The Murder House

by James Patterson

  Light, precious light, as my flashlight is on the verge of dying.

  I head to the corner of the room, to the French doors and the wraparound corner balcony outside. I push open the French doors, cool air hitting my face, the wind swirling, and look out over Ocean Drive to the west.

  I see a glimpse of him, the signature straw hair, the slight hunch to his posture—Aiden Willis running north on Ocean Drive, away from the Atlantic, from this house, from me and my questions, and disappearing into the woods.

  I lean against the railing, the wind playing with my hair, my eyes fixed on that point where Aiden ducked into the woods. I’ll never catch up with him. He’s too far ahead, and much more familiar with every nook and cranny of this town.

  Come here, he said to me as a boy. Follow me.

  I’m trying to pull more from that memory, but the more I reach for it, the farther away it gets. I shake my head. It’s no use trying to force it. It’s like turning on high beams to see through fog; it only muddies it up more.

  I remember his face, remember his words, remember the relief sweeping through me when he guided me out of that basement and up those stairs.

  “But then what?” I whisper.

  And why—why did Aiden come through Justin’s window the other night and try to attack me with that knife?

  Deflated, defeated, I push myself off the railing. I curve around the corner to enter the bedroom from the south.

  Where Noah Walker stands, training a gun on me.

  117

  “DON’T MOVE, Murphy. Don’t move or I’ll shoot.”

  I show him my empty hands. The flashlight left behind, on the bed. Justin’s revolver stuffed in the back of my pants, which he can’t see.

  Focus, Murphy.

  Assess—assess the situation.

  I’m on the balcony by the railing. Noah is maybe eight, ten feet away, inside the room but just at the entrance to the balcony. The lamp, behind him, is sufficient to give me a decent look at his features—his eyes narrowed from the wind licking his face, stinging his eyes, his face crumpled up in anger, the gun trembling in front of him.

  Anger—at me? For screwing up his plans? I guess he was having a pretty easy time killing people before I came along.

  “I should kill you right now,” he hisses.

  “What’s stopping you?” I say. My eyes cast about for options, but it’s pitch-black out here on the balcony. About my only option is jumping from the balcony and hoping I avoid the spiked fence, hoping I survive with just some broken bones.

  Or charging him. He doesn’t look that comfortable holding that gun. Most of the people he killed were cut or stabbed or impaled. Maybe firearms aren’t his thing.

  Still, he’s so close to me. He couldn’t miss me if he tried.

  “I have a few questions,” he says.

  “And you think I’m going to answer them?”

  “Yeah, I do,” he says, “because I still haven’t decided whether I’m going to kill your boyfriend Justin.”

  Justin. Roped into this because of me.

  “Justin has nothing to do with this, Noah. Leave him out of it.”

  Noah pauses. “He doesn’t know anything?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” he asks.

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t fuck with me, Murphy. I’m done with you screwing with my head. You know I actually started to care about you? What a freakin’ joke.”

  Emotion in his voice with these last words, choking on them. Shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He’s upset, coming unraveled.

  Something I can use, maybe.

  “I started to care about you, too,” I say.

  “Shut up! I don’t wanna hear that!”

  He takes another step closer to me. I can almost feel the bitterness radiating off him. His chest heaving now. Shaking his head. “Why?” he asks. “Why did you do all this?”

  “Do all what?” I ask as calmly as I can. “Try to catch a killer? Because it’s—”

  “Stop it! Is that how you wanna play this? Even now, when there’s nobody else here to hear your lies? Do you want me to put a bullet through your head? Because I’ll do it. I swear I will.”

  The gun bobbing slightly. Do I have a move here?

  Dive to the ground and make him shoot wildly in the dark?

  Then I see it, over Noah’s shoulder, at the far end of the bedroom, where the hallway meets the doorway.

  The beam of a flashlight, searching along the floor.

  Justin, limping forward down the hallway.

  The swirling wind drowning out any noise he’s making, at least for me, and probably for Noah, too—at least I hope so.

