Liar Liar - James Patterson Page 0,36

stand down.” Whitt stepped around Swartout. The young woman was still trying to drag Christopher off the driver, until he shoved her, almost knocking her to the ground.

“Let him go!” Whitt snarled.

The blow was sudden. Even Whitt didn’t see it coming. As he balled his fist, his arm seemed to move of its own volition, as though a trigger had been pulled. He swung up and punched Officer Dunner in the side of the face, a direct hit in the right temple, splitting the flesh. Whitt hadn’t punched anyone in more than a decade. It seemed to be over before it began, the shock reverberating through his arm, shoulder, chest. The officer flopped onto the concrete, releasing the young man he’d pinned to the bonnet of the car.

Whitt’s head spun. He staggered back, blinking. There had been no decision to hit the officer, no warning from inside his brain. He’d just done it, like a muscle reflex.

He saw Vada running toward him from the end of the bridge. His heart was hammering. Officer Swartout was coming forward. Vada got between them.

The young couple from the car were clutching each other, staring in horror at the collapsed officer on the ground.

Vada had Whitt’s arm and was leading him toward their vehicle, throwing apologies and excuses over her shoulder.

“You’re shaking,” she said to Whitt. “Edward, what happened? Are you okay?”

He couldn’t answer. Didn’t have an explanation to offer her. The officer he’d slugged was slowly waking, trying to stand with the help of his partner. Whitt slid into the passenger seat and covered his face with his hands.

“I’ve messed up,” he said. “I’ve messed up bad.”

“I know,” Vada said.

“I’m…” He looked at her. Didn’t have the strength to say it. “I’m…”

“I know,” she said again. He was off his head, had been for days. She knew it. Of course she knew it. She shut the door on him, and Whitt grabbed for his leather satchel that was lying on the back seat. He needed to even out. He was scaring himself.

He pulled a hip flask from the front pocket of the bag.

Chapter 45

STAN THE TRUCK DRIVER dropped me at a roadside bar and walked inside, giving me a dirty look and saying nothing as he pushed through the doors. The rain was easing. It would be up to me to find another ride, but my confidence faltered at the sight of the bar’s crowded interior. There were many people here, men and women dressed alike in high-vis outfits, grabbing lunch, some cracking balls on pool tables at the back of the room. Some people were in suits, tucked into booths, and there were rowdy groups of road workers who’d had their workday canceled by the rain. There was one waitress letting empty schooner glasses stack up on the end of the counter while she talked to a fat man sagging over the edge of his stool.

I went to the bar, cagey about showing the small stack of money tucked into the pocket of my jeans, making sure I didn’t meet eyes with the bartender from under my cap.

“Bourbon, neat.”

“House is fine?” he asked.

“Anything’s fine.”

One drink, just to warm up and calm my nerves after the close call at the roadblock. I sat at the bar and listened to the coverage of Bonnie Risdale’s murder on the round-the-clock news channel on the television in the distant corner of the room, hardly able to hear it over Cold Chisel playing from the jukebox and the chorus of men at the front of the bar singing along. I thought I heard Whitt’s voice, but by the time I looked up, he was off the screen again.

“You been out walking?” the bartender asked as he handed me my drink. I realized I was still wet from trekking along beside the highway. The bottoms of my jeans were splattered with mud. I shrugged, didn’t offer an answer.

“Is that Old Stan you came in with?”

“Leave her alone, Brian,” someone said. “She’s clearly had a rough morning.”

I hadn’t even noticed the women at my side. The one who had come to my defense and her partner were much alike in fashion sense, though one was tall and lanky and the other a short, dumpy version hunched over a phone screen. The lanky one was wearing a denim jacket long ago torn at the shoulder and sleeve, revealing an arm full of tattoos that went with the studs in her bottom lip. She was pierced all up her ears. Her