1st Case - James Patterson Page 0,25

the trash. Then I took the world’s longest shower, packed a bag, and headed back out again. Straight to my parents’ house.

But Billy Keats didn’t need to know about that.

CHAPTER 26

I GOT TO the house in Belmont just in time for dinner. I never needed a reason or an invitation. Everyone was always glad to see me, so it was a relief not to have to explain myself. All I really wanted was something like a normal evening after the day I’d just had.

Dinner was Dad’s lemon orzo chicken with Mom’s roasted broccoli—perfect comfort food. Tucking in with my parents and sisters, I finally started to unwind.

But that also cuts both ways, and just like that, my guard was down again. I’d taken only a few bites before I could feel the tears starting to burn my eyes. I tried to focus on the conversation, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Pietro Angeletti. The way he’d pressed me up against that bathroom door. Those greedy hands. That sickeningly sweet breath.

While my parents and sisters chattered on, I thought about Gwen Petty, too. How she’d walked into the same trap, and much worse after that, with nobody there to help her.

Not to mention the other girls in this case. And their families. It was overwhelming.

Before I could stop myself, I dropped my fork and started sobbing.

“Angela?” Mom said. “My God, what is it?”

Both of my sisters were wide-eyed. Everyone had stopped eating and all eyes were on me, of course.

“I’m okay,” I blubbered like an idiot.

“It doesn’t look that way to me,” Dad said. I tried to wave him off, but he came and put his arms around me anyway.

“I’m just working through some stress,” I said, punting on the specifics so I wouldn’t have to show too many of my cards. “It’s been kind of intense at work lately.”

“Kind of?” Hannah asked quietly.

“Angela, Angela …” Mom reached over and stroked my hand across the table. “You take on too much. You always have. It’s like anytime you’ve got a mountain to climb, there’s nothing else you can see.”

Mom’s an English prof at BU, with a specialty in myths and fairy tales. For her, everything is a mountain to climb or a dragon to slay. But it’s from Mom that I get my sense of right and wrong in the world. You can learn a lot from fairy tales. And nobody gets to “happily ever after” without a few scars.

“I knew something was wrong,” Mom said. “Especially since … well …”

“Since what?” I asked.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “A.A. might have mentioned that you seemed a little stressed out lately. More than usual, I mean.”

“Did she call you?” I asked, genuinely surprised.

“Three times,” Sylvie chimed in. I glared over at my other sister and got a shrug in return. “What? She’s your friend.”

It wasn’t unlike A.A. to have her own conversations with my mom, but at a minimum, I would have thought she’d give me a heads-up about it.

“The point is,” Mom said, “I’m not crazy for being concerned.”

“The point is, A.A. is a drama queen,” I told her.

“She loves you,” Dad said, still holding on to me. “We all do.”

I leaned my head into the crook of his arm and took a deep breath.

“Can I just stay here tonight?” I asked.

It sounded weak. Not that anyone was begrudging me a night in my old bed. But this wasn’t the person I wanted to become—someone who ran home after every crisis. I was better than that. Stronger, too. I worked at the FBI, for God’s sake!

Which was kind of the point. Coding is one thing. A murder investigation is something else. They don’t give classes in human suffering at MIT.

This was exactly what Eve had warned me about. The work was going to bring me down if I let it, she’d said. So now, more than ever, I had to make sure I didn’t let it.

Somehow.

CHAPTER 27

WHEN I GOT to the office on Monday morning, I was told in no uncertain terms that I’d be sticking close to my desk for the foreseeable future. No surprise there.

Keats did throw me a bone, though. He asked Zack Ciomek to let me scan all of Angeletti’s seized media from the photography studio. That included his laptop, cell, and a separate external drive where Angeletti stored everything from the two cameras they found hidden in his dressing room.

So it was confirmed now. This guy was exactly the serial predator Gwen Petty’s friends had suspected. But