Mary, Mary (27 page)
James Patterson has had more
New York Times
bestsellers than any other writer, ever, according to
Guinness World Records
. Since his first novel won the Edgar Award in 1977, James Patterson’s books have sold more than 240 million copies. He is the author of the Alex Cross novels, the most popular detective series of the past twenty-five years, including
Kiss the Girls
and
Along Came a Spider
. Mr. Patterson also writes the bestselling Women’s Murder Club novels, set in San Francisco, and the top-selling New York detective series of all time, featuring Detective Michael Bennett.
James Patterson also writes books for young readers, including the Maximum Ride, Daniel X, Witch & Wizard, and Middle School series. In total, these books have spent more than 220 weeks on national bestseller lists.
His lifelong passion for books and reading led James Patterson to launch the website
ReadKiddoRead.com
to give adults an easy way to locate the very best books for kids. He writes full-time and lives in Florida with his family.
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Alex Cross faces the deadliest psychopath of them all—his wife’s killer.
For an excerpt from the next Alex Cross novel,
turn the page.
“I’M PREGNANT, ALEX.”
Everything about the night is so very clear to me. Still is, after all this time, all these years that have passed, everything that’s happened, the horrible murderers, the homicides solved and sometimes not.
I stood in the darkened bedroom with my arms lightly circling my wife Maria’s waist, my chin resting on her shoulder. I was thirty-one then, and had never been happier at any time of my life.
Nothing even came close to what we had together, Maria, Damon, Jannie, and me.
It was the fall of 1993, a million years ago it seems to me now.
It was also past two in the morning, and our baby Jannie had the croup something terrible. Poor sweet girl had been up for most of the night, most of the last few nights, most of her young life. Maria was gently rocking Jannie in her arms, humming “You Are So Beautiful,” and I had my arms around Maria, rocking her.
I was the one who’d gotten up first, but I couldn’t seem to get Jannie back to sleep no matter what tricks I tried. Maria had come in and taken the baby after an hour or so. We both had work early in the morning. I was on a murder case.
“You’re pregnant?” I said against Maria’s shoulder.
“Bad timing, huh, Alex? You see a lot more croup in your future? Binkies? More dirty diapers? Nights like this one?”
“I don’t like this part so much. Being up late, or early, whatever this is. But I love our life, Maria. And I love that we’re going to have another baby.”
I held on to Maria and turned on the music from the mobile dangling over Janelle’s crib. We danced in place to “Someone to Watch Over Me.”
Then she gave me that beautiful partly bashful, partly goofy smile of hers, the one I’d fallen for, maybe on the very first night I ever saw her. We had met in the emergency room at St. Anthony’s, during an emergency. Maria had brought in a gangbanger, a gunshot victim, a client of hers. She was a dedicated social worker, and she was being protective—especially since I was a dreaded metro homicide detective, and she didn’t exactly trust the police. Then again, neither did I.
I held Maria a little tighter. “I’m happy. You know that. I’m glad you’re pregnant. Let’s celebrate. I’ll get some champagne.”
“You like being the big daddy, huh?”
“I do. Don’t know why exactly. I just do.”
“You like screaming babies in the middle of the night?”
“This too shall pass. Isn’t that right, Janelle?
Young lady, I’m talking to you.
”
Maria turned her head away from the wailing baby and gave me a sweet kiss on the lips. Her mouth was soft, always inviting, always sexy. I loved her kisses—anytime, anywhere.
She finally wriggled out of my arms. “Go back to bed, Alex. No sense both of us being up. Get some sleep for me too.”
Just then, I noticed something else in the bedroom, and I started to laugh, couldn’t help myself.
“What’s so funny?” Maria smiled.
I pointed, and she saw it too.
Three apples
—each one with a single childlike bite out of it. The apples were propped on the legs of three stuffed toys, different-colored Barney dinosaurs. Toddler Damon’s fantasy play was revealed to us. Our little boy had been spending some time in his sister Jannie’s room.
As I got to the doorway, Maria gave me that goofy smile of hers again. And a wink. She whispered—and I will never forget what she said—“I love you, Alex. No one will ever love you the way I do.”
Read an
extended excerpt
and learn more about
Cross
.
Detective Alex Cross hunts three serial killers—but is someone else hunting him?
For an excerpt of the new Alex Cross novel, turn the page.
