She opened her eyes and tears spilled down her cheeks. “My daughter,” the woman said to me. “Where is she? Is she—?”
I heard the cop behind me say into the phone, “Two females; one in her forties, the other is late teens, maybe early twenties. She’s bleeding from a knife wound to her neck. Both of them are breathing.”
I said to the woman whose name I didn’t know, “Your daughter is just over there, in the bedroom. She’s going to be all right. Help is coming.”
Clasping the blanket to her body, the woman turned to see her daughter being helped to her feet.
A siren wailed. The woman reached up and pressed her damp cheek to mine. She hugged me tight with her free arm.
“It’s my fault. I screwed up,” she said. “Thank you for helping us.”
I DRAFTED BEHIND the ambulance as it sped the two assault victims through traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard toward Ocean Memorial Hospital. When the bus turned inland, I headed north until I reached Pacific Coast Highway, the stretch of road that follows the curve of the coastline and links Malibu to Santa Monica.
My Lamborghini can go from zero to ninety in ten seconds, but this car draws cops out of nowhere, even when it’s quietly humming at a red light. So, I kept to the speed limit and within twenty minutes I was in sight of home.
My house is white stucco and glass, shielded from the road by a high wall that is overgrown with vines and inset with a tall wrought-iron gate.
I stopped the car, palmed the new biometric recognition plate and the gate slid open. I pulled the Lambo into my short, tight parking spot and braked next to the blue Jag.
As the gates rolled closed behind me, I got out, locked up the car, checked for anything that didn’t belong behind the wall and within the landscaping. Then, I went up the walk to the door.
I’d bought this place with Justine Smith about five years ago. Later, after we’d broken up for the third, impossibly painful time, I bought out Justine’s share of the house. It was comfortable, convenient to my office, just right—until a year ago last May.
On that night, I came back home from a business trip abroad to find another former girlfriend, Colleen Molloy, dead in my bed, her skin still warm. She’d been shot multiple times at close range and the killer was a pro. The way he’d fixed it, all of the evidence pointed to me as the shooter.
I was charged with Colleen’s murder, jailed, and after some extraordinary work by Private investigators, I was free—if you could call it that. I still opened my door every night to an expectation that something horrible had happened here while I was out.
I put my eye up to the iris-reader beside the front door, and when the lock clacked open, I went inside.
A woman’s blue jacket and a sleek leather handbag were on a chair, and her fragrance scented the air as I walked through the main room. I followed the light coming through the house, crossed the tile floors in my gumshoes, then peered through the glass doors that opened out to the pool.
She was doing laps and didn’t see me. That was fine.
The door glided open under my hand and I went out again into the warm night. I took a chaise and as the ocean roared at the beach below, I watched her swim.
Her lovely shape was up-lit by the pool lights. Her strong arms stroked confidently through the water and her flip turns had both grace and power.
I knew this woman so well.
I trusted her with everything. I cared about her safety and her happiness. I truly loved her.
But, I was unable to see my future with her—or anyone. And that was a problem for Justine. It was why we didn’t live together. And why we’d made no long-term plans. But we had decided a couple of months ago that we were happy seeing each other casually. And, at least for now, it was working.
She reached the end of the pool and pulled herself up to the coping. Her skin glistened as light and shadow played over her taut body. She sat with her legs in the pool, leaned forward and wrung out her long, dark-brown hair.
“Hey,” I said.
She started, said, “Jack.”
Then, she grabbed a towel and wrapped herself in it, came over to the chaise and sat down beside me. She smiled.
“How long have you been sitting here?”
I put my hand behind her neck and brought her mouth to mine. I kissed her. Kissed her again. Released her and said, “I just got here. I’ve had a night you won’t believe.”
“I want to take a shower,” Justine said. “Then tell me all about it.”
THE HOT SPRAY beat down on me from six showerheads. Justine lightly placed her palms on my chest, tipped her hips against mine.
She said, “Someone needs a massage. I think that could be you.”
“Okay.”
Okay to whatever she wanted to do. It wasn’t just my car that could go from zero to ninety in ten seconds. Justine had the same effect on me.
As she rubbed shower gel between her hands, sending up the scent of pine and ginseng, she looked me up and down. “I don’t know whether to go from top to bottom or the other way around,” she said.
“Dealer’s choice,” I said.
She was laughing, enjoying her power over me, when my cell phone rang. My fault for bringing it into the bathroom, but I was expecting a call from the head of our Budapest office who said he’d try to call me between flights.
Justine said, “Here’s a joke. Don’t take the call.”