  Stall. Stall for time, Murphy.

  “You’re the one who broke into the warehouse and stole those attorney files, aren’t you?” I ask.

  “Damn straight I am,” he says. “Guess I beat you to them.”

  Justin drawing closer. I’m willing myself not to look too closely at him, not to signal Noah.

  Keep that flashlight beam down, Justin, or Noah will see it.

  The flashlight turns off—Justin is at the threshold of the bedroom now, and the glow from the kerosene lamp is sufficient.

  But the closer he gets, the more likely it is Noah will hear him, no matter how violently the wind swirls through this balcony and into the bedroom.

  No matter how quietly Justin approaches, with long tiptoe strides.

  Keep Noah talking.

  “That was a nice move,” I say. “Getting those lawyer files before I could.”

  Something in Justin’s hand, something long and thin—a golf club?

  A golf club.

  “Are those the last remaining copies?” I ask.

  “You tell me, Murphy.”

  Justin raising the golf club, holding it with two hands.

  “How the hell should I know?” I ask.

  “Shut up,” Noah spits. “Just stop with all your bullshit.”

  Justin is only a few steps away now. It’s all I can do to pretend I don’t see him, not to tense up, not to give away his presence.

  “What bullshit?” I ask.

  “I said shut up! I’m done with this, Murphy. You know what’s in those lawyer files. You’ve known all along.”

  Justin stops, the club poised like a baseball bat, ready for the most important swing of his life.

  “I have no idea what’s in those files,” I say.

  Noah does a double take, his head cocked, a hint of doubt crossing his face.

  Then his eyes suddenly become alert, and he spins to his right just as Justin swings the golf club.

  118

  ALL AT ONCE—

  Noah spins to his right and instinctively ducks—

  The violent swing of the golf club, grazing the top of Noah’s head before continuing its momentum and splintering the wood on the balcony doorway—

  Noah’s gun, hitting the other side of the doorway during his spin, falling from his hand onto the balcony floor.

  I lunge for the gun as Noah, stunned, falls against the opposite side of the doorway.

  I scoop up the gun in my hands and fall forward into the bedroom.

  “Don’t move, Noah,” I say, jumping to my feet.

  Noah, dazed, has managed to remain upright. His woozy eyes drift over to me and his gun, his Glock, now in my hands, now pointed at him.

  “Shit,” he says. He touches the top of his head and finds blood on his fingers.

  “Hands where I can see them,” I say. “Show me your palms.”

  “Or what? You’ll shoot me?”

  “He has my gun,” Justin says, still clutching the golf club with two hands, like a weapon.

  He doesn’t mean the revolver he lent me—that’s stuffed in the back of my pants.

  “That old thirty-eight I showed you at my house,” Justin says. “Noah has it. He jumped me and took it off me.”

  I look Noah over. In one jeans pocket, something—s
ome papers rolled up and shoved inside, the edges protruding. The other front pocket, unclear, but a slight bulge, which could be the .38 special.

  “What are those papers in your pocket?” I ask him.

  “The lawyer papers,” he snarls. “In case you didn’t believe I had them.”

  “And the other pocket?”

  He shakes his head. “Nothing. I threw Justin’s gun in the front yard.”

  “Show me your palms,” I say. “The first second you don’t, I shoot.”

  Noah, his brows curled in a frown, shakes his head, a bemused laugh escaping from him as his eyes bore into me. “You’re good, Murphy. You’re very good. I gotta give you that. But guess what?”

  He takes a step toward me.

  “Don’t, Noah.”

  “Isaac’s preparing warrants for your arrest as we speak,” he goes on. “For all of the murders. All of them. Did you know that, Justin?” Noah nods in Justin’s direction. “Does he know everything?”

  “Shut up, Noah. It’s not going to work. And you take one more step, I start shooting.”

  He takes another step toward me, but slowly, still showing his palms.

