Private

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  Copyright

  Copyright © 2010 by James Patterson

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

  www.twitter.com/littlebrown.

  First eBook Edition: June 2010

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN: 978-0-316-10203-2

  Contents

  Copyright

  Prologue: “YOU’RE DEAD, JACK”

  One

  Two

  Part One: FIVE YEARS LATER, AND ALL GOING ACCORDING TO PLAN

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Part Two: NUMBER THIRTEEN

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Part Three: WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Part Four: SHOOTER

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Epilogue: IT’S A WRAP

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  Books by James Patterson

  To Suzie and John, Brendan and Jack

  Prologue

  “YOU’RE DEAD, JACK”

  One

  TO THE BEST OF my understandably shaky recollection, the first time I died it went something like this.

  Mortar rounds were thumping all around me, releasing what sounded like a shower of razor blades. I was carrying Marine Corporal Danny Young over my shoulder, and I loved this guy. He was the toughest soldier I’d ever fought beside, funny as hell, and best of all, he was hopeful—his wife back in West Texas was pregnant with their fourth kid.

  Now his blood bubbled down my flight suit, splashing on my boots like water from a drainpipe.

  I ran across rocky ground in the dark, and I choked out to Danny, “I’ve got you; I’ve got you. Just stay with me, you hear me?”

  I lowered him to the ground a few yards away from the helicopter, and suddenly there was a concussive explosion, as though the ground had blown up around me. I felt a stunning hammer strike to my chest, and that was the end.

  I died. I passed to the other side. I don’t even know how long I was gone.

  Del Rio told me later that my heart had stopped.

  I just remember swimming up to the light, and the pain, and the awful reek of aviation fuel.

  My eyes flashed open and there was Del Rio in my face, his hands pressing down on my chest. He laughed when my eyes opened—and at the same time tears ran down his cheeks. He said, “Jack, you son of a bitch, you’re back.”

  A dense curtain of oily black smoke rolled over us. Danny Young lay right there beside me, his legs splayed at weird angles, and behind Del Rio was the helicopter, burning bright white, getting ready to blow.

  My buddies were still in there. My friends. Guys who had risked their lives for me.

  I choked out a few words. “We’ve got to get them out of there.”

  Del Rio tried his best to hold me down, but I used an elbow to swing at his jaw, and connected. He fell back and I got away from him, started running toward the fallen bird just as its magnesium skin caught fire.

  There were Marines in there, and I had to get them out.

  The fearsome chunk-a chunk-a chunk of fifty-caliber machine gun ammo hammered. Ordnance exploded inside the aircraft. Del Rio shouted, “Get down, asshole. Jack, get the hell down!”

  I felt all of his hundred and ninety pounds as he tackled me to the ground, and the helicopter disappeared in white-hot flames. I wasn’t dead, but a lot of my friends were. I swear to God, I would have traded myself for them.

  I guess that says a lot about me, and I’m not so sure that all of it is good. You’ll see, and you can be the judge.

  Sit back; it’s a long story but a good one.

  Two

  IT WAS TWO YEARS after I got back from Afghanistan and the war. I hadn’t seen my father in over a year, h
ad no reason or desire to see him again. But when he called, he said he had something important to tell me. He said it was urgent and that it was going to change my life.

  My father was a manipulative, lying bastard, but he’d hooked me, so there I was, walking through the forbidding visitors’ gate of California State Prison at Corcoran.

  Ten minutes later, I took a seat at the Plexiglas partition as he came into the cubicle on the other side and grinned at me, showing his gappy teeth. He had been handsome once; now he looked like Harrison Ford on meth.

  He grabbed the phone, and I did the same on my side of the partition.

  “You’re looking good, Jack. Life must be agreeing with you.”

  I said, “You’ve lost weight.”

  “The food here is for rats, son.”

  My father picked up where he had left off the last time I’d seen him. Telling me how there were no gentleman crooks anymore, just punks. “They kill a clerk at a Stop-N-Go. Turn a robbery into a life sentence—for what? A hundred bucks?”

  Listening to him made my head hurt and my back and neck stiffen. He ragged on blacks and Hispanics for being stupid, and here he was, serving life for extortion and murder. Same time, same place as the punks. I felt ashamed for all of the years I’d spent looking up to him, turning myself inside out to get an “Atta boy, Jack” instead of the back of his hand.

