Kidnapped: BookShots (A Jon Roscoe Thriller)

by James Patterson

  ‘Daddy!’ cried Lauren, standing on top of the slide. ‘Watch me!’

  Stepping into the garden, Roscoe smiled as his daughter threw herself head first down the slide.

  ‘Be careful!’ called Marika. Roscoe came and sat beside her on the bench. ‘She definitely takes more after you.’

  ‘And Aimee takes after you?’ said Roscoe as they watched her follow her sister straight down.

  ‘They are as crazy as each other,’ said Marika.

  ‘I do miss you all.’

  ‘And they miss you.’

  ‘And you?’ said Roscoe after a pause.

  ‘Let’s not do this now, Jon.’ Marika got to her feet.

  ‘Do what?’ said Roscoe. ‘I love you and I want you to come home.’

  He took her hand but as he did a police car stopped out on the roadside and Dame Annabel climbed out of the back. Roscoe and Marika crossed the garden to speak to her.

  ‘How is Emily?’ asked Marika.

  ‘She’s heavily sedated,’ said Dame Annabel, standing by her neighbours’ gate. ‘I’ve tried to talk to her but in the state she’s in it’s impossible to get any sense. If I could just get through to her, I’m sure it would make a difference.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll be fine,’ said Marika, ‘but a shock like this hits people in different ways.’

  ‘I thought I would be able to get through to her.’

  ‘Perhaps by tomorrow,’ said Marika.

  ‘Yes, perhaps,’ said Dame Annabel, anxiously looking towards her own house. ‘Any news here?’

  ‘Not that we’re aware of,’ said Roscoe. ‘I’m sure the police are doing everything possible.’

  ‘I’m sure they are,’ said Dame Annabel, ‘but all I can do is think of my grandson and the desperate danger he’s in.’

  The front door of the small house opposite the Montgomerie home was suddenly thrown open and its owner, Julian Templeton, scurried across the road towards them. With only slippers on his feet, wearing a chunky, knitted sweater, loose-fitting trousers and thick-framed black glasses, he cut an eccentric figure.

  ‘I need to speak with you now,’ he said to Dame Annabel, ignoring Roscoe and his wife. ‘I need to speak with you urgently.’

  ‘Julian,’ said Dame Annabel, a sharp edge in her voice. ‘I’m sure you’re very aware that my family have a huge amount to deal with right now. Perhaps we might talk a little later, or tomorrow, when things have become a little clearer.’

  ‘Clearer, you say?’ said Templeton in a clipped tone. ‘That is no use to me. I need you now.’

  ‘And I need to go inside and understand where the police have got to in the search for my grandson. I will try to speak with you later.’

  Templeton’s face reddened and he pursed his lips. ‘But I—’

  ‘No, Julian,’ said Dame Annabel. ‘Go back to your house, sit in your window and take pleasure in watching the horrors the rest of us are having to endure.’

  Dismissed, Julian Templeton walked back inside his house and silently closed the door behind him. Anger rose within him.

  His meticulous preparations had not been mirrored by others. He had done everything that had been asked of him and had been unquestioning in his loyalty.

  Now he was the one in danger.

  He could still see the fury in Wyatt Lee’s eyes when he had approached his door. He had never agreed to be placed in a position of peril.

  And now to be dismissed like a scolded child. He wouldn’t be treated in that way.

  Someone needed to be taught a lesson.

  CHAPTER 30

  AS DAME ANNABEL went into her home, Roscoe watched Julian Templeton walk around the inside of his home and close each of the window blinds. He imagined him sitting alone in the darkness.

  ‘He seems like an unusual character,’ he said to Marika. Squeals of delight continued to come from his daughters as they chased each other around the garden.

  ‘Julian?’ said Marika. ‘I think he’s harmless. He’s lived in that house as long as I can remember. I guess I’d call him the village eccentric. And he’d do anything for Dame Annabel. I think he’s been secretly in love with her for years.’

  ‘I know that feeling,’ said Roscoe.

  ‘Who have you been secretly in love with?’

  ‘Maybe not secretly,’ said Roscoe. They sat once again on the bench, watching their daughters.