I looked through the shower doors to where my phone sat at the edge of the sink. The caller ID read Capt. L. Warren. It could only be about the rapists the cops had just arrested at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
“The joke’s on me,” I said to Justine. “But, I’ll make it quick.”
I caught the call on the third ring.
“Morgan. We’ve got problems with those pukes from Sumar,” the captain said. “They have diplomatic immunity.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
He gave me the bad news in detail, that Gozan Remari and Khezir Mazul were both senior diplomats in Sumar’s mission to the UN.
“They’re on holiday in Hollywood,” Warren told me. “I think we could ruin their good time, maybe get them recalled to the wasteland they came from, but the ladies won’t cooperate. I’m at the hospital with them, now. They wouldn’t let the docs test for sexual assault.”
“That’s not good,” I said. I put up a finger up to let Justine know I would just be a minute.
“Mrs. Grove is very grateful to you, Morgan,” the Captain was telling me. “I, uh, need a favor. I need you to talk to her.” “Sure. Put her on,” I said.
Justine turned off the water. Pulled a towel off the rack.
“She’s in a room with her daughter,” Warren said. “Listen, if you step on the gas you could be here in fifteen minutes. Talk to them face-to-face.”
I told Justine not to wait up for me.
By way of an answer, she screwed in her ear buds and took her iPod to the kitchen. She was intensely chopping onions when I left the house.
It was a twenty-minute drive to Ocean Memorial and it took me another ten to find the captain. He escorted me to a beige room furnished with two beds and a recliner.
Belinda Grove was sitting in the recliner, wearing the expensive clothes I’d last seen strewn around Bungalow Six—a black knit dress, fitted jacket, black stiletto Jimmy Choos. She’d also brushed her hair and applied red lipstick. And although I’d never met her before today, now that she’d cleaned up, I recognized her from photos in the society pages.
This was Mrs. Alvin Grove, on the board of the Children’s Museum, daughter of Palmer Tiptree of Tiptree Pharmaceuticals, and mother of two.
Now I understood. She would rather die than let anyone know what had happened to her daughter and herself.
MRS. GROVE STOOD when I came into the room, took my hands in hers, said, “Mr. Morgan, I want to thank you, again.”
“My name is Jack. Of course, you’re welcome, Mrs. Grove. How are you doing?”
“
Call me Belinda. I’m ashamed that I was so easily tricked,” she said. “We were having lunch in the Polo Lounge, my daughter and I, and we were talking about the Children’s Museum. Those monsters were at the next table and overheard us. Gozan said he had many children and would be interested in making a donation to the museum.
“Jack. They were well dressed. Well heeled. They said they were diplomats. They were staying at the hotel. Gozan said he wanted to talk about making a sizable donation to the museum, but wanted to discuss it privately.
“I ignored any warning signs. We went to the bungalow. I said that we couldn’t stay long, but a short chat would be all right. We are always looking for benefactors, Jack. They used Rohypnol or something damned close to it. It was in the champagne.”
“Don’t blame yourself. These are dangerous men.”
“I hope never to see either one of them again, unless they’re hanging by their balls over a bonfire. I don’t think that Adrianna will be physically scarred, but emotionally … Emotionally, my daughter is in terrible shape.”
“Terrible shape” was an understatement. Adrianna had been drugged, probably raped, maybe by both men, and Khezir Mazul had stroked her throat with a serrated blade. She would have a scar across her neck for as long as she lived.
I hated to think what would have happened to these women had I not been tipped off, if we hadn’t shown up when we did.
I started to reason with Mrs. Grove, explain to her that if she made a complaint, Remari and Mazul might be deported.
She shook her head, warning me off.
“My daughter is a senior at Stanford. It would be tragic if she had to leave school. What happened today is something Adrianna and I will both learn from and at the same time try to forget. That’s how one deals with horror, don’t you think?”
I said, “I’d suggest some counseling …”
She ignored me and went on. “My responsibility now is only to Adrianna, and I’m going to make sure that she has whatever she needs in order to heal.”
She stood up. “You take care, Jack. God bless. I mean that.”
Belinda Grove left the beige room with her head down, passing Captain Warren who was on his way back in.
Luke Warren and I talked together for several minutes. There were no angles to work, no strings to pull. But, there are a few cases every year that I want to work pro bono, and I thought this might become one of them.
I told the captain to call me anytime, that I would work with him, free of charge. Happy to do it.
I thought if we caught them, I could convince Mazul and Remari to leave the country for good.
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ISBN 9781473517660
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Published by Century, 2014
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Copyright © James Patterson, 2014
James Patterson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by
Century
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Hardback ISBN 9781780891729
Trade paperback ISBN 9781780891736
James Patterson, Private India
(Series: Private # 8)
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