  Pushing me, but not pushing me too far. Testing me.

  “Why didn’t you kill me when you had the chance?” he asks. “That night you broke into my house? You buzzed a bullet right past my ear, but you couldn’t finish me off.”

  “That’s enough, Noah.”

  “Why’d you get me out of prison?” he says.

  “Because your trial was unfair,” I say, my voice shaking. My hands are shaking, too.

  “My trial was unfair?” He lets out a bitter laugh. “You kill, what, eight people but suddenly you care about the justice system?”

  He takes another step.

  I fire a round into the floor near his feet. Noah jumps back, startled for a moment. But he quickly recovers.

  “That’s the second time you deliberately missed me,” he says. “Why, Murphy? Why not kill me?” Heat coming to his face now, the snarl returning. “Why? So you could kill everyone I ever cared about and watch me suffer?”

  His eyes are filling with tears now, his shoulders trembling.

  “I don’t know who you think you’re fooling,” I say. “I didn’t kill anybody.”

  My mind racing. Signals flying in all directions. He’s screwing with you, Murphy. He always does this. Anyone who could be this good, for this long, made a living out of mind-fucking people.

  He takes another step toward me.

  This time, I take a step back.

  “Jenna, what are you doing?” Justin says.

  “Yeah, Murphy, what are you doing?” Noah says, tears falling down his cheeks, his hands clenched in fists. “Aren’t you going to kill me?”

  “I’m taking you in.”

  “Jenna, you heard what he said,” says Justin. “Isaac’s gonna arrest you. We know that’s true. You heard Isaac say it himself at my house. Noah’s gonna walk away from this!”

  Noah takes another step toward me, his eyes searching mine, pure bitterness in his expression.

  I take another step back, an earthquake inside my head.

  “You can’t let him get away with this!” Justin cries. “He killed Melanie! He killed your uncle! He sent Aiden to my house to kill you!”

  Aiden.

  Aiden at Justin’s house with a knife, coming through the window.

  Noah shakes his head slowly, his eyes still on mine.

  Aiden.

  And then it happens. It comes to me, all at once, just with the mention of Aiden’s name.

  I can’t be sure. I couldn’t prove it in a court of law.

  But I think I finally figured it out.

  I fire another round into the floor. Noah jumps back again.

  His momentum temporarily stopped, I reach into the back of my pants and remove the revolver Justin lent me.

  “Justin, catch,” I say.

  Justin drops the golf club. I toss him his revolver, which he catches in both hands.

  Noah steadies himself, looks to his right; Justin is now pointing his revolver at Noah.

  Then Noah turns again and looks into my eyes, the odds against him mounting now, me holding Noah’s Glock, Justin holding his own revolver. Two people, two guns, two different angles.

  I search his eyes for an answer. Every time I’ve looked into those eyes, I’ve received mixed messages, a series of crisscrossing signals, heat and passion and rage and lust and pure hatred.

  My gun wavers as I replay everything in my head, sorting through it all, trying to make the puzzle pieces fit, everything flying at me at once like a tornado.

  “Justin,” I say.

  “Yeah?”

  “Aiden didn’t come through your window to kill me.”

  “What—what do you mean?” he asks.

  “He came through that window to protect me,” I say. “To protect me from you.”

  119

  STILL FACING Noah, the Glock in my hand still trained on him, I see, in my peripheral vision, Justin move the gun away from Noah, toward me.

  “I’m so tired,” I say. “I’m so tired of all of this.”

  “You’re not thinking clearly,” Justin says. “But all the same—keep that gun aimed at Noah. If it moves one inch toward me, it’s a bad outcome for you.”

  “It was you,” I say. “You’re the one who brought me to this house when I was a little girl. You and Holden the Sixth were going to kill me. Your first murder together, your initiation into the family or something, I don’t know. But I do know that Aiden rescued me. For some reason, Aiden never told anyone about you. Maybe you held something over him. That bloody knife, I’d guess—the one with Aiden’s and my fingerprints on it. The one that killed Holden the Sixth?”