  ‘Jon,’ said Marika, turning to her husband, ‘you know part of me will—’

  Roscoe interrupted her. ‘All I want is for us all to be back together in our home, living as a family. Please, Marika.’

  ‘Don’t, Jon,’ said Marika, getting to her feet and turning away. ‘Our lives are so different. You live in a world with some of the wealthiest and most powerful people and it means—’

  ‘I try to make time for you and the children.’

  ‘I know, but you called me at two in the morning to tell me a man had been murdered.’ She turned back to him. ‘How do you think that makes me feel?’

  ‘I didn’t want you hearing it on the news,’ said Roscoe. ‘It’s my job, Marika.’ He went to his wife and put his arm around her.

  She stepped away.

  ‘But it’s a job that leaves very little time for your family,’ she said.

  ‘I’m always there for the girls.’

  ‘I know you are, but when I say no time for your family, I mean no time for me. I don’t fit into your life any more.’

  She paused and Roscoe held his breath. Somehow he knew what she was going to say.

  ‘You’ve met someone else?’ he said.

  ‘It’s early days, Jon,’ she said. ‘I should have already told you but I didn’t want to turn it into something it isn’t. And it might not go anywhere, but he’s kind and the girls like him and most importantly he’s there, Jon, and you’re not.’

  Standing in the garden of Marika’s parents’ house on a cold winter’s morning, Roscoe felt the wife and family he treasured so deeply slipping away from him. The sadness threatened to overwhelm him.

  ‘Are you saying this is it for us?’ he asked, always having believed he and Marika would one day get back together.

  ‘I don’t know, but my life is in Scotland now,’ Marika said softly. ‘The girls are at a great school. I enjoy my work and I’ve made new friends. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘But if we were all here together in London, you’d feel differently, I know you would,’ he pleaded. ‘I love you, Marika, and I want us to be together. I won’t let you go.’

  Marika gently kissed him on the cheek. ‘Part of me will always love you, but our lives have drifted apart in so many ways. I’m not sure anything will ever bring us back together.’

  CHAPTER 31

  AN AFTERNOON SPENT playing with his daughters had done little to dispel the anguish racing around Roscoe’s mind. As he drove into the underground parking lot at the London Tribeca Luxury Hotel, he reflected on how he had never needed Marika more at a time when she seemed to be moving further away.

  Families were disintegrating all around him. He recalled the anger surfacing in Wyatt Lee as he’d desperately searched for his son; the pain suffered by Cal Ginevra at the hands of her own family. He was determined to keep his own family together.

  Stepping out of his car, Roscoe clicked his key fob and headed towards the hotel. As he did so, a man walked out of the exit and in the half-light, Roscoe took a moment to realise he was heading directly for him. Walking erratically and seeming to ignore all around him, the man focused in on Roscoe.

  Twenty feet away, the man stopped.

  Roscoe looked as Oscar Miller stood motionless, fixed rigidly to the spot.

  ‘Mr Miller?’ said Roscoe, looking at him through the gloom.

  His hands pressed firmly in his coat pockets, Miller didn’t move.

  Roscoe slowly stepped forward so that he was now standing no more than ten feet away from him.

  ‘You need to understand that Enzo’s death changes nothing,�
� said Miller. ‘I want you to stay away from Matteo Ginevra and all his family. They are no concern of yours. Matteo runs the business now and its relationship with Tribeca remains unharmed.’

  Roscoe didn’t want another argument with Miller, so he walked past him and headed straight into the hotel.

  ‘Don’t turn your back on me!’ Miller shouted. ‘If you don’t keep away from the Ginevra family I will bring your time with Tribeca to an end!’

  Roscoe kept walking.

  ‘Roscoe!’ shouted Miller.

  But Roscoe was gone.

  The Tribeca London Gin Bar was packed with revellers who Roscoe could see would be celebrating Christmas all the way through to New Year. To help him forget about Marika and the state of his marriage, he felt like joining them.

  When he’d ordered a third round of gin cocktails, he clicked on his phone and hit the number for Chief Inspector Fran Walker.

