The Cornwalls Are Gone (Amy Cornwall #1) - James Patterson Page 0,45

daughter, and if Tom and Denise aren’t produced alive and breathing, then I’ll blow out the man’s brains in front of said criminal.

And I’ll drop my weapon, and if I’m instantly killed or eventually sent to prison, it won’t matter a bit to me.

Without my family, I’m dead anyway.

CHAPTER 47

AFTER GETTING off the phone with his mom, who is still living near Seattle with his increasingly ill father, Army Lieutenant Preston Baker goes for a walk to clear his head and stretch his legs.

The call did not go well. A year ago, his dad, a retired engineer from Boeing, was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, and in the past few months, his situation has gotten worse. There was a time when Preston’s dad would impress friends and family with his ability to multiply two-digit numbers by other two-digit numbers quickly in his head and always have the right answer, but now that’s gone.

For the past couple of months, his father has managed to muddle through by reading little Post-it notes around the house, reminding him to zip up his pants, comb his hair, and brush his teeth, but now, as his mother tearfully said, “his doctors think we need to put him in a facility. Oh, Presty, we don’t have that kind of money!”

And neither do I, he thinks, as he walks along the roads near his apartment complex, wearing jeans and a faded blue polo shirt, taking his time, going from one busy intersection to another.

To anyone out there, it would look like Preston was wandering aimlessly, but there is a point to his walk, and after fifteen minutes he gets to a dingy-looking 7-Eleven next to a Shell station. The area around the gas station is littered with plastic bottles, plastic bags, fast-food wrappers, and other trash, but the 7-Eleven is relatively clean, because the guy running it—an immigrant from New Delhi—is an old-fashioned sort who wants to keep his place tidy.

Preston ducks around the corner. Another way the guy is old-fashioned is that he likes to maintain a pay phone on the outside, even now, in a time when one could pick up a cheap burner phone for just a few bucks.

But Preston isn’t looking to save a few bucks.

He’s looking to save his career in the Army.

He drops a fistful of quarters into the phone, which has bright stickers in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, announcing its wonderful calling plans, and dials a number.

It rings once, twice, and then is picked up.

“Yes?” comes a familiar voice, from a man he’s never met.

“She came by yesterday, the woman you talked about.”

“And?”

Preston turns away, as if trying to hide his face from anyone walking by with their Slim Jims or Slurpees. “I told her the story. The one you wanted me to say.”

“Did it go all right?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think she was satisfied?”

“I…think so. She didn’t stay that long. It was like she just wanted to confirm what she already knew. Or suspected.”

The man says, “You did good. There’ll be a wire transfer to your account within the next twelve hours. Anything else?”

“I…well, suppose she comes back?”

“Stick to the story.”

“But suppose she asks lots more questions.”

“Stick to the story.”

“Yeah, I know, but—”

There’s a click and the man has hung up.

He replaces the battered gray receiver with stickers and decals on it, wanders off to the rear of the store, which has two green dumpsters waiting to be picked up. Preston stares at the overflowing containers and thinks, Wouldn’t it be nice if the garbage inside of me could eventually be dumped like that, clean everything out inside?

Yeah, right.

Some garbage inside will stay there, no matter what.

Preston turns and starts the long walk back to his apartment, and then, on impulse, checks how much change he has left.

Barely enough, but enough to make it happen.

He goes back to the pay phone, slides in the rest of his quarters, dials another number, and when a timid woman’s voice answers, Preston says, “Ma, I think I can get the money to take care of you and Dad.”

CHAPTER 48

ROSARIA VASQUEZ has just left the Corpus Christi International Airport and is speeding north across the flattest landscape she has ever seen in her life. There are cities off the distant horizon, steam and smoke plumes from industries at work in the Gulf of Mexico, and stunted, twisted trees that look like they’ve been transplanted from some old horror film.

Several hours earlier she was ready to jump into the shower and have an afternoon to herself, when