The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 1996 by James Patterson.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
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First eBook Edition: December 1996
ISBN: 978-0-446-40929-2
Contents
Prologue: Hide & Seek
I
CHAPTER II
Book One: Star-Crossed
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
Book Two: Calm Before the Storm
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
Book Three: Will
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
BOOK FOUR: Dark Side of the Moon
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
CHAPTER 77
CHAPTER 78
CHAPTER 79
CHAPTER 80
CHAPTER 81
CHAPTER 82
CHAPTER 83
CHAPTER 84
CHAPTER 85
CHAPTER 86
BOOK FIVE: Trial & Error
CHAPTER 87
CHAPTER 88
CHAPTER 89
CHAPTER 90
CHAPTER 91
CHAPTER 92
CHAPTER 93
CHAPTER 94
CHAPTER 95
CHAPTER 96
CHAPTER 97
CHAPTER 98
CHAPTER 99
CHAPTER 100
CHAPTER 101
CHAPTER 102
CHAPTER 103
CHAPTER 104
CHAPTER 105
CHAPTER 106
CHAPTER 107
CHAPTER 108
CHAPTER 109
CHAPTER 110
CHAPTER 111
CHAPTER 112
CHAPTER 113
BOOK SIX: Hide & Seek—Again
CHAPTER 114
CHAPTER 115
CHAPTER 116
CHAPTER 117
CHAPTER 118
CHAPTER 119
CHAPTER 120
EPILOGUE Night Songs
CHAPTER 121
CHAPTER 122
CHAPTER 123
A Preview of "Jack & Jill"
MORE RAVES FOR JAMES PATTERSON AND HIS COMPELLING NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
HIDE AND SEEK
“A twisty narrative that barrels along swiftly … a hair-raising ride.”
—People
“A novel built for speed.”
—Boston Globe
“James Patterson does everything but stick our fingers in a light socket to give us a buzz.”
—New York Times
“Masterful. … A riveting psychological thriller. … Patterson gives his admirers a roller-coaster ride through a vivid, emotional tale that leads inexorably to a truly shattering climax.”
—Naples Daily News
“Alex Cross is to the 90s what Mike Hammer was to the 50s.”
—Denver Post
“Gripping.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Alex Cross is the fictional detective of the 90s.”
—Ann Rule
“James Patterson is to suspense what Danielle Steel is to romance.”
—New York Daily News
“Patterson develops characters with broad strokes and fine lines. Even the villains are multilayered and believable.”
—Nashville Banner
“Patterson's skill at building suspense is enviable, and it's impossible to read the book slowly.”
—Kansas City Star
“Patterson is an excellent writer.”
—Lexington Herald-Leader
“Patterson hit the ball out of the park with his last go-round, the bestselling Along Came a Spider. Kiss the Girls is even better.”
—Dallas Morning News
“As good as a thriller can get. … With Kiss the Girls, Patterson joins the elite company of Thomas Harris and John Sanford.”
—San Francisco Examiner
“Warning: Do not read Kiss the Girls on a dark winter night if you are home alone. This is another Patterson scare.”
—Oakland Press
“Kiss the Girls is impossible to put down.”
—Detroit News and Free Press
“Along Came a Spider is a first-rate thriller—fasten your seatbelts and keep the lights on.”
—Sidney Sheldon
“Along Came a Spider is written simply, powerfully, with shifting points of view. The book will satisfy mystery and thriller fans, as well as students of the human condition.”
—Washington Post Book World
“Along Came a Spider deserves to be this season's #1 bestseller and should instantly make James Patterson a household name.”
—Nelson DeMille
THE NOVELS OF JAMES PATTERSON
Featuring Alex Cross
Mary, Mary
London Bridges
The Big Bad Wolf
Four Blind Mice
Violets Are Blue
Roses Are Red
Pop Goes the Weasel
Cat & Mouse
Jack & Jill
Kiss the Girls
Along Came a Spider
The Women's Murder Club
4TH of July (and Maxine Paetro)
3RD Degree (and Andrew Gross)
2ND Chance (and Andrew Gross)
1ST to Die
Other Books
The Lifeguard (and Andrew Gross)
Maximum Ride
Honeymoon (and Howard Roughan)
santaKid
Sam's Letters to Jennifer
The Lake House
The Jester (and Andrew Gross)
The Beach House (and Peter de Jonge)
Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas
Cradle and All
Black Friday
When the Wind Blows
See How They Run
Miracle on the 17th Green (and Peter de Jonge)
Hide & Seek
The Midnight Club
Season of the Machete
The Thomas Berryman Number
For more information about James Patterson's novels, visit www.jamespatterson.com
For Carole Anne, Isabelle Anne, and Mary Ellen: the mothers of invention
Prologue
Hide & Seek
I
I LAY WITHOUT moving in the low, narrow crawl space under the front porch of our home near West Point. My face was pressed tightly against the brutally cold, frozen ground littered with dry leaves and scratchy brambles. I knew I was going to die soon, and so was my baby girl. The words from a song, Crosby, Stills, and Nash—“Our house is a very, very, very fine house”— played in my mind.
