James Patterson Read online

  Kim was pleading with the man his audience knew as “Henri.” She was sobbing softly. “Please, please untie me. I’ll play my role. It will be even better for you, and I’ll never tell anyone.”

  Horst laughed, said, “That is the truth. She will never tell anyone.”

  Jan put down his glass, then said with edgy impatience, “Horst, please roll back the video.”

  On screen, Kim said again between sobs, “I’ll never tell anyone.”

  “That’s good, Kim. Our secret, eh?”

  Henri’s face was transformed by the plastic mask and his digitally altered voice, but his performance was strong and his audience was avid. Both men leaned forward in their chairs, watched as Henri stroked Kim, rubbed her back, and murmured to her until she stopped whimpering.

  And then, as she seemed to go to sleep, he straddled her body, wrapping his hand in the young woman’s long, damp, yellow hair.

  He lifted her head from the flat of the bed, pulling hard enough that Kim’s back arched, and the force of the pull made her cry out. Possibly she saw that he’d picked up a serrated knife with his right hand.

  “Kim,” he said. “You’ll wake up soon. And if you ever remember this, it will seem like a bad dream.”

  The beautiful young woman was surprisingly quiet as Henri made the first deep cut across the back of her neck. Then, as the pain caught up with her — hauled her violently out of her stupor — her eyelids flew open and a curdled scream erupted from her painted mouth. She wrenched her body as Henri sawed and cross-sawed through her muscles, and then the scream cut out, leaving an echo as Henri completely severed Kim’s head from her body in three long strokes.

  Arterial blood spurted against the yellow walls, emptied onto the satin bedsheets, ran down the arm and loins of the naked man kneeling over the dead girl.

  Henri’s smile was quite visible through the plastic mask as he held Kim’s head by her hair so that it swung gently as it faced the camera. A look of pure despair was still fixed on her beautiful face.

  The killer’s digitized voice was eerie and mechanical, but Horst found it extremely satisfying.

  “I hope everybody’s happy,” Henri said.

  The camera held on Kim’s face for another long moment and then, although the audience wanted more, the screen went black.

  Part Two

  FLY BY NIGHT

  Chapter 8

  A MAN STOOD at the edge of a lava-rock seawall staring out at the dark water and at the clouds turning pink as dawn stormed Maui’s eastern shore.

  His name was Henri Benoit, not his real name, but the name he was using now. He was in his thirties with medium-length blondish hair and light gray eyes, and he stood at about six feet tall in his bare feet. He was shoeless now, his toes half-buried in the sand.

  His white linen shirt hung loosely over his gray cotton pants, and he watched the seabirds calling out as they skimmed the waves.

  Henri thought those birdcalls could have been the opening notes of another flawless day in paradise. But before the day had even begun, it was down the crapper.

  Henri turned away from the ocean and jammed his PDA into a trouser pocket. Then, as the wind at his back blew his shirt into a kind of spinnaker, he strode up the sloping lawn to his private bungalow.

  He swung open the screened door, crossed the lanai and the pale hardwood floors to the kitchen, poured himself a cup of Kona java. Then out again to the lanai, where he sank down into the chaise beside the hot tub and settled in to think.

  This place, the Hana Beach Hotel, was at the top of his A-list: exclusive, comfortable, no TV or even a telephone. Surrounded by a few thousand acres of rain forest, perched on the coast of the island, the unobtrusive cluster of buildings made a perfect haven for the very rich.

  Being here gave a man a chance to relax fully, to be whoever he truly was, to realize his essence as a human.

  The cell phone call from Europe had shot his relaxation all to hell. The conversation had been brief and essentially one-way. Horst had delivered both the good and bad news in a tone of voice that attacked Henri’s sense of free agency with the finesse of a shiv through a vital organ.

  Horst had told Henri that the job he had done had been well received, but there were issues.

  Had he chosen the right victim? Why was Kim McDaniels’s death the sound of one hand clapping? Where was the press? Had they really gotten all they’d paid for?

  “I delivered a brilliant piece of work,” Henri had snapped. “How can you deny it?”

  “Watch the attitude, Henri. We’re all friends, yes?”

  Yes. Friends in a strictly commercial enterprise in which one set of amigos controlled the money. And now Horst was telling him that his buddies weren’t quite happy enough. They wanted more. More twists. More action. More clapping at the end of the movie.

  “Use your imagination, Henri. Surprise us.”

  They would pay more, of course, for additional contracted services, and after a while the prospect of more money softened the edges of Henri’s bad mood without touching the core of his contempt for the Peepers.

  They wanted more?

  So be it.

  By the time his second cup of coffee was finished, he had mapped out a new plan. He dug a wireless phone out of his pocket and began making calls.

  Chapter 9

  THAT NIGHT SNOW FELL LIGHTLY on Levon and Barbara McDaniels’s house in Cascade Township, a wooded suburb of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Inside their efficient but cozy three-bedroom brick home, the two boys slept deeply under their quilts.

