Contents
About the Book
About the Author
Also by James Patterson
Title Page
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
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
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
Sneak Preview
Copyright
About the Book
A beautiful young woman is found murdered on a river bank, and Detective Harriet Blue is convinced she’s the next victim of the worst serial killer Sydney has seen in decades.
But the more Harriet learns, the more she realises this murder is not what she first thought. And her own life might be tangled up in the case.
About the Author
JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. 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 nine years in a row. He is the author of some of the most popular series of the past two decades – 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.
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 for young readers including the Middle School, I Funny, Treasure Hunters, House of Robots, Confessions and Maximum Ride series. James is the proud sponsor of the World Book Day Award and has donated millions in grants to independent bookshops. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.
ALSO BY JAMES PATTERSON
ALEX CROSS NOVELS
Along Came a Spider
Kiss the Girls
Jack and Jill
Cat and Mouse
Pop Goes the Weasel
Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
Four Blind Mice
The Big Bad Wolf
London Bridges
Mary, Mary
Cross
Double Cross
Cross Country
Alex Cross’s Trial (with Richard DiLallo)
I, Alex Cross
Cross Fire
Kill Alex Cross
Merry Christmas, Alex Cross
Alex Cross, Run
Cross My Heart
Hope to Die
Cross Justice
THE WOMEN’S MURDER CLUB SERIES
1st to Die
2nd Chance (with Andrew Gross)
3rd Degree (with Andrew Gross)
4th of July (with Maxine Paetro)
The 5th Horseman (with Maxine Paetro)
The 6th Target (with Maxine Paetro)
7th Heaven (with Maxine Paetro)
8th Confession (with Maxine Paetro)
9th Judgement (with Maxine Paetro)
10th Anniversary (with Maxine Paetro)
11th Hour (with Maxine Paetro)
12th of Never (with Maxine Paetro)
Unlucky 13 (with Maxine Paetro)
14th Deadly Sin (with Maxine Paetro)
15th Affair (with Maxine Paetro)
DETECTIVE MICHAEL BENNETT SERIES
Step on a Crack (with Michael Ledwidge)
Run for Your Life (with Michael Ledwidge)
Worst Case (with Michael Ledwidge)
Tick Tock (with Michael Ledwidge)
I, Michael Bennett (with Michael Ledwidge)
Gone (with Michael Ledwidge)
Burn (with Michael Ledwidge)
Alert (with Michael Ledwidge)
PRIVATE NOVELS
Private (with Maxine Paetro)
Private London (with Mark Pearson)
Private Games (with Mark Sullivan)
Private: No. 1 Suspect (with Maxine Paetro)
Private Berlin (with Mark Sullivan)
Private Down Under (with Michael White)
Private L.A. (with Mark Sullivan)
Private India (with Ashwin Sanghi)
Private Vegas (with Maxine Paetro)
Private Sydney (with Kathryn Fox)
Private Paris (with Mark Sullivan)
NYPD RED SERIES
NYPD Red (with Marshall Karp)
NYPD Red 2 (with Marshall Karp)
NYPD Red 3 (with Marshall Karp)
NYPD Red 4 (with Marshall Karp)
STAND-ALONE THRILLERS
Sail (with Howard Roughan)
Swimsuit (with Maxine Paetro)
Don’t Blink (with Howard Roughan)
Postcard Killers (with Liza Marklund)
Toys (with Neil McMahon)
Now You See Her (with Michael Ledwidge)
Kill Me If You Can (with Marshall Karp)
Guilty Wives (with David Ellis)
Zoo (with Michael Ledwidge)
Second Honeymoon (with Howard Roughan)
Mistress (with David Ellis)
Invisible (with David Ellis)
The Thomas Berryman Number
Truth or Die (with Howard Roughan)
Murder House (with David Ellis)
NON-FICTION
Torn Apart (with Hal and Cory Friedman)
The Murder of King Tut (with Martin Dugard)
ROMANCE
Sundays at Tiffany’s (with Gabrielle Charbonnet)
The Christmas Wedding (with Richard DiLallo)
First Love (with Emily Raymond)
OTHER TITLES
Miracle at Augusta (with Peter de Jonge)
STORIES AT THE SPEED OF LIFE
What you are holding in your hands right now is no ordinary book, it’s a BookShot.
BookShots are page-turning stories by James Patterson and other writers that can be read in one sitting.
Each and every one is fast-paced, 100% story-driven; a shot of pure entertainment guaranteed to satisfy.
Available as new, compact paperbacks, ebooks and audio, everywhere books are sold.
BookShots – the ultimate form of storytelling. From the ultimate storyteller.
