1st Case - James Patterson Page 0,82

some kind of game.

In fact, the key was in a magnetic box on the back of the outside spigot, five feet away. I knew that he’d probably figure it out on his own if he tried, but the longer this took, the better.

He still had hold of my arm, and after a few more passes, he leaned down to speak into my ear.

“Listen to me. We’re going in, one way or another. If you help, we make it easy for your sisters and parents. Quick and done. But if you make this harder than it has to be? Well, then we’re going to take our time. Up to you.”

“Go to hell,” I said—or at least tried to say, from the inside of my taped mouth. I think he got the gist, anyway.

I was out of my mind. I had no rational thought left. Even if it did make sense to take his threat seriously and give him what he wanted, I still couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not with my family on the other side of that door. The longer I made these guys wait, the more chance there was for a miracle. Which was what I needed now.

It didn’t buy me much time, in any case. “Screw it,” he said, and elbowed a glass panel out of the back door without any trouble. A few seconds later, he’d reached in and undone the lock from the inside.

They carried me through the kitchen, and this time I didn’t struggle. I kept still, letting my eyes focus on the room around me, ranging from side to side, hoping to make some kind of physical disturbance or loud noise to wake up the others.

The knives in the big wooden block were out of my reach. The china cabinet in the dining room wasn’t close enough for me to throw myself against it, even if I could get free of them. And a few seconds later, it was moot, anyway. It didn’t take more than a moment to pass all the way through the house, to the bottom of the stairs.

They moved quickly now, up the steps with silent feet on the carpet runner and then down the hall to my room. They knew exactly where it was.

When we got there, they dropped me on the bed, right next to the white-painted nightstand where I used to keep my endless stack of reading. Now it was repopulated with a sampling of my academic trophies from high school and further back. My parents had made a shrine to me, in my own room.

Soon it would be my memorial.

None of my yelling and screaming rose to more than a low hum from behind the tape on my mouth.

“Stop it!” the younger one whispered fiercely. And I felt the electric seizure of the Taser once more. A grunt came from somewhere deep inside me. In my head, it was another scream.

By the time I could martial any motor skills at all, they’d taped me to the bed, one wrist on either side, lashed to the posts. With a little more energy, I might have been able to rip free, but that wasn’t happening.

“Don’t make me do that again,” the Poet whispered in my ear.

He climbed onto the bed and then on top of me, straddling my waist with his legs. It stirred the bile in my stomach. I was afraid for a second that I might actually throw up behind my gag.

“This needs to be quick,” his brother told him. “You know what to do.”

“Just go,” the kid said, staring me in the eye. “Take care of the others.”

He flipped on the bedside lamp as his brother left the room and closed the door. I could see his face clearly again in the light. He looked eerily peaceful. Happy, even. This was what he’d been waiting for, I could tell. This was what he did to salve that writhing, insane, genius brain of his.

And it wasn’t sexual, either. Not anymore. He wasn’t even trying to touch me.

No, this was about killing some part of himself. Even I could see that.

“So, I guess this is going to have to be quick,” he said. “But I want to thank you, Angela. It’s been a pleasure. I mean that.”

He reached around my head now and pulled the pillow out from underneath me. I bucked and twisted on the bed with everything I had, though it wasn’t much. All I could really do was watch as he brought the