  Down the hall, Levon and Barbara lay back-to-back, soles touching across the invisible divide of their Sleep Number bed, their twenty-five-year connection seemingly unbroken even in sleep.

  Barbara’s night table was stacked with magazines and half-read paperbacks, folders of tests and memos, a crowd of vitamin supplements around her bottle of green tea. Don’t worry about it, Levon, and please don’t touch anything. I know where everything is.

  Levon’s nightstand favored his left brain to Barb’s right: his neat stack of annual reports, annotated copy of Against All Reason, pen and notepad, and a platoon of electronics — phones, laptop, weather clock — all lined up four inches from the table’s edge, plugged into a power strip behind the lamp.

  The snowfall had wrapped the house in a white silence — and then a ringing phone jarred Levon awake. His heartbeat boomed, and his mind reeled in instant panic. What was happening?

  Again the phone rang, and this time Levon made a grab for the landline.

  He glanced at the clock, which read 3:14 a.m., and wondered who the hell would be calling at this hour. And then he knew. It was Kim. She was five hours behind them. He figured she’d gotten that mixed up somehow.

  “Kim? Honey?” Levon said into the mouthpiece.

  “Kim is gone,” said the male voice in Levon’s ear.

  Levon’s chest tightened, and he couldn’t catch his breath. Was he having a heart attack? “Sorry? What did you say?”

  Barb sat up in bed, turned on the light.

  “Levon?” she said. “What is it?”

  Levon held up a hand. Give me a second. “Who is this?” he asked, rubbing his chest to ease the pain.

  “I only have a minute, so listen carefully. I’m calling from Hawaii. Kim’s disappeared. She’s fallen into bad hands.”

  Levon’s fear filled him from scalp to toes with a cold terror. He clung to the phone, hearing the echo of the man’s voice: “She’s fallen into bad hands.”

  It made no sense.

  “I don’t get you. Is she hurt?”

  No answer.

  “Hello?”

  “Are you listening to what I’m saying, Mr. McDaniels?”

  “Yes. Who is this speaking, please?”

  “I can only tell you once.”

  Levon pulled at the neck of his T-shirt, trying to decide what to think. Was the man a liar, or telling the truth? He knew his name, phone number, that Kim was in Hawaii
. How did he know all that?

  Barb was asking him, “What’s happening? Levon, is this about Kim?”

  “Kim didn’t show up at the shoot yesterday morning,” said the caller. “The magazine is keeping it quiet. Crossing their fingers. Hoping she’ll come back.”

  “Have the police been called? Has someone called the police?”

  “I’m hanging up now,” said the caller. “But if I were you, I’d get on the next plane to Maui. You and Barbara.”

  “Wait! Please, wait. How do you know she’s missing?”

  “Because I did it, sir. I saw her. I liked her. I took her. Have a nice day.”

  Chapter 10

  “WHAT DO YOU WANT? Tell me what you want!”

  There was a click in Levon’s ear followed by a dial tone. He toggled the directory button, read “Unknown” where there should have been a caller ID.

  Barb was pulling at his arm. “Levon! Tell me! What’s happened?”

  Barb liked to say that she was the flamethrower in the family and that he was the fireman — and those roles had become fixed over time. So Levon began to tell Barb what the caller had said, strained the fear out of his voice, kept to the facts.

  Barb’s face reflected the terror leaping inside his own mind like a bonfire. Her voice came through to him as if from a far distance. “Did you believe him? Did he say where she was? Did he say what happened? My God, what are we talking about?”

  “All he said is she’s gone…”

  “She never goes anywhere without her cell,” Barb said, starting now to gasp for breath, her asthma kicking in.

  Levon bolted out of bed, knocked things off Barb’s night table, spilling pills and papers all over the carpet. He picked the inhaler out of the jumble, handed it to Barb, watched her take in a long pull.

  Tears ran down her face.

  He reached out his arms for her, and she went to him, cried into his chest, “Please… just call her.”

  Levon snatched the phone off the blanket, punched in Kim’s number, counted out the interminable rings, two, then three, looking at the clock, doing the math. It was just after ten at night in Hawaii.

  Then Kim’s voice was in his ear.

  “Kim!” he shouted.

  Barb clapped her hands over her face in relief — but Levon realized his mistake.

  “It’s only a message,” he said to Barb, hearing Kim’s recorded voice. “Leave your name and number and I’ll call you back. Byeeee.”

  “Kim, it’s Dad. Are you okay? We’d like to hear from you. Don’t worry about the time. Just call. Everybody here is fine. Love you, honey. Dad.”

  Barb was crying. “Oh, my God, Oh, my God,” she repeated as she balled up the comforter, pressing it to her face.