CHAPTER 1
I’M AN EXPERIENCED hunter of humans. It’s not hard, if you understand how they think. People have tunnel vision and are objective-driven. As long as you don’t interfere with their goal, and don’t make yourself known before you’re
ready to pounce, you can close in on a relaxed target pretty easily. It doesn’t even require much stealth. Unlike animals, human beings don’t use their alarm system of senses. Though the wind was behind me, Ben Hammond didn’t smell me. He didn’t hear my breath over the clunk of his boots on the pavement.
Hammond’s objective was his late-model Honda Civic on the edge of the parking lot. So that’s all he could see – he didn’t notice me round the corner from the loading dock and fall into step behind him. He left the shopping centre with hands full of groceries swinging at his sides and headed across the parking lot, already sliding into the driver’s seat in his mind, shutting the door on the moonless night.
I followed with my head down, the hoodie pulled up against the security cameras trained on the few remaining cars. I let him pull his keys out of his pocket, the jangling sound covering the soft fall of my boots for the last few steps between me and my prey.
I closed the distance and attacked.
CHAPTER 2
‘FUCK!’ BEN HAMMOND grabbed at the back of his head where I’d punched him, turned and stumbled against the car, dropping the bags. Glass cracked in one of them. He cowered in a half-crouch, trying to make himself smaller. Both hands shot up. ‘Oh my God! What are you doing?’
‘Stand up,’ I waved impatiently.
‘Take my wallet,’ he stammered. ‘Don’t hurt m—’
‘You don’t like the surprise attack, do you, Ben? You know how effective it is.’
He realised three things very quickly. First, that I was a woman. Second, that this wasn’t a mugging. Third, that he’d heard my voice before.
The man straightened almost fully and squinted into the darkness of my hood. I tugged the hood down and watched his eyes wander around the silhouette of my short hair against the shopping-centre lights, the terror in his face slowly dissipating.
‘I …’ He straightened. His hands dropped. ‘I know you.’
‘You do.’
‘You’re that cop.’ He pointed an uncertain finger at me, began to shake it as his confidence grew. ‘You’re that cop from the trial.’
‘I am,’ I said. ‘Detective Harriet Blue, here to deliver your punishment.’
CHAPTER 3
IT WAS A little insulting that my name didn’t come to Ben’s mind as quickly as I’d hoped. But I had just cracked him on the skull. What little grey matter was sloshing around his brain probably needed time to recover. I’d done everything I could to make him aware of me while he was tried for the rape of his ex-girlfriend Molly. When I took to the stand to testify that I’d found Molly at the bottom of the shower where he’d dumped her, I’d looked right at him and calmly and clearly stated my name.
It hadn’t been a solid case. Ben had been very crafty in getting back at his ex for leaving him: raping and beating her, but charming his way into her apartment struggle-free and sharing a glass of wine with her first, so it looked as if she’d welcomed the sexual encounter. I’d known, sitting on the witness stand and staring at him, that like most rapists he’d probably go free.
But that didn’t mean I was finished with him.
‘This is assault.’ Ben touched the back of his head, noted the blood on his fingers and almost smiled. ‘You’re in a lot of trouble, you stupid little bitch.’
‘Actually,’ I slid my right foot back, ‘you’re in a lot of trouble.’
I gave Ben a couple of sharp jabs to the face, then backed up, let him have a moment to feel them. He stepped out from between the shopping bags and came at me swinging. I sidestepped and planted my knee in his ribs, sending him sprawling on the asphalt. I glanced at the distant shopping centre. The security guards would notice a commotion at the edge of the furthest parking lot camera and come running. I figured I had seconds, not minutes.
‘You can’t do this.’ Hammond spat blood from his split lip. ‘You—’
I gave him a knee to the ribs, then lifted him before he could get a lungful of air and slammed him into the bonnet. I’m petite, but I box, so I know how to manoeuvre a big opponent. I grabbed a handful of Ben’s hair and dragged him towards the driver’s door.
‘You’re a cop!’ Hammond wailed.
‘You’re right,’ I said. I could just make out two security guards rushing out of the loading dock.
‘My job gives me access to crime alerts,’ I said. ‘I can tag a person’s file and get a notification every time they’re brought in, even if their original charge never stuck.’
I held on to Hammond’s hair and gave him a couple of hard punches in the head, then dumped him onto the ground. The guards were closer. I stepped on Hammond’s balls, so I knew I had his full attention.
‘If I ever see your name in the system again,’ I told him, ‘I’m coming back. And I won’t be this gentle next time.’
I pulled my hood up and sprinted into the scrubland at the side of the lot.
