Liar Liar - James Patterson Page 0,66

hear you were suspended from this case?” Tox said. “Aren’t I working for Woods now?”

“You’re not working for anyone!” Pops growled. “You’re on medical leave!”

“I’m confused. You just gave me a direct order.”

Tox heard a harsh exhalation on the end of the line. He smiled and hung up the phone. The next number he called he knew by heart. It was like that for many of his contacts—having a list of numbers saved in a phone seemed like asking for trouble. Al Cerullo answered with a grunt.

“Oh, great.” The parole officer sighed when Tox greeted him. “What have I done now?”

“I wonder if it’s ironic that you work in a prison and you’re the guiltiest man I know,” Tox said. “I’m calling about the Reskit woman.”

Tox could hear the fat, thick-throated man shift in his worn leather desk chair, picture him in his little green box in the heart of Long Bay Correctional Complex. Last time Tox had come calling, he’d noticed that the parole officer’s workspace was just a converted old concrete cell, the small slit of a window still covered with clouded plexiglass. Depressing.

“Every man and his dog has been calling about her,” Al said. “All day the phones all over the complex have been jammed up by press from every corner of the goddamn country. I just spoke to some guy from Kimba. Where the fuck is Kimba?”

“South Australia,” Tox said. “They’ve got the Big Galah there.”

“I could have told you this was going to happen. All shrinks are nutjobs themselves, and you put them in with the psycho killers and they get converted. I’ve also been saying for decades they shouldn’t let women work in here,” Al said. “They get the crims all antsy. I remember when it was an all-male crew. Place was like a yoga camp.”

“Sure. Except for that riot in ’81, of course,” Tox said. “And the one in ’87. And the cell block fire in 1990. And—”

“You know what I mean, arsehole.”

“I need you to get me access to Vada Reskit’s work email.”

“Forget it. I’ve gotta tell you what I’ve been telling people all day: No comment. We’ve all been instructed not to cooperate with anyone on Reskit. The warden’s working with the police. If people call, we’re supposed to hang up.”

“Why didn’t you hang up on me?” Tox asked.

“Because…I like you?”

“Really? Huh!” Tox said. “I thought maybe it was because you’re still scared of me after I slammed your head in the door of your own Camry. You remember that? It was just after I found out you were texting nudie pictures back and forth with that seventeen-year-old.”

Al made an uncomfortable noise.

“How is the divorce going, by the way?”

“It’s fine,” Al murmured.

“You’re going to get me into that email account, aren’t you?” Tox said.

“Yes, I am,” Al said.

“I thought you would.” Tox lit another cigarette.

Chapter 83

DARKNESS DESCENDED.

I walked, my leg now worryingly numb, slowly working through the snacks Melina had put in the bag for me. Regan’s message came, and with it the place of our meeting. I still didn’t know when I would be able to find Regan there. He’d said I would realize soon enough. Was he leading me somewhere to wait hopelessly for him while he picked off more of the people I loved? When I thought about his attempt to target Whitt, my whole body burned. Edward Whittacker had given up his entire life on the other side of the country to help me try to save my brother. With Vada’s help, Regan had searched through my world to find someone who I held as evidence that I was not all bad. If someone as sweet and as wholesome as Whitt could accept me, I had hope. Regan wanted to strip away that layer of me. The rage rattled in my bones at the thought of what I had almost lost.

At the corners of my mind, Regan’s plan was creeping, a shadow falling slowly. I considered that if he’d been successful in taking Whitt from me, Regan would have snuffed out a flame I’d tried to protect. Some people liked me. But take away those few deeply flawed individuals, and what was I left with? Only badness. A selfishness, callousness, aloofness that was inherent in my character, that was undeniably bad.

Take away the few good moments from my childhood, and what was left there?

Badness.

Take away the work I did for the women who came to me in my job, battered and bruised and looking for justice, and…

No.

I