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Epub ISBN: 9781786530998
Version 1.0
Published by BookShots 2017
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Copyright © James Patterson 2017
Cover photography © Trevillion
The BookShots name and logo are a trademark of JBP Business, LLC.
James Patterson has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and descriptions of events are the products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons is entirely coincidental
First published by BookShots in 2017
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ISBN 9781786530981
JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. His books have sold in excess of 325 million copies worldwide and he has been the most borrowed author in UK libraries for the past nine years in a row. He is the author of some of the most popular series of the past two decades – the Alex Cross, Women’s Murder Club, Detective Michael Bennett and Private novels – and he has written many other number one bestsellers including romance novels and stand-alone thrillers.
James is passionate about encouraging children to read. Inspired by his own son who was a reluctant reader, he also writes a range of books for young readers including the Middle School, I Funny, Treasure Hunters, House of Robots, Confessions and Maximum Ride series. James is the proud sponsor of the World Book Day Award and has donated millions in grants to independent bookshops. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.
Harry Posehn is the best dad, the best husband… well, maybe not.
Detective Teaghan Beaumont is getting closer and closer to discovering the truth about Harry Posehn. But there’s a twist that she – and you, dear reader – will never see coming.
What you are holding in your hands right now is no ordinary book, it’s a BookShot.
BookShots are page-turning stories by James Patterson and other writers that can be read in one sitting.
Each and every one is fast-paced, 100% story-driven; a shot of pure entertainment guaranteed to satisfy.
Available as new, compact paperbacks, ebooks and audio, everywhere books are sold.
I LOVE MY family. Truly, madly, deeply. But some days I could just …
Hey, I don’t want to complain. It just gets hectic sometimes. What am I saying? It’s hectic all of the time. Like when you’re wrangling dinner for three hungry children, none of whom like to eat the same thing.
For instance, last month our oldest, Jordan, decided he was a vegetarian. It was family movie night, and we’d put in Bambi. Safe choice, right? Hah. When Jordan asked why that mean hunter shot Bambi’s mother, we told him the truth (we always tell our kids the truth): the hunter was gathering food for his family.
Well, poor Jordie looked at us, looked down at the cheeseburger on his tray, then looked up at us again and said, “They ate Bambi’s mother?!” And that was the end of meat for our oldest boy.
Our middle child, Jonathan, will only eat protein in nugget form. He doesn’t care if it’s processed or organic or even made of Bambi’s mother. If it’s a breaded nugget, he’ll eat it. And nothing else.
As for our sweet baby Jennifer … well, she insists on feeding herself and the food usually goes everywhere except in her mouth. Her high chair ends up looking like a crime scene. It would be easier to drape yellow tape across it than to wipe it all down.
Somehow I manage to get enough nutrients into their young bodies to sustain life another twelve hours (that is to say, until breakfast), help the two older boys with their baths, hose down our baby girl in the kitchen sink, squeeze them all into jammies, crack open the adventures of Babar, Lord of the Elephant Kingdom, for story time, and then finally, at long last … bedtime.
But my day’s not over. You’re forgetting about the crime scene in the kitchen.
After sorting the dishes and wiping down all surfaces and taking Jennifer’s high chair to a toxic-waste dump (where it will be buried for at least fifty-eight years before becoming safe for human contact), I gather up the trash and recycling and walk them out to the plastic bins behind our town house.
We’re lucky enough to live a stone’s throw from beautiful Fairmount Park and the Schuylkill River. Sometimes I put the kids in their coats and take them down to the river to watch the regatta teams pull and push their way around.
But proximity to the park means you get all kinds of critters creeping out of the woods. Such as squirrels, which love to gnaw at our plastic garbage bins. Fun fact: squirrels were first introduced to American parks right here in Philadelphia back in 1847. Someone decided that visitors to Franklin Square would be amused by the little buggers, so they released three of them, along with some food and nesting boxes.
Well, I’m sure squirrels were jolly fun back then, but today their descendants are brazen little jerks that chew through industrial-grade plastic to get to our garbage.
Which reminds me. I should have one by now.
I walk downstairs to our finished basement, and sure enough, there’s a nut-brown squirrel angrily shrieking and bouncing around the wire cage. Well, Mr. Bushy Tail, maybe you shouldn’t be breaking into people’s garbage bins? After pulling on the rubber gloves and slipping on the breathing mask, I carry the squirrel to the back room with the furnace and the hot-water heater.
Once I close the door, the room is perfectly sealed; there’s no way anything can escape—not even air. Which is the idea.
I turn the nozzle and listen to the gentle hiss. It’s incredibly soothing. Mr. Bushy Tail has no idea what’s about to happen to him.
Which is also the idea.
