Three Women Disappear

by James Patterson

  It took me two tries to push myself off the bed. The exhaustion felt like a weight pinning me to the mattress. I turned my back to Tony, smoothed out the duvet, then started for the door. He stepped in front of me.

  “You’re lucky,” he said. “You know that, right?”

  I nodded, kept my eyes on the floor.

  “Tell me why you’re lucky.”

  I shrugged. All I wanted was to get away from him.

  “You see, I hate it when you do that. Why do you nod like a sheep when in fact you have no idea what I’m talking about?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You’re lucky because I didn’t write you up. Normally, when you make one of your patented blunders, I write a little note and stick it in your file. That file will follow you wherever you choose to go in this country. That’s how it works here. Do you understand?”

  I said I did.

  “You understand that I’ve been very nice to you? That I’ve given you a break?”

  I knew what he was really asking. He was asking if I was going to tell anyone about the “vaccination.” He was asking if I planned to report him.

  “You are very nice to me,” I said. “Thank you for being so nice.”

  He let me pass. I got as far as the front gate before I started retching. When I was finished, I wiped my mouth with my sleeve and kept walking to the highway. On the bus ride home, I made a vow never to return to that place again.

  Chapter 30

  THE NEXT morning, I woke before dawn, packed a small suitcase, and started for the Greyhound bus station. But I didn’t make it any farther than my building’s front steps. There was a car parked by the fire hydrant across the street. A big, expensive-looking American car. A man got out. I recognized him, but at first I couldn’t say from where. Then I remembered. It was Detective Sean Walsh. I’d seen him before, when he visited Anthony or came to pick up Sarah because her much smaller, much less expensive car was in the shop.

  He waved me over. I thought about running, but what good would it do?

  “Get in,” he said.

  I walked around, climbed into the passenger seat, held my suitcase on my lap. He started driving. I didn’t bother to ask where we were going.

  “How are you doing, Serena? Sarah tells me you work your tail off. She’s very fond of you, you know.”

  I nodded. No one in this country had been kinder to me than Sarah. How she wound up married to Detective Walsh and working for Tony was a mystery I couldn’t even begin to explain.

  Walsh took the entrance ramp onto the highway. For a while neither of us said anything, but I could tell he wanted to talk.

  “I need to ask you something,” he said. “Are you being treated well? At your job? Are the Costellos good to you?”

  “Please, don’t take me there. Not today. I feel sick.”

  He steered onto the shoulder, brought the car to a screeching stop. It felt like something he’d planned ahead of time—as if he was putting on a show.

  “If you don’t want me to take you there, then I won’t,” he said. “I can drop you off wherever you want. The suitcase tells me that’s either the airport or the bus station. But I need to be very clear about something first.”

  He turned to face me.

  “This isn’t the kind of job you just walk away from. There will be consequences. With a man like Anthony, there are always consequences. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”

  I kept staring straight ahead.

  “I’m saying you can’t leave Anthony Costello to wonder what might happen next, because if he starts to wonder, he’s going to assume the worst. He’s going to think you’re a threat. This isn’t a man—or a family, for that matter—you want to threaten.”

  “I’m no threat to anyone.”

  He took a deep, dramatic breath, then tugged back his blazer and tapped his badge.

  “You’re a friend of Sarah’s,” he said. “That means you’re a friend of mine. If something’s wrong, I want to help. So I’ll ask again: are the Costellos treating you well?”

  I’m not stupid. I knew who he worked for. I knew what he was really asking. I knew what would happen if I said no.

  “I couldn’t be happier there,” I lied.

  “Good girl.”

  A half hour later, we were parked in front of Tony’s gaudy modern-day castle, the home I’d only just sworn never to set foot in again.

  “Remember,” Sean said, “if you have any trouble, you come to me.”

  I thought he’d drive off, but instead he followed me inside. I headed straight for my maid’s quarters: a small room where I was allowed to keep a few belongings and where I sometimes slept when Anna and Tony had one of their all-night dinner parties. I shut the door behind me, sat on the edge of the cot, and took long, deep breaths. I thought about calling Símon, my brother, but what could he do against men like Tony and Sean? How could I tell him what happened to me? Besides, Símon had his life here, a life he’d worked hard to make, without help from anyone—least of all me. The last thing I wanted was to cause trouble for him.

  Before long, I heard shouting in the kitchen. Sean and Tony were arguing. At first their voices were just loud enough for me to hear, but little by little the volume swelled. They took their fight out onto the deck and closed the sliding doors, but I could still make out every word.

  “I can’t keep bailing you out like this,” Sean said.

  “You can keep doing whatever it is I tell you to do. You’re my errand boy, remember?”

  “This is getting too ugly.”

  “Oh, you have no idea how ugly things can get. Keep making yourself useful and maybe you won’t find out.”

  They yelled back and forth some more, and then everything went quiet until I heard Sean’s car peeling out of the driveway. I sat as still as I could for as long as I dared, afraid Tony would turn his rage on me.

  But he ignored me. Morning, noon, and night, we didn’t so much as cross paths.

  Back home in my studio apartment, I got on my knees and prayed for the first time since I’d left Mexico. I prayed for a way out, a way back to the broken-down little coastal city I’d dreamed of leaving my whole life. I prayed until the sun came up and it was time to catch the bus and report to work all over again.

