Liar Liar - James Patterson Page 0,59

do I go next?” I asked him. “You’re taking me somewhere that’s important to you, aren’t you? You said I’d understand you when we met. When will this end, Regan? Just tell me.”

“This is about me, Harry,” he said. “But it’s also about you.” There was an odd pause, the phone going silent, as though he’d taken it away from his mouth and I couldn’t hear his breathing any longer. When he returned, his voice had gone up an octave. Excited.

“Things may be moving faster than I’d planned,” he said.

Chapter 73

THEY DROVE. WHITT focused on the lines on the road, the wheel in his hands something to hang on to when all else seemed to be falling away. He was hyperaware of the gun in Vada’s hand, still pointed at his belly. He swigged from the bottle of Jack he had kept in the car since they’d left Sydney. She didn’t seem to mind him drinking. He wasn’t going to crash on the back roads they took between the fields, at a carefully chosen speed she wouldn’t allow him to exceed. The directions that came from her were softly spoken, the same intimate tone she’d used when she’d been in his arms in the motel bed, her lips against his ear.

She’d been so tender. So reassuring in those moments as he moved inside her. Now she was the same. Tender, but lethal. Walking him gently toward his death. They pulled over as she directed, and she took his cuffs from his belt. As she leaned in toward him, he could smell the familiar scent of her body. So strange to twitch in terror at her touch now when it had given him such pleasure only a day earlier.

“Vada,” he said, breaking the heavy silence. “Vada, let’s talk.”

She cuffed his wrists to the car’s steering wheel, took the keys from the ignition, and closed the car door behind her. Whitt watched her walk to the back of the car. She had taken out her phone. He twisted awkwardly and tried to listen through the back window, which was slightly ajar.

“But I need you to come,” Vada was saying, her voice smaller, frailer than Whitt had ever heard it. “Why not? Where are you? I can’t…I can’t do it myself again. The first time, the cop in the records room drew his gun and I could…I could do it then because I needed to. I can do it again but I’ve been with Edward three days. Just this time. Regan, please.”

There was a long pause. Whitt listened to the wind.

“He’s definitely the best choice,” Vada said. “He’s the closest person to her now.”

Whitt twisted and watched Vada’s shape in the dark. Her arms were hugged around herself.

“It’s almost over,” she said. “You promise? After this, it’s over.”

Chapter 74

WHEN SHE GOT into the car again, her cheeks were rosy from the cold. She uncuffed him and ordered him to continue driving. After a time impossible to measure, Whitt broke through the sizzling tension.

“Karmichael and Fables,” he said.

She sighed.

“You went in through the car park.” Whitt shuddered. “You shot them both. You took the file, and you fled into the building rather than back out. You passed me in the dark in the hallway. I smelled the gunpowder.”

“Whitt,” she said gently, “stay on the road.”

He steered the wandering car back toward the center of the dirt road. The headlights rolled over a group of cows resting under a tree.

“You didn’t have a swipe card that next morning, the day after we met.” He swigged the bourbon. “I didn’t even notice. I never saw your badge. No one ever questioned your presence. Everyone must have just assumed you were meant to be there. But you’re not a cop. Of course you aren’t. You didn’t know how to unjam your pistol when you—”

“Whitt.”

“That’s how he’s got around all the roadblocks. That’s how he avoided the searches. You’ve been his eyes and ears on the ground.”

“This isn’t helpful,” she said. He glanced at her. Her eyes were so dark, the whites looked pale blue.

“You must have been terrified,” Whitt said. “At any moment, I could have mentioned you to Woods or Morris and it would all have been over, the whole charade.”

“I was terrified,” she admitted. Her face was expressionless. She said the words like she was reporting the time.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Vada Reskit.” She turned to face the windscreen. Whitt thought about grabbing the gun. Was the safety off? He couldn’t see. “Regan was my patient.”

Whitt