“Don't cry … oh please don't cry,” I whispered into my baby's ear.
There was no way out—no escape from here, at least not carrying the baby. I was smart, and I'd thought of every possible escape route. None of them would work.
Phillip was going to kill us when he found our hiding place. I couldn't let him. I just didn't know how I could stop it. I kept my hand lightly over Jennie's mouth. “You mustn't make a sound, sweetheart. I love you. You mustn't make a sound.”
I could hear Phillip raging above us inside the house. Our house. He was rampaging from floor to floor, ransacking rooms, overturning furniture. Angry. Relentless. Absolutely crazy. Worse than he'd ever been. It was cocaine this time, but really it was life that Phillip couldn't handle very well.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are, Maggie … come out, Maggie and Jennie … it's only Daddy. Daddy's going to find you anyway,” Phillip screamed over and over until he was hoarse. “Come out, come out, Maggie … game's over.
“Maggie, I command you to come out wherever the hell you're hiding, you disobedient little bitch.”
I lay shivering under the old sagging porch. My teeth were chattering again. This couldn't be happening. It was unthinkable. I gently held my little girl, who had wet her pants. “You mustn't cry, Jennie. Please don't cry. Don't cry. You're such a good little girl. I love you so much.”
Jennie nodded, and stared into my eyes. I wished that this were a nightmare. That it would go away. But it wasn't a bad dream. This was as real as my mother's fatal heart attack when I was thirteen years old and the only one home. This was even worse.
I could hear my husband, my husband, stomping up and down the stairs of the house. He was still screaming … hadn't stopped screaming for over an hour. Pounding his fist against the walls. Captain Phillip Bradford. Math instructor at the Academy. Officer and gentleman. That was what everyone believed, what they wanted to believe, what I had believed myself.
The hour stretched to two hours.
Then to three hours in the pitch-black, freezing-cold crawl space—in this living hell.
Mercifully, Jennie had finally fallen asleep. I held her to my chest, tried to keep her warm. I wanted to sleep myself, give up the fight, but I knew I mustn't do that. It was very early in the morning. One of Phillip's witching hours—maybe three A.M.? Maybe four?
I heard the front door slam like a clap of thunder in the night. Loud footsteps exploded on the porch just over my head.
Jennie woke up. “Shhh,” I whispered. “Shhh.”
“Maggie! I know you're here. I know it! I'm not a stupid man. There's nowhere to run to.”
“Daddy … Daddy!” Jennie cried out, the way she had so many times in the safety of her crib.
A flashlight suddenly shone under the porch. Bright, terrifying light blinded me. A thousand sharp splinters in my eyes.
“Peekaboo! There you are! There's Jennie and Maggie. There's my two girls,” Phillip shouted in triumph. His voice was so hoarse and raw, it was nearly unrecognizable. I could almost make myself believe that this insane man wasn't my husband. How could he be?
Two deafening shots came from his gun. He fired right at us. He meant to kill either Jennie or me, maybe both of us.
I had a surprise for Phillip, just this one time.
Peekaboo yourself!
I fired back.
CHAPTER II
SOMETIMES, I FEEL as though I'm wearing a horrifying scarlet letter—only the letter is M, for Murderess. I know this feeling will never completely go away and it seems so unfair. It is unfair. It's inhuman and indecent.
The memories are jagged and chaotic, but at the end so vivid and horrifying that they are etched into my brain. They will be with me forever.
I'll tell you all of it, sparing no one, especially myself. I know that you want to hear. I know this is a “big news story.” I know what it is to be “news.” Do you have any idea? Can you imagine yourself as a piece of news, as cold black type that everybody reads, and makes judgments about?
