Джеймс Паттерсон - The Midwife Murders

James Patterson

& Richard Dilallo

THE MIDWIFE MURDERS

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 49

CHAPTER 50

CHAPTER 51

CHAPTER 52

CHAPTER 53

CHAPTER 54

CHAPTER 55

CHAPTER 56

CHAPTER 57

CHAPTER 58

CHAPTER 59

CHAPTER 60

CHAPTER 61

CHAPTER 62

CHAPTER 63

CHAPTER 64

CHAPTER 65

CHAPTER 66

CHAPTER 67

CHAPTER 68

CHAPTER 69

CHAPTER 70

CHAPTER 71

CHAPTER 72

CHAPTER 73

CHAPTER 74

CHAPTER 75

CHAPTER 76

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

About the Authors

JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. His books have sold in excess of 385 million copies worldwide. He is the author of some of the most popular series of the past two decades – the Alex Cross, Women’s Murder Club, Detective Michael Bennett and Private novels – and he has written many other number one bestsellers including romance novels and stand-alone thrillers.

James is passionate about encouraging children to read. Inspired by his own son who was a reluctant reader, he also writes a range of books for young readers including the Middle School, I Funny, Treasure Hunters, Dog Diaries and Max Einstein series. James has donated millions in grants to independent bookshops and has been the most borrowed author of adult fiction in UK libraries for the past twelve years in a row. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.

RICHARD DILALLO is a former advertising executive. He lives in Manhattan with his wife.

A list of titles by James Patterson appears at the back of this book

For Bob DiLallo and Ed Petrillo

—R.D.

Prologue

IT’S MONDAY. IT’S AUGUST. And it’s one of those days that’s already so hot at 6 a.m. that they tell you to check on your elderly neighbors and please don’t go outside if you don’t have to. So of course I’m jogging through the stifling, smelly streets of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, with a dog—a dog named The Duke. Yes. Not Duke, but The Duke. That’s his name. That’s what my son, Willie, who was four years old when The Duke was a puppy, wanted. So that’s what we did.

The Duke is a terrific dog, a mixed breed German shepherd, terrier, and God knows what else from the Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition—BARC—animal shelter. He’s cuter than any guy I ever dated, and Willie was instinctively right about the dog’s name. He’s The Duke. The Duke is snooty and snobby and slow. He actually seems to think he’s royalty. His Highness belongs to Willie, but for forty-five minutes a day, The Duke condescends to be my running buddy.

The Duke doesn’t seem to know or care that I’ve got places to be. I’m a certified nurse-midwife, so I do my work by the schedules of a lot of pregnant women. On a normal day like today, I’ve got only a small window of time to exercise before getting breakfast on the table, because although Willie is now nine years old, he still needs a lot of looking after by me, his single mom. Then it’s a half hour subway ride into midtown Manhattan. Back to work, although I’m tired as hell from delivering a preterm last night. (Emma Rose, the infant, is doing just fine, I’m relieved to say.) Yeah, I’m beat, but I love my job as much as I hate running.

Get away from that rotten piece of melon, The Duke. Those pigeons got there first!

I tug hard on the leash. It takes The Duke a full city block to forget about the melon. Don’t feel bad for the dog; he’ll find some other rotten food to run after. If not, there’s a big bowl of Purina and some cold Chinese takeout beef and broccoli waiting for him at home.

I turn up the volume in my headphones. Okay, it’s the same playlist I listened to when I was a teenager, but Motörhead’s Ace of Spades never gets old, does it? Willie says that every band I like—Motörhead, Korn, Cake—is “definitely old school.” He’s right. But, hey, you like what you like, right? And, hey, old school isn’t so awful. At least not for me.

No, no, no. We’re not stopping to talk to Marty … “Hey, Marty, how ya doing, man?” No, no, The Duke, we don’t need any cocaine today. Keep moving. Keep moving.

Pep talk to self: Come on, Lucy Ryuan, you can do it. Keep moving. Even on just four hours’ sleep, you can do it. A little bit more. One more block. Then one more block.

And now we’re moving into Grand Army Plaza, into Prospect Park with all the other runners. God bless them. They’re all an annoying inspiration.

I’m strangely and amazingly awake on so little sleep. Now I’m into a running groove, and everything feels good, until the music suddenly stops. My cell is ringing. It’s one of my assistants, Tracy Anne Cavanaugh, a smart, energetic young woman.

“Lucy, I’m sorry, really sorry, to bother you. I know you must be—”

“What’s up, Tracy Anne?”

“Valerina Gomez is here at the hospital. Her brother brought her in. She’s at eight centimeters …”

I roll my eyes at The Duke, for God’s sake. Valerina Gomez has been trouble from the get-go. A druggie, a smoker, a drinker, and I’m afraid to think how she makes her living. Plus, just her luck, she’s carrying twins.

“Handle her till I get there. You can do that, Tracy Anne.” And, yes, there’s a very impatient tone to my voice. But Tracy Anne’s great. Tracy Anne can handle her just fine.

“I will, I will,” she says. “But there’s something else …”

“Okay, what?”

“A newborn baby has gone missing.”

I ask the question that every shocked person asks: “Are you kidding me?”

Tracy Anne doesn’t even bother to say no. Instead she says, “The hospital is going crazy. The cops. Detectives. They’re all over the place. They say this has never happened here before. I mean … I’ve heard once or twice somebody got the wrong baby to take home. And I know that—”

“Listen, don’t you go crazy, too, Tracy Anne. Just cooperate, do your job, and—”

“Lucy, what are we gonna do?”

Then, with my head aching, sweat dropping from me like rain, my stomach churning, I say something absolutely stupid.

“What are we gonna do, Tracy Anne? We’re gonna help them find the baby.”

CHAPTER 1

SHOCKINGLY, THE DOG SEEMS to know that this is an emergency. He runs with me at an unusually un-The-Dukelike pace. Once inside our little building, he takes the stairs to our third-floor apartment two steps at a time. I’ll show him who’s boss. I take the steps three at a time. When we hit the third-floor landing it’s a close call as to which of us is sweatier and smellier.

Willie sleeps in our one tiny bedroom. The living room with the foldout sofa is mine. This is particularly convenient today because there is a large selection of my clothes on both my unfolded foldout and the steamer trunk that doubles as a toy box and a coffee table.