  Justin doesn’t say anything. I keep my eyes on Noah, who returns an intense stare.

  “If I’m guessing,” I continue, “Aiden came here that day out of revenge, after Holden the Sixth killed his mother. He got his revenge. He killed Holden with that knife. And somehow you got hold of the knife, the murder weapon, and you held it over his head all these years. You threatened him, blackmailed him, whatever. Aiden would be easy to intimidate. He’s practically a kid even now.”

  “Jenna—”

  “And then you grew up. The boy who tried to kill me that day became the man who’s killed eight people. Then, when I started getting close, when it became convenient to pin all these murders on Aiden, you tipped off Officer Ricketts about the whereabouts of the knife. How’m I doing so far?”

  “You’re doing quite well, Detective. Quite well.” Justin moves a few steps closer. “Now lower the gun and drop it, Jenna. Slowly, or I’ll get nervous.”

  Noah remains motionless, save for the drop of his jaw, as I do what Justin says. I lower the Glock to my side and let it fall from my hand.

  “You must have just figured this out,” he says. “Or you wouldn’t have tossed me the gun.”

  “You mentioned Aiden,” I say. “He wouldn’t hurt me. I know that now. And you just confirmed it.”

  “I guess I did. Quite true about Aiden. He’s your hero, after all, the young lad who rescued the damsel in distress all those many years ago. Too bad you realized it after you tossed me this gun. Life’s a game of inches, isn’t it? If it had come to you just a few seconds earlier, I wouldn’t be holding this gun. That’s gotta sting.”

  Justin moves behind me, keeping both Noah and me in his sight and positioning himself beyond our reach. The right move, strategically. He didn’t get this far, for this long, without being smart.

  “For what it’s worth,” Justin says, “I’d hoped that tonight would end differently.”

  “You wanted me to kill Aiden when I came here looking for him. You knew this was where I’d come to look for him. You wanted me to kill him, to keep you clean. But you followed behind me, with your other gun, just in case it didn’t work out that way.”

  “But I sure didn’t expect Noah,” h
e says. “The best-laid plans and all.”

  Noah’s jaw clenches. I look at his left front pocket—was Justin right? Does Noah have Justin’s other gun, the .38 special?

  “By the way, Noah,” Justin says. “In the future, if you think you’ve knocked someone unconscious, be sure they’re not faking. Stick ’em with a pin or something. And if you’re going to tie someone up with a rope, don’t just bind their hands behind their back. Bind their feet, too, and then bind the feet and hands together. It makes it a lot harder to get out.”

  Footsteps behind me as Justin presses the revolver into the base of my skull.

  “Not that it matters now,” he says, “but for the record, Jenna, I didn’t want anything to happen to you. You may find this hard to believe, but I really did want us to be together.”

  I let out a bitter laugh.

  “I did. Think of how good we’d have been together. Think of our children! Holden’s grandchildren.”

  I stifle the urge to vomit, the bile at my throat. “You’re sick,” I say.

  “Everyone’s sick,” he spits, pushing the muzzle of his gun into the base of my skull, forcing my head forward. “Everyone has it inside them. Some of us are a little more liberal about releasing it, that’s all.”

  Noah is trembling, his eyes smoldering with pure hatred. “You killed Melanie,” he growls. “Right here in this room.”

  “But that’s not even the best part,” says Justin. “The best part is you took the fall for it! Just like old times, with the school yard shooting. You’ve always been a reliable fall guy, Noah. I’ve never properly thanked you for that. How have those hands healed up, by the way, from your fun at Sing Sing?”

  A furious, tortured smile plays on Noah’s face. “You’re gonna find out,” he says, “when I put them on your throat.”

  “No, I think your hands are going on top of your head. And you’re going to move back toward the balcony. I know you have my thirty-eight special on you. If you make me nervous, this gun goes off. You’ll be wearing Jenna’s face on your shirt.”