Liar Liar - James Patterson Page 0,24

roadblocks, but they may be too late. Local cops say the scene was only discovered because a neighbor got curious about the door standing open for a couple of hours.”

“What did they say about the scene?”

“Only that it was bad.” Whitt glanced at his partner. Heard the tremor in his own voice. “Really bad.”

Chapter 32

CUTS AND SCRAPES: I could deal with them.

The leap from the train had done something funny to the tendons in my elbow: nothing major.

The shoulder of my backpack had torn and it now hung crooked: that was all right; I’d get used to it.

But I’d left my hoodie on the train, and it was cold.

Goddamnit, I hate the cold.

The cold makes me unreasonably angry. Pair it with a strong wind, and I become near homicidal. I gathered my arms around myself and trudged, head down, through the rough, battered landscape north of Nowra station, keeping an eye on the highway in the distance. I decided overland on the isolated roads stretching between farms was the safest route. There was no need to make a spectacle of myself.

It started to rain. I ground my teeth, my fingers gripping my shoulder straps so tight, the tough fabric bit into my palms.

Regan called. I didn’t answer. I was not his plaything. He didn’t get to just call me up to whisper sadistic sweet nothings whenever he pleased. I was going to be this man’s killer. His righteous punisher. It was all I could do not to throw the phone into the dry grass of a nearby field.

After an hour of walking through farmland, my phone rang again. I had a brief moment of weakness and answered.

“Hello, shit biscuit,” I said.

“Hello, Harry,” Regan said. “What are you doing?”

“Thinking about breaking all of your fingers.” I sniffed and wiped my eyes on the back of my wrist. “With a hammer.”

“Sounds windy where you are,” he said. “Don’t catch a cold, Harry.”

“Thanks, I’ll try not to. I hope you’re snuggled up somewhere warm. Perhaps very close to a crackling fire, enjoying a steaming mug of gasoline.”

He laughed.

“What are you going to show me in Nowra?” I asked. It was quiet where he was. I pictured him sitting in a car somewhere, maybe watching me. I glanced toward the highway. A big truck lumbering slowly along. “Are we going to take a tour of your childhood family getaways? This is where baby Regan had his first swim. This is where teenage Regan disemboweled a cat.”

“I do have something to show you,” he said. “But it’s not about me. It’s about you.”

“Well, I’ve got some sad news for you,” I said. “I have no personal relationship with Nowra whatsoever. I think I might have had some excellent fish and chips here once. That’s about it.”

“We’ll see,” he said. I could hear the smile in his voice. I hesitated before I asked the next question, wondering if I would give the monster on the other end of the line any ideas.

“Does my mother live in Nowra?” I didn’t want to tempt Regan to go after my mother, though something told me that he knew she wasn’t the most important person in my life. My mother had taken $40,000 to do a magazine interview on Sam and me only days after his death in prison. She’d posed for pictures by the ocean, staring out at the waves, a single tear sliding down her drug-ravaged face. All my life, she’d been uninterested, unreliable, a junkie who popped up in my life periodically, looking for money or shelter and nothing more. I had no idea where she lived.

He gave no answer.

“Are you there?”

“I’m here,” he said. “I’m thinking. Trying to analyze your tone. Do you want your mother to die, Harry?”

“No.”

“No one would be surprised if you did,” he said. “I’ve been looking at the reports on her in your records. On your fourteenth birthday, she turned up three hours late to the McDonald’s where you were scheduled to meet. She was high as a kite, on the nod. She had a black eye, and some thug who wouldn’t give his full name was with her. She stayed for fifteen minutes, then tried to punch a DOCS worker when he accused her of being under the influence.”

“I’ve tried to punch a few DOCS workers in my life,” I reasoned.

“She did a good job of looking torn up about Sam,” Regan said. “Did she even know anything about him?”

“Sure,” I lied. “In fact, I think they were pretty close