James Patterson - Murder House

“Well, I’m coming. I can’t wait to see you!”

“Me too.” Noah closes his eyes. “Just... be careful,” he says.

Noah’s toes curl into the moist sand. He looks out over the Atlantic, black and restless in the dark, the post-rain breeze brushing his face. This is what freedom feels like, he thinks. This is what I missed the most.

He hears the familiar hum of the superior engine approaching. He stands and sees her Aston Martin pulling up in the lot. She pops out of the car and forgets to close the door. Noah is already running toward her.

No, he thinks, she is what I missed the most .

“I can’t believe it,” she manages as he scoops her up in his arms; she wraps her legs around him and grips his hair. Their mouths press against each other, more of a smash than a kiss. His body is charged with electricity.

“I didn’t... kill those people,” he whispers.

“You don’t need to say that to me. Of course I know that.” Paige strokes his face. “What can I do to help? Do you need money for a lawyer? A private detective?”

“You can’t do that,” Noah says. “John will—”

“I don’t care about John. You need someone on your side. I’ll do whatever I have to do. I won’t let you go through this alone. Tell me what you need.”

“I just need you. That’s all I need right now.” Noah draws her close, breathes in her fresh-strawberry scent, takes in the warmth of her body. As long as he holds her, which could be five seconds, could be an hour, there is no criminal indictment, there is no prospect of life in prison, there is only Paige, the woman he loves, the woman who loves him.

And then he hears another vehicle approaching.

Noah raises his head. The beach had been empty, thanks in part to the lateness of the hour but more so to the rainfall an hour ago. The approaching SUV is not familiar to him. It stops in the middle of the small parking lot that serves as the end of Ocean Drive, positioned so that its headlights are trained on Noah and Paige.

Noah walks around the Aston Martin to stand between the headlights and Paige, a protective gesture.

“Well, shit, timing sure is everything, isn’t it?” says Detective Isaac Marks, getting out of his vehicle. “Another case of coitus interruptus.”

“What do you want now? ” Noah’s hands curl into fists. He moves toward Isaac.

“Easy, son, easy.”

Son. Noah’s always hated how cops talk to him, the condescension. But especially from Isaac Marks, who was the same year as him at Bridgehampton, and their history — and now he’s calling Noah son . What a difference a badge can make.

“Just stop right there, Noah. I wouldn’t want to interpret your movements as a threat . Then I’d have to violate you, wouldn’t I? Send you right back where you came from.” Isaac nods in Paige’s direction. “Of course, I could violate you right now for public indecency.”

Noah, fuming, stands his ground. How much he’d love to wipe that smirk off Isaac’s face. But that would be giving the cop exactly what he wants, to haul Noah back to Riverhead.

“Who’s your friend?” asks Isaac, moving around Noah, shining his Maglite in Paige’s direction. “Is that the same little honey from when we busted you?”

What an asshole. He knows very well it’s Paige. This whole thing is because of Paige. It has to be. This has to be John Sulzman’s doing.

“What do you want, Isaac?”

“That’s Detective Marks to you.”

“This is harassment!” Paige shouts. “We’re not hurting anybody, we’re not doing anything indecent at all! The only indecency here is the police harassing an innocent man. Don’t you have anything better to do with your time, Detective? ”

“Lady, let me give you a piece of advice,” says Isaac. “I know it’s fun to slum it once in a while and fuck the hired help, but your stallion here, turns out he’s a vicious killer. Now, I don’t know how in glorious hell he came up with the cash to bond himself out, but you better believe we’re going to watch every move he makes, and we’re not going to let him be alone with another woman after what he did to that waitress—”

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” Paige says, frustration overtaking her composure. “But Noah is innocent, and it would be nice if the police department spent its time searching for a killer instead of following around someone who’s out on bail.”

“You’re a real feisty one, lady, you know that?” Isaac shows her his teeth. “All the same, if we see you two together again, Noah gets violated and heads back to jail.” He turns to Noah. “That simple enough for you to understand, Mr. Walker? See, lady, Noah here, he didn’t do so well in school—”

“Oh, you want to talk about school? ” Noah approaches Isaac. For a moment, it’s like they’re back on the playground, two kids, not a cop and an accused felon. “You want to talk about old times, Isaac? Because I’ve got a lot of stories. You wanna tell her how you got your nick—”

“That’s enough, boy.” Isaac raises a finger. “One more word, and it’s back to Riverhead. Your choice.”

Noah sucks in a breath. There’s nothing he can say.

“There, that’s better,” says Isaac. “Mrs. Sulzman, you should be getting along now. Say good-bye to the Hamptons until next summer. Noah, he’ll be at Sing Sing by then, but I’m sure you can find another boy toy, some gutter cleaner to pass the time.”

With that, Paige breaks down, into tears and gasping breaths. Isaac swings his SUV in a three-point turn and drives away.

“Don’t worry, I’ll think of something,” Noah says, holding Paige, touching her wet face. “I’ll think of something.”

And then, just like that, like the snap of a finger, he does.

No, please don’t make me, I don’t wanna—

Childish giggles, pressure on my throat, darkness, then light—

A bird, an angry bird with a hooked nose, standing upright—

Please don’t make me—

I wake with a gasp, my head coming off the pillow, sucking in air, the sounds of giggling and desperate cries slowly fading, the pressure removed from my chest, hands no longer gripping my throat.

“Shit.” My breathing finally slows. The clock says it’s two minutes to seven. Who needs an alarm clock when you have nightmares every day?

I grab my iPhone and scroll through photos, spotting the picture I took of that little monument on the lawn at 7 Ocean Drive, that gray-and-black bird with the hooked beak and long tail feather. Yep, that was it, the same one from the nightmare. Great.

I shower, eat some toast and fruit, and chug two glasses of water to work off my hangover, courtesy of the two bottles of wine Matty and I had last night as a send-off, my last night of forced vacation before I resume my job. Matty is long gone, having left my apartment around five this morning to head back to Manhattan; I have a brief memory of his aftershave and a kiss good-bye.

I go to work for the first time in thirty days. I feel like a tourist stepping onto foreign soil, the uncertainty of it all, especially of the reception I’ll get from the natives when I show my face.

The Southampton Town Police substation in Bridgehampton is not exactly an intimidating place, nestled in the corner of an outdoor shopping mall called Bridgehampton Commons off Main Street, filled with chain shops like the Gap, Staples, Panera, a King Kullen grocery store, Victoria’s Secret, and yes, a Dunkin’ Donuts (I know, the jokes write themselves). The black patrol vehicles park in the south corner next to a row of tall recycling bins for clothes and shoes.