Liar Liar - James Patterson Page 0,2

I knew that if my colleagues in the police discovered where I was, they’d try to convince me not to commit that final devastating act. The act that would mean giving up everything. My career. My life. My freedom.

And I couldn’t let them do that.

As I sat listening in the dark, I knew someone was coming.

Chapter 3

THE ROOM WAS a strange T-shape, narrow in the stem so that the end of the bed almost touched a dresser against the opposite wall. At the rear, the room turned left to an old chipboard closet and right to a moldy bathroom. The front window looked out into a parking lot stuffed with cars. I’d left the heavy curtains open a crack so that the red light from the motel’s NO VACANCY sign poured in through the lace. The light flickered as a figure passed before it. I heard the telltale blip of a police radio.

“Yeah, Command, we think we’ve got her. Have that rover stand by for our call. Over.”

Patrol officers. I could hear the squeak of their leather boots. Shadows moved under the door. Three men. Two cops and the motel’s owner, most likely. My backpack was zipped up, ready to go, as always. I’d slept fully dressed. I threw myself out of the bed and dragged on my shoes as a heavy fist began to beat on the door.

“Harry, we know you’re in there. Open up!”

I slipped the backpack on and went to the end of the T-shaped room, tucked myself into the corner by the closet, and waited. Before me, the open bathroom door, the shower and toilet beyond. I heard the jangle of the motel owner’s keys.

“Harry?” one of the officers called. “Go easy, all right?” I heard a subtle tremor in his voice.

He knew my reputation.

Chapter 4

THEY’D BEEN STUPID. The patrol cops had told the backup car to hold off, wanting to be heroes. Big men who had grabbed the snarling feral cat Harriet Blue and finally shoved her in a cage where she belonged. Their first mistake.

Their second mistake had been coming into the room and leaving the lights off, thinking they’d have a tactical advantage over me in the dark. They probably expected to catch me in my underwear, still half asleep.

Wrong. I knew the room, they didn’t, and I’d set the place up for a situation just like this. I listened as they ran into the drawers I’d left pulled out at the bottom of the bed, blocking their path forward. In the red light from the motel sign, I saw them separate as I’d hoped they would, one climbing over the bed while the other tried to shut the awkward, rickety wooden drawers. I took the small packet of soap I’d left on the carpet in front of the closet and tossed it through the bathroom door. It made a clattering sound on the toilet lid.

The first officer jumped off the bed and leaped forward at the sound, into the bathroom. I popped up, grabbed the handle of the door, and pulled it shut on him, slipping the slide bolt closed. I’d set the same trap in every motel room I’d stayed in, taking the lock from the inside of the door and screwing it onto the outside with a screwdriver I kept in my backpack. I’d never used the trap before, but now it worked like a charm. I smiled in the dark.

“Hey! Hey! What the fuck?” he yelled.

I turned, left him beating on the inside of the bathroom door, and faced the second officer, who was blocking my path to freedom.

“Don’t,” he said, his arms out, as though to catch me. “Harry, come on. Give us a break.”

I didn’t know this young officer. Didn’t want to hurt him. But I was on a mission to bring down a killer, and I would do what it took to stay free.

He was backing up toward the exit. I couldn’t let him get there. I made a leap for the bed, and that encouraged him. He came forward, grabbing at my legs while I tucked into a roll and landed on the other side of the mattress.

His arm came around my shoulders. I jutted my elbow hard into his ribs, got nowhere, kicked the wall, and shoved myself backward, propelling him onto the mattress. The shock of it was enough to loosen his grip.

The motel owner, a squat, hairy man, was standing helplessly just outside the doorway as I sprinted out into the night.

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