  “We don’t know anything, Barb,” he said. “He could be some moron with a sick sense of humor —”

  “Oh, God, Levon. Try her hotel room.”

  Sitting at the edge of the bed, staring down at the nubby carpet between his feet, Levon called information. He jotted down the number, disconnected the line, then dialed the Wailea Princess in Maui.

  When the operator came on, he asked for Kim McDaniels, got five distant rings in a room four thousand miles away, and then a machine answered. “Please leave a message for the occupant of Room Three-fourteen. Or press zero for the operator.”

  Levon’s chest pains were back and he was short of breath. He said into the mouthpiece, “Kim, call Mom and Dad. It’s important.” He stabbed the 0 button until the lilting voice of the hotel operator came back on the line.

  He asked the operator to ring Carol Sweeney’s room, the booker from the modeling agency, who’d accompanied Kim to Hawaii and was supposed to be there as her chaperone.

  There was no answer in Carol’s room, either. Levon left a message: “Carol, this is Levon McDaniels, Kim’s dad. Please call when you get this. Don’t worry about the time. We’re up. Here’s my cell phone number…”

  Then he got the operator again.

  “We need help,” he said. “Please connect me to the manager. This is an emergency.”

  Chapter 11

  LEVON MCDANIELS WAS SQUARE-JAWED, just over six feet, a muscular 165 pounds. He had always been known as a straight shooter, decisive, thoughtful, a good leader, but sitting in his red boxers, holding a dinky cordless phone that didn’t connect to Kim — he felt nauseated and powerless.

  As he waited for hotel security to go to Kim’s room and report back to the manager, Levon’s imagination fired off images of his daughter, hurt, or the captive of some freaking maniac who was planning God only knew what.

  Time passed, probably only a few minutes, but Levon imagined himself rocketing across the Pacific Ocean, bounding up the stairs of the hotel, and kicking open Kim’s door. Seeing her peacefully asleep, her phone switched off.

  “Mr. McDaniels, Security is on the other line. The bed is still made up. Your daughter’s belongings look undisturbed. Would you like us to notify the police?”

  “Yes. Right away. Thank you. Could you say and spell your name for me?”

  Levon booked a room, then phoned United Airlines, kept pressing zeros until he got a human voice.

  Beside him, Barb’s breathing was wet, her cheeks shining with tears. Her graying braid was coming undone as she repeatedly pushed her fingers through it. Barb’s suffering was right out in the open, and she didn’t know any other way. You always knew how she felt and where you stood with Barb.

  “The more I think about it,” she said, her voice coming between jerky sobs, “the more I think it’s a lie. If he took her… he’d want money, and he didn’t ask for that, Levon. So… why would he call us?”

  “I just don’t know, Barb. It doesn’t make sense to me either.”

  “What time is it there?”

  “Ten thirty p.m.”

  “She probably went for a ride with some cute guy. Got a flat tire. Couldn’t get a cell phone signal, something like that. She’s probably all worked up about missing the shoot. You know how she is. She’s probably stuck somewhere and furious with herself.”

  Levon had held back the truly terrifying part of the phone call. He hadn’t told Barb that the caller had said that Kim had fallen into “bad hands.” How would that help Barb? He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  “We have to keep our heads on straight,” he said.

  Barb nodded. “Absolutely. Oh, we’re going over there, Levon. But Kim is going to be as mad as bees that you told the hotel to call the police. Watch out when Kim’s mad.”

  Levon smiled.

  “I’ll shower after you,” Barb said.

  Levon came out of the bathroom five minutes later, shaven, his damp brown hair standing up around the bald spot at the back. He tried to picture the Wailea Princess as he dressed, saw frozen postcard images of honeymooners walking the beach at sunset. He thought of never seeing Kim again, and a knifing terror cut through him.

  Please, God, oh, please, don’t let anything happen to Kim.

  Barb showered quickly, dressed in a blue sweater, gray slacks, flat shoes. Her expression was wide-eyed shock, but she was past the hysteria, her excellent mind in gear.

  “I packed underwear and toothbrushes and that’s all, Levon. We’ll get what we need in Maui.”

  It was 3:45 in Cascade Township. Less than an hour had passed since the anonymous phone call had cracked open the night and spilled the McDanielses out into a terrifying unknown.

  “You call Cissy,” Barb said. “I’ll wake the kids.”

  Chapter 12

  BARBARA SIGHED UNDER HER BREATH, then turned up the dimmer, gradually lighting the boys’ room. Greg groaned, pulled the Spider-Man quilt over his head, but Johnny sat straight up, his fourteen-year-old face alert to something different, new, and maybe exciting.

  Barb shook Greg’s shoulder gently. “Sweetie, wake up now.”

  “Mommmmm, nooooo.”

  Barb peeled down her younger son’s blanket, explained to both boys a version of the
story that she halfway believed. That she and Dad were going to Hawaii to visit Kim.