I’m having a few moments of peace.

But I’m not asleep. And I’m not at peace.

I’m thinking. Thinking about what happened upstairs.

Not Stranger Danger. Not the shooting. No, I’m thinking about the thoughts and images that came before him and after him, the ones that steamrolled me, that took my breath away.

Now they have hardened, turned to ice, forming solid, jagged blocks inside my chest.

“Billy,” Stilson says softly, nudging me.

I raise my head and open my eyes. Behind Stilson, through the window, the first sign of sunrise—lazy, blurry light.

“We’ll get a continuance,” Stilson says. “After what just happened to you, the judge will grant it.”

“No,” I say.

“You need to rest,” Patti says.

“Listen, here’s the other thing,” Stilson says. “I know what happened tonight was terrible—but we can use it. It shows that somebody wants to keep you quiet.”

I look at Patti, then start to push myself off the couch.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m gonna take a shower and get dressed for court,” I say.

Patti and Stilson say, “Whoa whoa whoa,” as if in sync.

Stilson steps in front of me, blocking me. “Billy, it had to be Wizniewski. This is all Wizniewski.”

I nod at him, pat his shoulder.

“But we need time,” he says. “We need time to prove it. To put it all together. After what just happened here, we can make the case for more time.”

I push past him. “I don’t need any more time,” I say.

“Billy, you’re not right,” says Patti. “You can’t go to court like this. You can’t testify like this. How are you going to testify?”

I turn and look at my twin sister, the person who knows me better than anybody.

I thought I knew her better than anybody.

I thought we trusted each other.

“Stilson, you need to get home and shower. See you at the courthouse.”

I raise a hand as Patti and Stilson protest, and I walk away and head upstairs to shower and change.

Today, in just a few short hours, I will testify at my trial.

And I will tell the truth.

Ninety-Four

TWO HOURS later, I’m in court. Everyone looks surprised to see me. They’ve all heard what happened in my house last night. The judge tells Stilson that he will give us a continuance. I instruct Stilson to say no. The judge presses Stilson, makes him affirmatively waive the court’s generous offer of a continuance so the judge can protect his record on appeal.

“He wants to testify now, Judge,” says Stilson, shrugging. “Against my advice,” he adds, protecting his own record.