Area newspapers from Newburgh, Cornwall, Middle-town called the first shooting the worst “family tragedy” in the history of West Point. To me, at the time, it seemed as though it had happened to someone else. Not to Jennie and me, or even to Phillip, as much as he may have deserved it.
Yet a dozen years later, after time and my own denial had clouded the events still further and made even my emotions hazy, a second killing has forced me to remember West Point in all of its horrible vividness.
I obsessively confront the questions that pound in my brain: Am I a murderer?
Did I kill not one, but two of my husbands?
I don't know anymore. I don't know! As crazy as that sounds, I honestly don't.
It gets terribly cold here—sometimes it seems as cold as it was that Christmas Eve when Phillip died. All I can do is sit in this prison cell, in torment, and wait for the trial to begin.
I decided to write it all down. I'm writing it for myself—but I'm also writing it for you. I'll tell you everything.
When you've read it, you decide. That's how our system works, right? A jury of my peers.
And, oh yes, I trust you. I'm a trusting person. That's probably why I'm here, in all of this terrible trouble.
Book One
Star-Crossed
CHAPTER 1
Early winter, 1984
More snow. Another Christmas season. Almost a year after Phillip's death—or as some would have it, his murder.
I sat back in the yellow cab as it bounced and plowed through the slush-filled New York streets. I was trying to put my mind in a calm place, but it wouldn't be still for me. I had promised myself I wouldn't be afraid—but I was very afraid.
Outside the streaked, wet taxi window, even the Salvation Army Santa Clauses looked miserable. Nobody sane or sensible was out walking today; those who were would not take their hands from their pockets to make a donation. The traffic cops looked like abandoned snowmen. The pigeons had disappeared from every window-sill and rooftop.
I glanced at my own reflection in the cab's window. Very long, blond hair, mostly with a mind of its own, but my best physical attribute, I thought. Freckles that no amount of makeup would ever cover. Nose a little out of proportion. Brown eyes that had, I knew, regained at least some of their half-forgotten sparkle. A small mouth, thickish lips—made, as Phillip joked in the happy days, for fellatio.
The thought of him made me shudder. The idea of sex still makes me afraid, and much worse.
It had been a year since the terrible shooting at West Point. My recovery was slow, both physically and mentally, and it wasn't complete. My leg still hurt, and my brain didn't function with the clarity I'd once taken prid
e in. I found myself frightened by small noises. I saw threats in nighttime streets when none existed. Previously in pretty good control of my feelings, I had lost that control. I would cry for no reason, grow angry at a neighbor's kindness, be suspicious of friends and afraid of strangers. There were times when I hated myself!
There had been an investigation, of course, but no trial. If Jennie hadn't been so badly beaten, if it had been only me with bloodied hair and a damaged leg, I might have been sent to prison that first time. But the fact that my three-year-old was injured too made our claim of self-defense more convincing.
No prosecutor wanted to take on the case, and the military academy was only too happy to have it hushed up.
Officers, it was a well-known fact, did not attack their wives and daughters. Wives and daughters really didn't exist at the Point. We were decorative.
So I took flight, and traveled to New York City, where I rented a two-bedroom apartment. It was a second-floor walkup in a dreary brownstone on West Seventy-fifth Street. I located a day school for Jennie. Our lives began to move at a slower pace.
But I hadn't found what I wanted most: an end to the pain, a beginning to a new life.
I was twenty-five years old. I wore the letter M. I had taken someone's life, even if it had been in self-defense.
No guts, no glory, I urged myself on. I was definitely moving on sheer guts that day. I was chasing a dream I'd held on to and cherished for more than a dozen years.
Perhaps today that new life would start. But was I doing the right thing? Was I ready for this? Or was I about to make a horribly embarrassing mistake?
I tightly held a briefcase in my lap, filled with songs I had written during the past year. Songs—the music and the words—were my way of exposing my pain and expressing my hopes for the future.
Actually, I'd been writing songs since I was ten or eleven. Mostly in my head, but sometimes on paper. The songs were the one thing that everybody seemed to like about me, the one thing I did well.
Were they any good? I thought maybe they were, but Jennie and a squirrel named Smooch were the only ones who had heard them, and, eager for praise as I was, I knew enough not to trust the opinion of a four-year-old, or a squirrel.
Soon, though, there would be another listener. I was on my way to audition the songs for Barry Kahn, the Barry Kahn, the singer-composer who had electrified America a decade ago and now was one of the most important record producers in the world.
Barry Kahn wanted to hear my songs.
Or so he said.