Джеймс Паттерсон - The Summer House

Connie leans over the table. “Stuart Pike was being watched, then.”

“That’s right, young lady. They had The Summer House wired. Stem to stern. And Harold sent me—strictly on the QT—an excerpt from what was being recorded in Pike’s room the night of the shootings. I’ve listened to it three times…and by Christ, I get the chills each time. Now it’s your turn, I’m afraid.”

Williams rotates the laptop, and there’s an icon in the center of the screen, depicting a recording system. She puts her finger down on a button, and the hiss of the static gets louder.

Muffled voices. Music and little bursts of fake gunfire and explosions.

“Got you, you…” one of the voices calls out.

A low squeaking noise and a slight moan, and a louder man’s voice: “Will you shut up down there? Trying to get some rest…”

Williams says, “That figures to be Pike, in his bedroom. The other noise is from the two guys and gal downstairs, playing that video game. Okay, in about two seconds…”

I think, One one-thousand, two one-thousand …

A loud thump bursts out of the speakers. In my imagination I know what’s just happened: using det cord, the assailants have blown open the door.

Shouts.

Screams.

Muffled pop, pop, pop .

I know that sound.

Pistols with sound suppressors.

More screams.

Footsteps pounding on stairs.

“Go!” a woman screams. “Go!”

Sound of a door slamming open.

Man’s voice: “Gina, what the hell—”

“Stu, please, please—”

A little girl is crying.

I know I’ll never forget that sound, ever.

Two more muffled shots, then a low voice murmuring a sentence, and one more shot.

A few seconds pass by.

Williams swallows. “We’re sure that’s Gina Zachary and her little girl, Polly. That third shot was for Stuart Pike.”

Just the faint murmur of voices, and then one last muffled shot.

“The older sister, Lillian,” Williams explains. “She was the last one.”

I say, “There are a few words on the recording, just before Pike gets shot. Can you play that back, louder?”

Williams says, “Sure. I know exactly where to replay it…and I know what it says, but I want you folks to make up your own minds on what you hear.”

We’re all leaning into the laptop that is offering so much, and Williams touches a few keys. The sound is louder, with the hissing of the static, and the sound of the gunshot is so loud it seems like it’s coming from inside the room, and then a man’s voice, low and full of anger and strength:

“This is what you get when you screw with a Ranger’s family.”

I slowly sit back.

Williams scratches at the back of her head. “Sorry, folks, this about wraps it up, doesn’t it? Those Rangers are guilty as sin, and we all know it now, don’t we?”

Chapter 40

IT’S EITHER LATE at night or early in the morning—depending on one’s point of view—and Special Agent Connie York is awake in her damn uncomfortable bed, sitting up, her laptop in front of her.

Her temporary roommate, Pierce, is only three feet away, but he’s sleeping soundly, which is a gift. She has foam earplugs that she always brings with her on trips, to deaden any noise out there that would prevent her from sleeping, but she could be in the middle of a dead desert tonight with no sounds and she still wouldn’t be able to get to sleep.

Too much is going on.

Since Sheriff Williams left with that one last and compelling piece of evidence, and after a lousy evening meal and even lousier discussion about what to do next with the major and the rest of the crew, she’s now here in her shared room, watching and rewatching the convenience store surveillance tape.

Something is bugging her, and she can’t figure out what it is.

The lights are off in their cruddy room. Occasionally she hears voices outside, from either drunks leaving the town’s few bars after closing time or members of the press, still hovering around them like the vultures they are.

The only illumination comes from her laptop, and the brief bit of surveillance tape she views again and again.

Outside the store, near the gas pumps, Specialist Vinny Tyler and Specialist Paulie Ruiz are smoking, talking, pointing at each other. Voices seemingly raised. An argument going on.

“Oh, damn,” she whispers. “Too bad there’s no audio. I’d love to hear what you fellows are saying.”

Inside the store, Staff Sergeant Caleb Jefferson and Corporal Curtis Barnes move briskly and efficiently, going to the rear to get energy drinks and then coming up to the counter to pay for their purchases.

Money is passed over and change is received. Outside Tyler and Barnes are still talking, and it seems like Tyler is on the defensive. Hard to pin it down, but it looks like poor Tyler is making an argument to Barnes and is losing.

Poor Tyler indeed, his life ending not on some foreign battlefield in the service of his country but in some steel-and-concrete cell in a small Georgia town.

She goes through the surveillance tape two more times. Yawns.

Something is still wrong.

Again, she goes back to the beginning and sees the big pickup truck roll in, and the owner, Vihan Laghari, is sitting on a metal stool, smoking a cigarette, watching the television set underneath the counter.

When the door opens up, Laghari stubs out the cigarette, stands up, and—

She rewinds the video.

Watches.

Rewinds the video.

Even in the poor black-and-white quality of the video, she can make out what Laghari is watching on the hidden television.

It’s not a Bollywood program.

It’s one of those reality housewives shows on the Bravo network.

“Damn,” she whispers.

She opens a browser window, gets to work, and there’s a pounding on the door that goes on and on and on.

York instantly slaps the cover down on her laptop—getting rid of a light source—then she rolls over onto the floor and thrusts her right hand into her open go bag.

On the other side of the room Pierce wakes up and says, “What the hell is going on?”

The pounding is heavy, hard, determined.

“Keep your voice down,” she says to the JAG lawyer. “Somebody either wants in or wants our attention.”

She slides along the wall, SIG Sauer in hand, and she quietly unbolts the chain to the door. There’s a peephole in the door, but there’s no way she’s putting an unguarded eye up to it. Too many memories of horror movies with ice picks driving through the peephole into dumb victims…which she most certainly is not.

York grabs the doorknob, gives it a good spin, and quickly pulls the door open.

Outside an angry-looking Major Cook is there, metal cane in hand, dressed in gym shorts and a gray-and-blue NYPD T-shirt, and he says, “Choir practice. Now.”

He limps off to room 11, and after grabbing her laptop she follows him, with Pierce right behind her, yawning and scratching at his head.

Pierce says, “Mind telling me what ‘choir practice’ means?”

The laptop is warm under her arm. “Old cop slang. An after-hours meeting, unofficial, no records kept. Usually it means an after-shift party. Or an ass kicking. Care to guess what we’re in for?”

“No,” Pierce says.

Inside room 11 it’s warm and stuffy, and it smells of sweat and old grease, just like her own room with Pierce. If there’s housekeeping at this motel, Connie has yet to see it.

Huang and Sanchez are there, sitting next to each other, wearing shorts and T-shirts. Sanchez has a number of tattoos on his large upper biceps. The major waits until everyone is seated and then slams the door shut.

Nobody says a word. Everyone is paying attention. Cook’s face is mottled red, and York thinks this is the first time she and the others have seen his wounded leg. She’s shocked at how pale and thin it is, and how the flesh is puckered and ridged with scars and burn tissue. The pain her boss goes through every day must be tremendous.