About the Authors
JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. He is the author of some of the most popular series of the past decade – 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. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.
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 specifically for young readers. James is a founding partner of Booktrust’s Children’s Reading Fund in the UK. His books have sold in excess of 300 million copies worldwide and he has been the most borrowed author in UK libraries for the past seven years in a row.
MAXINE PAETRO is the author of three novels and two works of nonfiction, and she is the coauthor of more than a dozen books with James Patterson. She lives in New York with her husband.
For Suzie and John, Brendan, Alex, and Jack
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
IT WAS A blindingly sunny morning in May, and Joe Molinari was out for a walk in the park with Martha, his smart and funny dog, and Julie, his adorable nine-month-old baby girl.
Julie was in a sling, her belly against her great big daddy’s chest, looking over his shoulder and waving her fingers toward the lake with every confidence that she was making real words and that her dad would be happy to take direction.
“Do you have a license to point those things?” Joe said to the child.
“Damn right,” Joe replied in his best imitation of how Julie would speak if she could. “We all know who’s in charge here, Daddy. I only need to point and babble. Heh-heh. Race you to the bench. By the ducks.”
Joe ruffled Julie’s hair and got a better grip on Martha’s leash as he took in the scene again. He ran his eyes across the path to the bench, checking out the people with dogs and strollers, the shadows between the trees, and the traffic beyond the glare of the water; then he paused to double-check a middle-aged guy smoking a cigarette, staring deep into his phone.
These were the habits of a former federal agent and until recently the deputy director of Homeland Security. He was now a consultant specializing in risk management assessment for big corporations, government agencies, and other authorities.
Currently, Joe was six months into a job he’d been working eighteen hours a day, mainly from his office in the spare bedroom. It was a complex project, an obstacle course of practical and political complications. He felt fine about how it was coming along. And he also felt good about the lay of the land as he settled onto an empty bench with a fine ducky view of the lake.
Julie laughed and beat the air with her hands as he unstrapped her from the sling and sat her on his lap. Martha came over and tried to wash Julie’s face before Joe interceded and pulled the border collie to his side. Julie loved Martha and giggled a long peal of baby talk just as Joe’s cell phone rang.
It wasn’t Lindsay’s ring. Pawing his shirt pocket, he saw that the caller was Brooks Findlay, the exec who’d commissioned his assignment with the Port of Los Angeles. Joe pictured the man: a former college football player, fit, thinning blond hair, dimples.
It was odd to get a call from Findlay first thing in the morning, but Joe answered the phone.
Findlay said, “Joe. It’s Brooks Findlay. Is this a good time to talk?”
Findlay’s voice was shaded by a dull metallic tone that put Joe on alert.
What the hell is wrong with Findlay?
CHAPTER 2
“I’M FREE TO talk,” Joe said to Findlay. “But I’m not at my computer.”
“Not a problem,” said Findlay. “Look, Joe. I’ve got to terminate our arrangement. It’s just not working out. You know how it is.”
“Actually, I don’t know,” Joe said. “What’s the problem? I don’t understand.”
A crowd of young boys entered Joe’s field of vision, shouting to one another, kicking a soccer ball along the asphalt path. At the same time, the baby was giving Joe a new set of directions. He kept his hand on her tummy and hoped she didn’t start screaming. Julie could scream.
“Brooks, can you hear me OK? I’ve put a lot of time into this project. I deserve an explanation and a chance to correct—”
“Thanks, Joe, but it’s outta my hands. We’ll take it from here, OK? Your confidentiality contract is in effect, of course, and, uh, your check’s in the mail. Listen, I’ve got incoming. Gotta sign off. Take care.”
The line went dead.
Joe held the phone for a few long moments before he returned it to his pocket. Wow. No apologies. Not even a face-saving explanation. Just a needlessly brutal chop.
Joe reviewed his last conversations with Findlay, looking for clues to something he might have missed, some hint of a complaint—but nothing lit up the board. Actually, Findlay had seemed happy with his work. And Joe was sure his preliminary analysis of the container security protocols at the Port of Los Angeles was solid.
He really hadn’t seen this coming.
After pushing through the initial shock and confusion, Joe glimpsed his new reality. First there would be the loss of income, then the humiliation of having to explain this sinkhole to the next guy interviewing him for a job.
That thought was just about intolerable.
He wanted to call Lindsay, but on the other hand, why ruin her day, too?
“Hey, Julie,” Joe said to his now fussing daughter. “Can you believe it? Daddy got fired. Over the phone. Bang.”
Joe buckled the baby back into her sling, and she reached up and touched his cheek.
“I’m OK, Julie Anne. I’m thinking we should all go home now. I’m in the mood for a banana smoothie. Sound good to you?”
Julie looked like she was going to cry.
His little girl was mirroring his feelings.
Joe said, “OK, OK, sweetie. Don’t cry. We can come back and see the ducks later. We can come back every day into the foreseeable future. I can put peaches in that smoothie, all right? You like peaches.”
“I sure do, Daddy,” Joe said in his baby voice. He swept his gaze around the park and then stood up with Julie.
“You ready, Martha? That’s the girl.”
She woofed and jumped, so he gave her the full length of her leash till they were leaving the park, then pulled the lead in for the couple of blocks toward home.
By then, Joe wasn’t thinking of fruit and ice and yogurt. He was thinking of Findlay, pressing that gutless piece of crap through the blender.
CHAPTER 3
I WAS BEHIND my desk that morning as light streamed through the Bryant Street windows and slashed across the squad room’s linoleum floor.
My partner, Inspector Rich Conklin, was standing behind me to my right, and Chief of Police Warren Jacobi loomed impatiently over my left shoulder.
Jacobi had caught a couple of bullets in his leg and hip a few years ago and the injuries had aged him. He was fifty pounds overweight, his joints crackled and popped when he walked, and the pain had drained the fun from his salty sense of humor.
He grumbled, “Wait till you see this,” and handed me a disc; then he sighed loudly as we waited for my “lazy-ass computer” to boot up.
I slid the disc into the drawer. The drive whirred, and then a video, time-dated 3:06 this morning, appeared on my screen. The camera had been positioned under flickering streetlights in a nearly deserted block in the notoriously sketchy Tenderloin. The footage was grainy, shot with a cheap surveillance cam of the type used more as a prop than as a tool for actually identifying people.