  “Tell you what, Tom,” I said. “I’ll have a chat with the warden. See if I can get you transferred to the Bel-Air or the Beverly Wilshire.”

  He laughed. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

  I finally smiled. “You never change.”

  He shrugged and grinned back at me. “Why should I, Jack?”

  I noticed new tats on my father’s knuckles. My name was on his left hand, my brother’s name on the right. He used to knock us around with those fists, what he called “the old one-two.” I drummed my fingers on the ledge.

  “Am I boring you?” he asked.

  “Hell, no. I parked my car in front of a hydrant.”

  My father laughed again, said, “I look at you, I see myself. When I was an idealist.”

  Narcissistic SOB. He still thought he was my idol, which couldn’t have been further from the truth.

  “Jack, let me ask you a serious question. You like working for that useless, pathetic hack Pinkus PI?”

  “Prentiss. I’ve learned a lot from him. I’m happy. It’s a job I’m good at.”

  “You’re wasting your time, Jack. And I’ve got a better offer.” He made sure he had my attention, then said, “I want you to take over Private.”

  I guess he’d gotten to the part that was supposed to change my life.

  “Dad. Remember? All that’s left of Private are a lot of file cabinets in a storage unit.”

  “You’re going to get a package tomorrow,” my father continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “It’s a list of all my clients—and the dirt I had on them. There’s also a document putting your name on my bank account in the Caymans,” he said. “Fifteen million dollars, Jack. All yours. Do with it what you will.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Private had once done first-class investigation for movie stars, politicians, multimillionaires, even the White House. My dad had charged the maximum for his services. But fifteen million? How had he earned that much, and did I really want to know?

  “What’s the catch, right?” he said. “Simple. Don’t tell your twin about the money. Anything I ever gave him he snorted or gambled. This is your birthright, Jack. I’m trying to do the right thing for once in my life.”

  “Did you hear me say that I’m happy at Prentiss?” I said.

  “I wish you could see your face, Jack. Listen to me. Stop being the ‘good twin’ for half a frickin’ second and think this through. There’s no such thing as good money and bad money. It’s all the same. Just a medium of exchange. And this is an opportunity, a big one. Fifteen million dollars’ worth of opportunity.

  “I want Private to be remembered as the best. You’re a smart, good-looking kid, and on top of that, you’re a frickin’ war hero. Bring Private back to life. Do it for me, and more important, do it for yourself. Don’t talk yourself out of a really good thing. Make Private the best in the world. You have the money, the talent—and the compassion—so do it.”

  A guard put a hand on my dad’s shoulder. He hung on to the phone, looked at me with a kind of tenderness I hadn’t seen since I was five or six, and said, “Have the life you deserve, Jack. Do great things.” He touched the glass with his palm, then turned away.

  A week after my visit to Corcoran, Tom Morgan took a shank to the liver. Three days later, my father was dead.

  Part One

  FIVE YEARS LATER, AND ALL GOING ACCORDING TO PLAN

  Chapter 1

  PEOPLE TRUST ME with their secrets, and I’m not exactly sure why. It must be something in my face, probably my eyes. Guinevere Scott-Evans had taken a chance and trusted me with her life and career a couple of months back.

  Now she gripped my hand as I helped her out of my dark blue Lamborghini. She moved her narrow hips demurely, straightening out the black dress that fit her perfectly. She was gorgeous, an A-list movie star who was also genuinely funny and smart enough to have graduated from Vanderbilt.

  I was Guin’s date tonight for the Golden Globe Awards, her way of thanking me for tailing her rocker husband, who, it turned out, had been cheating on her with another man.

  Guin was grieving, I knew, but she had her game face on for the Globes. She wanted to be seen tonight with a hunk—her word—and I could tell she also wanted to feel desirable.

  “This’ll be fun, Jack,” she said, squeezing my fingers. “We’re at a great table. Everybody from Columbia Pictures, plus Matt, of course.”

  Guin was up for best supporting actress for a love story she’d made with Matt Damon. I thought she had a chance to win; I certainly hoped so. I liked Guin a lot.