  ‘Any news?’ said Roscoe, knowing Walker never liked to waste time with pleasantries.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Walker. ‘It’s as if the boy was taken from the house and then disappeared into thin air. I’m going to send the team back tomorrow and go harder in the village. Somebody must have seen something.’

  ‘And the attack from the night before? Any religious groups it could be pinned on?’

  ‘I don’t see it, Jon. We’ve checked on all the usual suspects and nothing. And taking a two-year-old boy is one hell of a step up from spraying a bit of paint on a fancy gold car.’

  Roscoe smiled. He agreed with Walker that the answer to Brayden’s disappearance lay elsewhere.

  ‘As they say, we are pursuing all possible lines of investigation,’ she continued.

  Roscoe laughed at the line he had used a million times himself. ‘Of course you are,’ he said. ‘And Cal Ginevra?’

  ‘What about her?’ said Walker.

  ‘Has she told you anything more about her brother?’

  For a moment Walker was silent.

  ‘Jon, I know you’ve got history with the brother, but what I’m dealing with is a girl who has brutally murdered her father.’

  ‘Yes, but Fran, the brother is the key. I know he is. You should talk to him as well.’

  ‘You found her smothered in her father’s blood. How can the brother be the key?’ said Walker. ‘Anyway, right now she’s not saying anything. We’ll charge her in the morning.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Leave it, Jon.’

  Walker disconnected the call and Roscoe picked up his two gin cocktails and walked back to his table.

  ‘Who was that?’ asked Anna as she took her drink from him.

  ‘Fran Walker,’ he replied. ‘Still nothing on Brayden.’

  ‘Must be so tough for his parents.’

  ‘And she won’t speak to Matteo.’

  ‘You can’t fight every battle,’ said Anna.

  ‘That’s what everybody keeps telling me.’

  ‘Sometimes even you have to listen.’

  ‘I’m missing something, I know I am,’ he said. ‘I keep thinking of Cal in that bedroom. She let Enzo climb into bed, drift off to sleep and by the time he realised what was happening it was impossible for him to defend himself. I’ll never forget the intensity of the attack.’ Roscoe rubbed his temples as he thought of the blood-soaked bed.

  ‘I guess for her it was a release,’ said Anna. ‘She did it for herself and for her daughter. I saw them together on Christmas Day. All she wanted was to be with her.’

  ‘And Enzo wouldn’t let her.’

  ‘He stole her child away from her,’ said Anna.

  ‘So she killed him.’

  Anna looked at Roscoe and nodded.

  ‘She was thirteen when she had Harper,’ said Roscoe. ‘Her mother was dying and he would go to her room.’

  ‘Jon,’ said Anna, reaching across the table and taking his hand, ‘don’t torture yourself.’

  ‘She told me how, when he came to her, she would pretend to be asleep but he didn’t care. I thought she meant Enzo. But did she? She hated Enzo for taking her child, but who was she most afraid of? Who did she run from in Chicago?’

  Roscoe looked down at their hands entwined together and then up into Anna’s eyes.

  ‘Matteo.’

  CHAPTER 32

  IT WAS ALMOST midnight, and Roscoe stood in front of the bathroom mirror in the bedroom he used when he stayed overnight at the hotel. He splashed water on his face and tried to remember how many double gins he had drunk earlier that evening. He decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

  Through the open bathroom door he could see Anna lying in bed, her long dark hair around her bare shoulders. She was beautiful, but was this how he went about putting his marriage back together? He thought of his last conversation with Marika. Did they still have a marriage worth saving?

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he called.

  ‘Leave it until the morning!’ she replied.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, popping his head out of the bathroom, ‘but if Matteo is the father of Cal’s little girl, that would explain everything: why was Cal so frightened; why did she run at the airport; why was she so desperate for my help; why didn’t she dare say anything? All because of Matteo.’

  Anna stepped out of bed and walked into the bathroom. Putting her arms around Roscoe, she told him not to think about Matteo Ginevra, at least for a couple of hours.

  ‘I can’t stand the thought of him still being in the hotel,’ said Roscoe.

  ‘Then call Fran Walker in the morning.’

  ‘You’re right,’ he said as a room-service waiter buzzed at the door.

