Liar Liar - James Patterson Page 0,57

had hardly heard them. He closed his eyes and let the words come.

“Harry’s been shot at,” Whitt said.

There was a pause. Whitt heard the older officer’s strained intake of breath.

“She’s been shot?”

“Shot at,” Whitt corrected. “I don’t think she was hit. She ran off. We’ve got a new crime scene here in Bombala. It’s Regan. Harry showed up. Regan must have told her where to go. My partner discovered her, and she shot at her, and I don’t know where Harry is now.”

Pops was speaking, but Whitt’s head was pounding so hard, he couldn’t focus. He held the car for support, felt adrenaline rush through him, the Dexedrine responding to his terror.

“I think Vada should be called back to Sydney,” Whitt said. “She’s a good officer. But I think she’s in the wrong frame of mind about Harry, and—”

“Vada who?” Pops thundered. “Who the fuck is this person?”

Whitt felt his skin grow cold.

“Vada Reskit,” Whitt said. “She’s from North Sydney metro. Woods assigned her.”

More silence. Whitt’s jaw was clenched so tight, his teeth clicked.

“She said you’d approved the assignment,” he offered.

“I’ve never heard of her,” Pops said. “I didn’t approve the assignment of any new officers to this case. What did you say her name was again?”

Whitt was about to answer when the phone was taken from his hand. He turned and watched Vada end the call, her features sharp and pale in the light of the screen. He would have reached out to stop her, snatch the phone back, but the gun in her hand was pointed right at his belly.

She lifted her eyes to him, and they were the tired, sad eyes of someone well-versed in betrayal.

“Get in the car, Whitt,” Vada said.

Chapter 71

THE FOREST WAS ALIVE.

As I’d run from the crime scene, there had been no time to consider what Whitt’s partner shooting at me had meant. I’d simply fled.

I didn’t know how far I’d come. The land beneath me sloped downward and then flattened, the thick bush receding suddenly at the edge of a pine plantation. I lay down beneath a tree and waited, panting, for the inevitable return of the pain in my calf, the sensation kept at bay by the adrenaline surging through my veins.

“Shit,” I seethed, dragging the shuddering limb toward me, tentatively pulling up the blood-soaked leg of my jeans. I wiped away handfuls of blood. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

It was a graze, but a deep one. The bullet had entered the back of my calf, heading diagonally through the flesh, tearing away a hole in the meat the size of my pinkie finger. I pulled my jacket off, sweat pouring down my chest and ribs, thinking I’d have to remove a sleeve for a bandage. The air was misting in front of my mouth as I breathed. I unzipped and emptied the backpack on a whim, hoping I wouldn’t have to sacrifice my much-needed warmth to patch the wound.

There, at the bottom of the bag, a Ziploc first-aid kit with a roll of cotton bandages.

“Melina,” I moaned. “Melina, you fucking champion.”

I rolled the bandage around the wound tightly, making soft, whiny sounds at the pain. The limb felt hot and numb now, the nerves shocked or dead. More pain would come later, I knew. When I had fixed the wound, I lay on the damp ground and looked at the sky between the black spears of branches above me.

I slept. When I woke, it was dark. I lay trying to decide where I was, how tight I still held my grip on reality.

Like clockwork, my phone rang, startling something big and wild hiding in the forest nearby that had probably drawn forward by the smell of my blood and the sound of my whining. I answered the phone, packing my bag again, the precious body heat I’d gained in the run now gone and my limbs starting to shake.

“Harry,” Regan said.

“I’ve made a decision,” I told him.

Chapter 72

HE WAS SMILING. I could hear it in his voice.

“What’s your decision?” he asked.

“When I find you,” I said, “I’m going to shoot you in the leg. You deserve to have all the pain you’ve caused to others inflicted back on you. I’m going to start there, and I’m going to continue shooting until you’re just a pile of broken bones and bloodied flesh.”

“You have a very graphic mind,” he said. “I enjoy hearing your little violent fantasies. I really do. I have my own ones. You’ve been able to see some of them.”

“Lucky me,”