The Inn - James Patterson Page 0,15

but I recognized the old guy. He had stood over Siobhan’s body in the medical examiner’s office the night I lost her. I’d been called in to identify her, and he’d put a hand on my back, warm and heavy. It had felt like the only thing keeping me from floating off and becoming nothing, that hand on my shoulder. The mere sight of Dr. Eric Mayburn now stole my breath away. Siobhan was everywhere. Inescapable.

Nick came back and ordered drinks for us, then slid an elbow out on the bar and surveyed the Greenfish’s sticky laminated menu. Lobster rolls and Jack Daniel’s–flavored hot wings.

“So here’s the plan,” Nick said. “We take the gun to Susan. Get her to run the serial number. I’m guessing whoever the jerk is, if he isn’t just some poor sap who’s had his gun stolen, he’s the kingpin and he gave the gun to Squid. We get the address and go around there, threaten him with what we know. He’s supplied a deadly weapon to a minor. He won’t want his house raided. He’ll move on.”

“I have a few problems with what you’re saying,” I said. “First, Susan doesn’t want to help us. She avoids anything that has to do with the Bureau.”

“I can’t work that woman out,” Nick said. “What’s she doing at the house? Why tell us she used to be Bureau if she’s not willing to tell us everything—what she did there, why she left. She’s too young to have retired. Maybe she got herself kicked out and she’s blacklisted.”

I shifted in my seat. Nick was wandering into territory that was dangerously familiar to me.

“Maybe she’s undercover, working on something,” Nick mused. “But then why tell us she used to be a fed at all? Maybe it’s all lies. Maybe she was supposed to marry a guy with Mob ties but left him at the altar.”

“You’re very creative,” I noted. “But whatever it is, I’m sure it’s none of our business. In any case, we have to decide what we’re going to do with this big-ass gun. Maybe we should take it to Clay.”

“What do you need a handgun that size in Gloucester for?” Nick said. “You know, I came to Gloucester to get away from guns, sirens, and crackheads. The fact that these creeps are handing out samples means they’re new in town, trying to lock in some long-term clientele. We stomp on them now and we won’t have ourselves another Baltimore.”

Nick was a Baltimore native, but he’d told me when he moved in here that he had returned to his city to find it worse than some of the war-torn villages he’d rolled through in Iraq. A drug epidemic had ravaged Baltimore, and its overcrowded rehab clinics, overwhelmed cops, and warring gangs had given it a dangerous reputation. Nick left for Gloucester after an elderly woman was beaten to death in the hallway of his apartment building for her handbag. He’d found her lying there stone-cold dead, the other residents too scared to dial 911 for fear of being called on as witnesses.

“Nothing like Baltimore is going to happen,” I said. “Not here.”

“You’re damn right it’s not,” he said. “So give me your plan.”

“My plan for right now is to try to stop this train before it leaves the station,” I said, watching Dr. Mayburn. Nick followed my glance. I was surprised he hadn’t caught on to the danger already, but once he did, he sat bolt upright. Dr. Mayburn had risen out of his seat and seemed on the edge of making a bad decision about the loud, annoying group at the end of the bar. He took a steak knife from a place setting on the counter and held it by his side, moving the blade up and down.

“I wouldn’t do it, friend,” Nick said, sipping his drink. Dr. Mayburn was shaking with rage as he turned to us.

“Do what?” he snapped.

“It’s not worth it,” Nick said. “They’re just loud losers. Ignore them.”

Mayburn was walking toward them even before Nick finished speaking. Nick and I rounded the bar to intervene just as Dr. Mayburn thrust himself into the group, brandishing the knife at the small, lean man, whose expression was a mixture of surprise and delight.

“I’ve had enough,” Mayburn said, sneering. “I’ve had enough of you and your filth. You remorseless … cowardly … ” His rage was making it impossible for him to find the right words. “Having another baby, are you? You should be ashamed