CHAPTER 4
I’M NOT A vigilante. Sometimes I just have no choice but to take matters into my own hands.
I’d worked in sex crimes for five years, and I was tired of seeing predators walking free from convictions. When I got close to a victim, the way I did with Molly Finch, I found it hard to sleep after their attacker was acquitted. For weeks I’d lain awake at night thinking about Hammond’s smug face as he’d walked down the steps of the courthouse on Goulburn Street, the wink he’d given me as he got into the taxi. I’d managed to make a minor physical assault charge stick. But there had been no proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the sex Hammond had had with Molly that night hadn’t been consensual.
That’s how it goes sometimes with sexual assaults. The guy’s lawyer throws everything he has at the idea that she might have wanted it. There was no physical evidence, or witnesses, to say otherwise.
Well, now there was no evidence to say Ben Hammond wasn’t bashed half to death by a mugger gone nuts, either. If he went to the cops about what I’d done, he’d know what it felt like not to be believed.
But he wouldn’t go to the cops and tell them a woman had given him a beatdown. His kind never did.
I rolled my shoulders as I drove back across the city towards Potts Point, sighing long and low as the tension eased. I was really looking forward to getting some sleep. Most nights saw me at my local gym pounding boxing bags to try to exhaust myself into a healthy pre-sleep calm. Smacking Ben around had given me the same delicious fatigue in my muscles. I hoped it lasted.
At the big intersection near Kings Cross, a pair of hookers strutted across the road in front of my car. Their skin was lit pink by the huge neon Coca-Cola sign on the corner. The streets were still damp from a great storm the night before. The gutters were crowded with trash and huge fig-tree leaves.
My phone rang. I recognised the number as my station chief.
‘Hello, Pops,’ I said.
‘Blue, take down this address,’ the old man said. ‘There’s a body I want you to look at.’
CHAPTER 5
MURDER WAS HARD work, but Hope had never been afraid of that.
She knelt on the floor of the kitchen of the Dream Catcher and scrubbed at the polished boards. She was trying to push her brush down the cracks and bring up the blood that had dried and settled there. Deck, she thought suddenly, dunking the brush in the bucket of hot water and bleach beside her. On yachts, the floor was not a floor at all but a deck. The kitchen was called a galley. She smiled. She’d need to get used to all the terminology. There was so much to learn, being a new boat owner. She sat back on her heels and wiped the sweat from her brow. She’d give the blood a rest for a while and work on the bedroom.
The young woman climbed backwards down the little ladder and walked into the yacht’s expansive bedroom, gathering up a garbage bag from the roll she’d placed on the bed. The first thing she did was take a framed photograph from the nightstand and dump it in the darkness of the bag. She didn’t look at the couple’s smiling faces. She threw in some reading glasses, a pair of slippers and a folded newspaper
. She opened the cupboard and started taking out the woman’s clothes, grabbing great handfuls on coat hangers and bundling the shirts, skirts and pants into a roll before she shoved them into the bag.
Jenny Spelling had awful taste, Hope thought, glancing at a turquoise skirt-suit before it went into the trash. Ugh, shoulder pads. So eighties. She felt a wave of excitement roll over her as she looked along the empty hanging pole, thinking about her own clothes racked there.
When she’d filled all the garbage bags on the rolls with their possessions, Hope walked to the back of the boat to check on her prisoners. The couple were slumped in the corner of the shower cubicle, Jenny’s head twisted back against the wall so that her nose pointed upward and her mouth hung open. When Hope opened the door, Ken shifted up as much as his binds would allow. His wife was limp against him.
‘I’m just heading out to get rid of some rubbish,’ Hope said brightly. ‘You guys need anything before I go? More water?’
Jenny Spelling woke and immediately started shivering. She stared at Hope wordlessly, as though she didn’t know what the young woman was.
‘Hope.’ Ken’s face reddened with desperation. ‘I’m begging you, please, just take the boat. Take everything. My wife needs to do her dialysis or she’s going to die. OK? It’s only going to take a few minutes. That’s all. That—’
‘We’ve discussed this.’ Hope held up her hand, gave him a weary sigh. ‘It’ll all be over soon. I’m not getting into this again. The last time I let you loose, you did this.’ She held up her forearm, showed him the bruise. ‘Trust, Ken. You had it, and you lost it.’
‘Please, please.’ Ken shifted. ‘You don’t need to do this. Look at her. Look at her face. She’s missed her dialysis for three days now. She’s not right. She’s—’
Hope took the duct tape from the counter beside the toilet and ripped off a length. She placed a strip over Jenny’s mouth, but gave Ken a few turns around his head. He was the feisty one. She worked emotionlessly as the tape sealed off his words.