TEAGHAN BEAUMONT HOLDS her baby boy and runs through her options.
She’s already changed his diaper—twice. Offered him the breast, but he twisted away, grumpy. Given him a few drops of simethicone, in case he was suffering from gas pains. Nope. Perhaps he’s overtired? Yeah, well, so is Teaghan. Join the club, kid.
Baby Christopher wails on and on, despite her strolling the length of their apartment with him nestled on her shoulder, cooing to him, singing to him. Though maybe Teaghan should stop that; her husband always says she couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.
“It’ll be okay, tough guy,” Teaghan murmurs over the baby’s pitiful screams. “It’ll be okay.” She’s not sure if she’s reassuring her son or herself.
It’s 3:00 a.m., and in five hours Teaghan will have to return to the Job after six long, wonderful, wearying weeks of maternity leave. Technically, she’s allowed eight weeks, but their savings account doesn’t care about technicalities. They need her paycheck now.
Her husband, Charlie, is a freelance writer, and his paychecks come sporadically at best. And during these past six weeks, Teaghan doesn’t think he’s opened his laptop once. Not that she blames him. How could he concentrate on work when he has a beautiful new son in their apartment?
Charlie has always wanted a family, having grown up in a house full of rambunctious kids raised by loving, supportive parents. Teaghan’s experience was somewhat, um, different, to put it lightly. Sure, a big family sounded fine in the abstract. Something to look forward to someday. In the meantime, though, Teaghan’s Job was everything. Hell, she had a hard enough time fitting her husband into her schedule.
But Charlie reminded her that time was running out, and Teaghan knew he was right. Talk about a biological raw deal. Men could technically father a child well into their nineties, but forty-year-old women attempting to carry a child are considered “high risk.” The phrase always bugged Teaghan. High risk? As if the contents of her uterus might explode?
“It’s okay, little one,” she murmurs. “It’s okay. Your mommy might be losing her mind, but I promise, you’ll be fine.”
His cries bounce off the upstairs walls of their duplex brownstone apartment. Her childless hipster neighbors upstairs must be loving this.
Despite her advanced age of thirty-six, Teaghan gave birth to a healthy baby boy with ten fingers and ten toes and an amazingly powerful set of lungs. (Boy, can he yell.) Teaghan, however, didn’t fare as well. She was forced to have an emergency C-section, which made her feel like an invalid and look like Frankenstein’s monster from the neck down. She can’t move without a surprising new pain popping up to say hello. And aside from the C-section scar, nobody told her about the swollen-breasts thing. Whoa, Nellie. They hurt even if someone glances at them.
But worst of all—and this is the thing that Teaghan never expected—she doesn’t know how she’s going to be able to leave her baby boy for eight or ten hours.
Separation anxiety has never been a thing in her life. She’s never felt homesick. Sure, she loves her goofy husband, but if their paths don’t cross for a few days, that’s perfectly fine.
But the idea of handing her baby over and saying, See ya in time for dinner feeding, kid … it just feels insanely wrong. Every cell in her body seems to be screaming NO! STAY HOME WITH HIM!
But her time is up.
She walks baby Chris downstairs to their bedroom—in their carved-out piece of an old brownstone mansion, the living room and kitchen are upstairs, and the two bedrooms are in the basement. She gently nudges her husband with her foot. He groans but doesn’t move. She nudges him harder.
“Come on, Charlie,” she says, loudly, over the baby’s wails. Charlie has the gift of being able to sleep through them. (Apparently, this is another genetic advantage afforded to men.)
“Nuhghhh,” her husband replies.
“CHARLIE.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I need you to take him,” Teaghan says. “I’ve gotta pump my breasts and clean my gun.”
RUTH, MY WIFE, finally arrives home at 8:20, which is a bit later than promised. Thank God the boys are already asleep. Otherwise they’d go rushing into her arms, like Dad? Dad who? But that’s fine. What matters now is that she’s home safe, and I’m finally able to squeeze in a little “me time.”
The minivan is down the street; I got lucky earlier today and found a spot after a quick run to the supermarket. Parking on this block can be like medieval combat, and I hate to surrender the space. But what am I supposed to do? Stay cooped up in the house all night like a prisoner? No way. Togetherness is important to a healthy family, but so is time apart.
I navigate the narrow streets of Fairmount all the way past Broad, then turn right onto 10th Street. I mapped out the route online for optimal travel time—I don’t have all night, after all—and this seemed to be quickest.
Still, I’m a dad in a minivan, so other drivers see me as an obstacle to speed around, not a fellow commuter. It’s like Mad Max out here, with me fighting them block to block. Things are a bit easier once I cross South Street and I’m out of Center City altogether.