IT’S NOT EVERY DAY THAT I GET A NAKED GIRL ANSWERING THE DOOR I
knock on.
Don’t get me wrong—with twenty years of law enforcement under my belt, it’s happened. Just not that often.
“Are you the waiters?” this girl asked. There was a bright but empty look in her eyes that said ecstasy to me, and I could smell weed from inside. The music was thumping, too, the kind of relentless techno that would make me want to slit my wrists if I had to listen to it for long.
“No, we’re not the waiters,” I told her, showing my badge. “Metro police. And you need to put something on, right now.”
She wasn’t even fazed. “There were supposed to be waiters,” she said to no one in particular. It made me sad and disgusted at the same time. This girl didn’t look like she was even out of high school yet, and the men we were here to arrest were old enough to be her father.
“Check her clothes before she puts them on,” I told one of the female officers on the entry team. Besides myself there were five uniformed cops, a rep from Youth and Family Services, three detectives from the Prostitution Unit, and three more from Second District, including my friend John Sampson.
Second District is Georgetown—not the usual stomping grounds for the Prostitution Unit. The white brick N Street town house where we’d arrived was typical for the neighborhood, probably worth somewhere north of five million. It was a rental property, paid six months in advance by proxy, but the paper trail had led back to Dr. Elijah Creem, one of DC’s most in-demand plastic surgeons. As far as we could make out, Creem was funneling funds to pay for these “industry parties,” and his partner in scum, Josh Bergman, was providing the eye candy.
Bergman was the owner of Cap City Dolls, a legit modeling agency based out of an M Street office, with a heavily rumored arm in the underground flesh trade. Detectives at the department were pretty sure that while Bergman was running his aboveboard agency with one hand, he was also dispatching exotic dancers, overnight escorts, masseuses, and porn “talent” with the other. As far as I could tell, the house was filled with “talent” right now, and they all seemed to be about eighteen, more or less. Emphasis on the less.
I couldn’t wait to bust these two scumbags.
Surveillance had put Creem and Bergman downtown at Minibar around seven o’clock that night, and then here at the party house as of nine thirty. Now it was just a game of smoking them out.
Beyond the enclosed foyer the party was in full swing. The front hall and formal living room were packed. It was all Queen Anne furniture and parquet floors on the one hand and half-dressed, tweaked-out kids stomping to the music and drinking out of plastic cups on the other.
“I want everyone contained in this front room,” Sampson shouted at one of the uniforms. “We’ve got an anytime warrant for this house, so start looking. We’re checking for drugs, cash, ledgers, appointment books, cell phones, everything. And get this goddamn music off!”
We left half the team to secure the front of the house and took the rest toward the back, where there was more party going on.
In the open kitchen there seemed to be a big game of strip poker in progress at the large marble-topped island. Half a dozen well-muscled guys and twice as many girls in their underwear were standing around holding cards, drinking, and passing a few joints.
Several of them scrambled as we came in. A few of the girls screamed and tried to run out, but we’d already blocked the way.
Finally, somebody cut the music.
“Where are Elijah Creem and Joshua Bergman?” Sampson asked the room. “First one to give me a straight answer gets a free ticket out of here.”
A skinny girl in a black lace bra and cutoffs pointed toward the stairs. From the size of her chest in relation to the rest of her, my guess was she’d already gone under the knife with Dr. Creem at least once.
“Up there,” she said.
“Bitch,” someone muttered under his breath.
Sampson hooked a finger at me to follow him, and we headed up.
“Can I go now?” cutoffs girl called after us.
“Let’s see how good your word is first,” Sampson said.
When we got to the second-floor hall, it was empty. The only light was a single electric hurricane lamp on a glossy antique table near the stairs. There were equestrian portraits on the walls and a long Oriental runner that ended in front of a closed double door at the back of the house. Even from here I could make out more music thumping on the other side. Old-school this time. Talking Heads, “Burning Down the House.”
Watch out, you might get what you’re after.
Cool babies, strange but not a stranger.
I could hear laughing, too, and two different men’s voices.
“That’s it, sweetheart. A little closer. Now pull down her panties.”
“Yeah, that’s what you call money in the bank right there.”
Sampson gave me a look like he wanted to either puke or kill someone.
“Let’s do this,” he said, and we started up the hall.
“POLICE! WE’RE COMING IN!”