  ‘Food at last!’ said Anna. She stepped out of the bathroom, throwing on one of the hotel’s sumptuous robes.

  Roscoe watched her in the mirror as she bent to look through the peephole. Then, hearing a click, instantly launched himself towards her, knocking her sideways as a single gunshot exploded through the glass.

  PART 5

  27 December

  CHAPTER 33

  A WATERY SUN stole through the branches of the bare winter trees as Roscoe knelt and carefully placed a small bouquet of flowers on the neatly tended grave in the cold London cemetery. With Martin beside him, he said a silent prayer to his sister, Amanda.

  Fourteen years earlier to the day, Roscoe had made the impossible decision to switch off his sister’s life support. Now, kneeling in silence, he could remember each painful moment of that heartbreaking day. Amanda had been attacked four days before while walking home from celebrating her nineteenth birthday. Sitting beside Amanda’s hospital bed with his Aunt Jessie and her son, Alvin, Roscoe had taken the hardest decision he hoped he would ever have to make. Having spoken with Alvin on the prognosis, he had watched as the doctors disconnected Amanda’s life support. Holding his sister’s hand, he had said goodbye.

  That evening he had returned home from the hospital and held Martin in his arms. A child of only eighteen months, he had appeared so vulnerable, and Roscoe had made him a promise to be the best father to him he could possibly be. Fourteen years later he was still trying to live up to that promise every single day.

  Getting to his feet, Roscoe laid his hand across Martin’s back.

  ‘We should go,’ he said.

  They walked in silence down the gravel pathway and back to Roscoe’s waiting SUV.

  They approached the car and he clicked the fob. ‘I’ll be one minute,’ said Roscoe. While Martin climbed into the car, he pressed his phone and dialled a number he’d already called three times that morning.

  ‘Hello again,’ said Anna, picking up her phone. ‘You really don’t have to keep checking up on me.’

  ‘I just want to be sure you’re safe.’

  ‘Jon, there are police all over the hotel. I’m safer here than anywhere else.’

  ‘And you promise me you’re okay?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ she assured him. ‘I’m more worried about you. When we hit the ground and you crashed into your s
houlder, I thought it was you who was going to end up in hospital.’

  ‘It aches a little bit, but give it a day or two and it’ll be fine.’

  ‘Haven’t you said that before?’

  Roscoe laughed. ‘Hopefully now I can give it a bit of rest. Have the police found anything on the CCTV?’

  ‘Still nothing,’ said Anna. ‘The cameras were disengaged ten minutes before the shot was fired.’

  ‘Promise me you’ll call if you need anything.’

  ‘I promise,’ said Anna, before clicking off the phone.

  Roscoe walked back over to his car and climbed in alongside Martin.

  ‘How was Anna?’ said Martin.

  Roscoe looked at him in surprise.

  ‘Please, Dad,’ said Martin, ‘I’m not stupid.’

  ‘I was just checking in with her,’ said Roscoe.

  ‘For the fourth time this morning?’

  Roscoe smiled.

  ‘So, when that shot was fired,’ said Martin, ‘why were you and Anna in the same bedroom?’

  Roscoe ran his hand through his hair self-consciously and turned to his son, who was grinning back at his father. ‘You’re too young to worry about that.’

  ‘I’m not worried, Dad,’ said Martin. ‘But does this mean you and Marika are going to divorce?’

  Driving out of the cemetery, Roscoe wasn’t sure he liked where the conversation was headed. After a moment he stuttered through a reply.

  ‘Sometimes adults do things that maybe they might regret or equally might not regret, but still might look at them differently the next day or at another time.’

  ‘Please, Dad,’ said Martin, ‘I’m not twelve. What you’re trying to say is you and Anna was just sex. That’s cool.’

  Roscoe wasn’t sure what he was saying, so he decided to end the conversation there.

  CHAPTER 34

  DRIVING ACROSS LONDON, Roscoe hit the speed dial on his phone and called Chief Inspector Fran Walker.

  ‘Fran, it’s Roscoe.’

  ‘I heard what happened at the hotel. You okay?’

  ‘We’re fine,’ said Roscoe. ‘A little shaken up, but now I need a favour from you.’