  The fans out front of the Beverly Hilton were enjoying the pregame warm-up, calling out Guin’s name as we headed up the rope line, cameras snapping away. A fan pointed her phone at me, asking me if I was somebody.

  I laughed. “Are you kidding? I’m just arm candy.”

  Guin let go of my hand to embrace Ryan Seacrest, who pulled her into the spotlight. The fans wanted her, but she put her arm around my waist and brought me into the shot at her side.

  Seacrest went with it, admired the cut of my tux and asked my name. His brow wrinkled as he tried to figure out if he knew me—and then Scarlett Johansson arrived, said “Hi, Jack”—and Guin and I were shooed along the red carpet that ran through the gauntlet of bleachers up to the entrance of the Beverly Hilton.

  Wrong time for my cell phone to ring.

  “Don’t take it, Jack,” Guin said. “You’re off duty. You’re mine for tonight, okay?” Her smile dimmed, and worry shadowed her beautiful features. “Okay, Jack?”

  I glanced at the caller ID. “This’ll just take a second.”

  The caller was Andy Cushman, and I couldn’t believe it. Andy was a rock, but the voice on the phone was strained to breaking with tears.

  “Jack. I need you to come to the house. I need you here right now.”

  “Andy, this is not a good time. Trust me, it isn’t. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Shelby. She’s dead, Jack.”

  Chapter 2

  DEAD? HOW COULD Shelby be dead? There had to be some mistake. But how could there be?

  I was the one who had introduced Shelby to Andy. I was best man at their wedding less than six months ago. I’d had dinner with them last week at Musso and Frank. Andy told me they were going to name their first kid Jack. Not John or Jackson, just Jack.

  Had Shelby suffered a heart attack—at her age? Had there been a car accident? Andy hadn’t said, but he was devastated. And what hurt Andy hurt me.

  I stuffed a wad of bills into the valet’s hand, escorted a visibly upset Guin to the ballroom with apologies, and handed her over to Matt Damo
n. When I got back out to the street, my car was waiting.

  I was in shock as I sped toward the Cushmans’ home in my over-the-top sports car. The car was a gift from a client whose terrible secret I kept. When it wasn’t in the shop for repairs, it was a cop magnet.

  I slowed as I entered the Bluffs section of Pacific Palisades, the heavily patrolled village of small shops and homes within walking distance of the ocean. Ten minutes later, I braked in Andy’s circular driveway.

  Dusk was coming on. There were no lights on in the house, and the front door was wide open, the frame splintered.

  Was an intruder in the house? I doubted it, but I took my gun out of the glove box before I went in through the open door.

  Three years in the pilot’s seat of a CH-46 during wartime had sharpened my visual acuity. I was adept at doing vigilant instrument scans, and then, in the next second, checking the ground for movement, dust, smoke, reflections, human outlines, or flashes of light.

  As an investigator, I had another practical application for my somewhat unusual ability to pick out anomalies. I could look at a scene and almost instantly see what was out of place: a random speck of blood, a ding on a painted wall, a hair on a shag carpet.

  As I entered the Cushmans’ house, I scanned the living room for any signs of disturbance. The cushions were neat. Rugs were straight. Books and paintings were all in place.

  I called Andy’s name and he answered, “Jack? Jack. I’m in the bedroom. Please come.”

  I kept my gun, a custom Kimber .45, drawn as I went through the airy rooms to the master bedroom in its own wing in back.

  I felt for the switches by the doorway and threw on the lights. Andy was sitting on the side of the bed, hunched over, holding his head in bloodstained hands.

  Jesus Christ! What had happened here?

  Unlike the living room, the bedroom looked as though it had been tossed by a tornado. Lamps and picture frames were smashed. The television had been ripped from the wall, but the cord was still plugged in.

  Shelby’s clothes, shoes, and underwear had been flung haphazardly around the room. Oh, Jesus. Jesus Christ!

  Shelby was lying naked and very dead, face-up, in the center of the bed.

  I tried to take it all in, but it was impossible to comprehend. Shelby had been shot through the forehead. From where her blood had pooled on the pale satin sheets, it looked like she’d taken a second shot in the chest.