Джеймс Паттерсон - The Black Book

I thought about it all last night. I thought about it all day today at work. It meant that the Amy I knew wasn’t the Amy I knew. It meant that the Amy I knew was capable of not only blackmail but also of murder.

I need to talk to you, Amy had said over the phone five minutes ago. That was it. Nothing else. I’d protested, thrown out some sarcastic remark, but all she kept repeating was I need to talk to you .

And the reason I went to her apartment? The reason I didn’t just punch off the phone or cuss at her or accuse her?

Simple. Because I wasn’t ready to believe any of it. Because I wanted to believe that the Amy I knew really was the Amy I knew.

I’ll be right over, I told her. It wasn’t the smart play. I had no element of surprise on my side. I didn’t know what was waiting for me at her apartment. I was falling straight into whatever trap she had set.

I pulled up to her apartment building and walked up to her front door, under the awning outside. I knew this building well enough. There were other ways in. There was an underground parking lot serviced by an elevator that went straight up past the lobby. There was a back door by the garbage bins, too. There was a stairwell, if you wanted to avoid elevators. There were surreptitious means of access if you needed them.

I could picture myself doing it. Slipping in one of the other entrances, picking the lock on her door, and employing at least some element of surprise. Not a lot, but a little.

But I didn’t. Because I had made a choice. A choice to give Amy the benefit of the doubt.

I pushed the buzzer, and her voice came through the speaker.

“It’s me,” I said.

The buzzer came next, the front door releasing pressure with a soft whoosh .

I opened the door, walked through the foyer, and took the elevator up to her floor.

I walked down the empty hallway. Reached her door. Stopped and listened.

Then rapped my knuckles against the door.

She opened the door a crack, those angelic eyes peering at me. And darting around, looking to see whether I was alone.

I was alone.

My weapon was loaded and secure, but I was alone.

I didn’t know if I could say the same for her.

Ninety-Seven

AMY OPENED the door a crack and backed away from it.

I walked in and closed the door behind me. I didn’t lock it. You never know when a quick exit might be necessary.

I threw off my winter coat and tossed it, leaving me in my sport jacket and blue jeans—what I wore to work today.

Amy took another step back.

“Where is it?” she said to me, her voice trembling.

I didn’t catch her meaning.

“The little black book,” she said. “Where is it?”

I shook my head. “Seems like we’re right back where we started, Amy.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Me first,” I said. “My question first.”

She didn’t like it, narrowed her eyes. Hurt, confusion, maybe fear across her face.

“Why didn’t Kim’s source show up this week?” I asked. “Kim went to the meeting place to get her weekly incriminating photograph. I watched her. But the source never showed. Why didn’t the source show?”

Amy cocked her head at me. “How should I know?”

I walked over to the breakfast bar by her small kitchen, ran my hands underneath it. Picked up the sugar bowl resting on it and looked inside it. Felt behind the photograph of Amy and her parents posing on a beach somewhere warm.

Did the same thing in the rest of her kitchen. The counters, the coffeepot, the spice bottles, the cookbooks. Felt my hands around and inside everything, like it was foreplay.

“What are you doing?” Amy asked.

“Somebody tipped off Kim’s source,” I said as I ran my hand over the top of the refrigerator. “The source knew I’d be watching.”

Amy gave me a wide berth as I passed her and walked over to the couch, giving it a once-over with my hands, feeling the cushions and pillows, picking up the flower vase and emptying out the fake flowers, then returning them to the vase. Looking at each of the framed photographs on the coffee table, feeling each of them.

“Oh, I get it,” said Amy. “The only person who knew you were following Kim was me. So I must have tipped off Kim’s source. Which means I knew who the source was in the first place. Which means I’m behind this whole thing.”

I looked at Amy, saw the hurt in her eyes. The woman I loved with all my heart. The woman I wasn’t sure I could trust.

It was like I’d stolen the wind from her. She remained silent. A long moment passed. I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted to trust her so badly my bones ached.

Neither of us knew what to say. It was so quiet in the room that I heard the tick of the clock on the wall behind me as the minute hand inched forward.

I turned and looked at it. An ornate little clock hanging on the wall. It had a picture of a rooster on its small porcelain face and Roman numerals in a fancy font.

I walked over to the clock. Reached up to it with both hands, my jacket hiking up accordingly.

“You brought your gun, ” Amy said, seeing the holster.

I pulled the clock off the wall, gently lifting the wire over the nail. A decorative piece, a French-country design that fit the decor of the place, running on a battery. I flipped it over and found it.

A small square thingamajig. Even if it were seen—and it was never supposed to be seen—it could pass as some kind of battery compartment or something.

A bug. A wireless recording device.

I suddenly hated myself.

Amy wasn’t the only one who knew I was tailing Kim. Whoever was on the other end of this eavesdropping device heard our whole conversation when we hatched the plan, right here in this room.

That person heard a lot of other conversations, too.

I removed the bug from the back of the clock and held it in the palm of my hand. Amy’s eyes widened when she saw it. She knew what it was. She had been a federal prosecutor for years, and the feds love these things.

She frowned. Put a hand to her chest. The realization, dawning on her, that someone had invaded her privacy, that someone was listening to everything she said in this apartment.

I dropped the bug on the floor and crushed it with my boot. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I should have trusted you.”

I started toward her. I thought of touching her, embracing her, caressing her, but I could see how cold she was, how unsure. We were still negotiating a truce. I had just figured out what I came here to learn. I had answered my question. But Amy still had a question for me. She was still a few steps away from fully trusting me.

“If you trust me now,” she said, “then why do you still need your gun?”

I nodded, reached behind my back, and removed my firearm. Held it with my thumb and index finger, the weapon dangling upside down, and placed it on the coffee table near her.

She looked at it, then looked at me.

Then in one movement, she took a step backward and picked up the gun, holding it awkwardly in her hands, pointing it at me.

“Okay, now back to my question,” she said. “Where’s the little black book?”

Ninety-Eight

AMY, STILL spooked by the recording device I’d found in the living room, probably worried that there was more than one in that room, motioned me toward the bedroom. She made me go first, keeping her distance, still aiming my gun at me.

When we reached the bedroom, Amy looked around. She had the same thought I did—this room could be bugged, too. She walked over to an iPad resting on the windowsill and pushed a button. Some music came on, symphony music, strings. She turned it up—it was loud enough to run some interference but not so loud that we couldn’t talk.