Liar Liar - James Patterson Page 0,10

FACS woman unloading the tire from the boot. The keys were in her handbag on the passenger seat. I snuck away as the sound of another female voice came from the phone’s speaker.

“Just call roadside service! There’s a serial killer running around out there, haven’t you heard?”

“Why do you think I called you, Mum?” The FACS woman sighed. “If you hear me scream, you’ll know he’s got me. Hang up and call the police.”

“Maria, if I hear you scream, I’m gonna have a stroke!”

The key to the back door of the FACS building was the biggest and thickest on the key ring. I closed the door quietly behind me and stood in the dark, listening. It had been nearly two decades since I had been here, but it smelled the same. Baby powder and sterilized plastic toys, soiled nappies, and sour milk. In the hall were posters with happy, smiling teddy bears and elaborately illustrated dinosaurs giving advice on how to be brave if you’re feeling scared. How nobody should ever make you keep a secret. How the police and your care workers were to be trusted above all others, how they would always keep you safe.

Bullshit.

I passed a wall displaying domestic-violence pamphlets and rounded the corner of a service desk.

Behind it I found the computer still turned on and gritted my teeth at the password system, until I found a Post-it note on a nearby shelf with the login details helpfully written out. I logged in and went straight to a record search. I realized how sweaty my hands were when I began to type in Regan’s name.

The sound of my phone ringing in the silence made me yelp. I looked instinctively back toward the hall that led to the rear door, expecting to see Maria the FACS worker standing there, drawn by the noise. No one had the number of this phone. I’d never heard it ring, never bothered to turn the sound off. I assured myself it was some kind of mistake and rejected the call. But as I was switching the phone to silent, it rang again.

“Hello?” I answered.

“It’s me,” Regan said.

Chapter 15

IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE that it was him. This number was unlisted, untraceable, unobtainable by anyone but the man in Kings Cross who I’d bought it from.

It was impossible that he would call to speak to me, after everything he had done to me and my brother and my friends. Impossible that I would know it was him, having never heard his voice.

But I did know. It was him. Every cell in my body confirmed it. I couldn’t speak. My hands shaking, tears already rising, I threw the phone from my ear as though it were red hot and scrabbled with it on the counter, fumbling for the button to hang up.

I was panting. Making faint whimpering sounds. Regan’s name was on the computer screen in front of me, his voice still in my brain, searing itself into my memory.

It’s me. I’m back. I’ve found you, Harry.

The phone rang again. The computer screen went dark, timed out. I caught a glimpse of my own horrified face, lips trembling.

“Get a grip, bitch,” I snarled at my reflection.

I grabbed the phone and answered.

Chapter 16

I DIDN’T LET him speak this time. I hadn’t known I had anything I wanted to say to Regan Banks, but apparently there was plenty. I squeezed the phone so that the plastic creaked with the pressure, and I spewed vitriol at him down the line. I called him every name I could think of, trying with each new sentence to make him understand how much I hated him, what a vile and worthless creature he was. Slowly I realized that the words were weak. Nothing I said came close to expressing what I felt. I gasped for breath at the end of my tirade, rounding it off in the only way I knew how.

“So fuck you,” I said. “Fuck. You. Regan. Banks.”

“Harriet,” he said, after giving me time to regain my composure, which I failed to do, “that was some impressive speech.”

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t going to take his bait, acknowledge a compliment from the man who had ruined my life. I woke the computer, hit the search button, and started running through the findings, the phone wedged between my ear and shoulder.

“Your brother called you Harry,” Regan said. His voice was heavy, slow. Unflappable. “Can I call you that?”

“You better call me the Grim Reaper, arsehole,” I said. “Because I’m going