  Chapter 31

  “YOU HAVE beautiful hair,” Tony said. “It’s a shame to tie it back like that, where no one can see.”

  Slowly, even gently, he slid the band from my ponytail, then used his fingers like a comb until my hair was hanging loose around my shoulders. We were standing in front of a hallway mirror, Tony looming up behind me.

  “See?” he said. “Isn’t that better?”

  I nodded.

  “And those pants don’t work at all,” he continued. “They look like scrubs. A woman with legs like yours shouldn’t hide them. Let’s get you a pair of those fitted jeans the girls are all wearing.”

  I wanted to scream, to run, to turn and gouge his eyes out. But I couldn’t let him know what I was thinking. For such a big, important man, Tony was deeply insecure, even paranoid. Once, I saw him pick up a chair and break it over the dining room table just because Anna teased him about eating a third cannoli. If he knew how disgusting I found him, he’d have beaten the life out of me, then called Sean to come clean up the mess.

  “Maybe try a little lipstick, too,” he said. “Red is your color.”

  Of course, he only behaved this way when Anna wasn’t around. If she spent the day at home, which was becoming more and more rare, Tony either stuck to his office or went golfing with Vincent or Sean. Anna didn’t seem to mind. Neither one of them looked happy when they were together.

  He kept after me for months. Then one day I saw him alone in the dining room, grinding up more of those pills. Instead of a toothbrush, he was using a wooden mortar and pestle, and instead of a cup of water there were two wineglasses sitting beside a half-empty bottle. I knew those pills couldn’t be for me. Anthony didn’t
need to wine me or dine me. I was just his little Mexican maid. I slipped away before he caught me watching. Whatever he was planning, whoever he was planning to hurt, I didn’t want to know about it.

  I went into the laundry room, transferred a load from the washer to the dryer, then emptied a fresh basket into the washer and switched both machines to their loudest settings. I told myself I wouldn’t leave that room no matter what, not until Tony had done whatever he was going to do. But ten minutes later I heard his voice calling me from somewhere on the other side of the house.

  “Serena! Serena!” Over and over again.

  I walked toward the sound of my name as if I was in a trance. I found him in the living room, with Sarah. She was lying unconscious on the floor.

  “Help me do this,” he said.

  He gestured in the direction of the stairs. I didn’t say yes. I didn’t say no. I just stood there, afraid to so much as blink.

  “Now!” he said. “You take her feet.”

  I obeyed. I’d never felt so much like a coward.

  I’d left my country not because I was poor or afraid or even unhappy: I left because I wanted a first-rate education. My plan was to save up, go to a fancy American law school, then return home and fight the cartels. I was going to challenge myself, see what I was capable of. Well, I thought as we hauled my only friend up the stairs as if she was just another piece of furniture, now you have your answer. Now you know who you really are. You work for the criminals, not against them.

  We dropped her on a bed in one of the many guest rooms.

  “Shut the door on your way out,” Tony said.

  As if I needed to be told. Downstairs, I finished up the laundry, mopped the kitchen floor, vacuumed the family room. Anything to keep myself from drifting over to the bottom of the stairs. I prayed Anna would come home and find them. If she told the cops, they’d listen. She might even get Vincent to listen. In the Costello family there are laws you break and laws you don’t, and God help you if you get the two confused. But Anna was babysitting her nephew in Orlando. She wouldn’t be back until after midnight, if she came back that night at all.

  An hour later, I heard Tony calling for me again. He didn’t sound agitated or angry or ashamed. He needed me for another chore—that was all. We carried Sarah to the downstairs den, propped her up in an armchair.

  “When she comes to,” Tony said, “tell her it was an insulin blackout. You understand? An insulin blackout. Let me hear you say it.”

  I repeated the words back to him.

  “She’s had them before,” Tony said. “She ought to be grateful: another employer might not put up with the lost time.”

  I stayed with her, made sure she kept breathing. Half the night was gone before her eyes opened. I wondered if I’d been unconscious that long, too.

  “Whoa,” she said, blinking her eyes as though fighting off a spotlight. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a semi.”

  “No,” I told her. “You passed out. Tony says you missed your insulin.”

  I stuck to his lie because the truth would have changed Sarah the way it changed me. I couldn’t sleep at night without pushing the dresser in front of my door, without getting up again and again to make sure the windows were locked. I kept a can of pepper spray and an enormous carving knife on the floor beside my bed. I didn’t want any of that for Sarah. I hadn’t protected her against Tony—the least I could do was spare her the constant, gnawing fear.

  “Maybe,” she said. “God, what time is it?”

  “Late. Just wait here. I’ll be two minutes.”

  I ran to the kitchen, fetched a glass of orange juice and a bottle of aspirin. By the time I got back, Sarah had drifted off again. I set the glass and bottle on the coffee table, then stretched out on the floor at her feet. Without meaning to, I fell asleep. When I woke a few hours later, the sun was just coming up. And Sarah was gone.

  I sat down in the armchair where she’d been sleeping and told myself that I had to do something. I had to make sure that what had happened to Sarah would never happen again.

  That was when I decided to be brave. That was when I decided to kill Anthony Costello.

  Chapter 32

  “SO YOU’RE confessing?” Haagen said. “You killed Anthony?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “But you wanted to.”

  “But I didn’t.”

  She brought an open palm down hard on the table, looked at me as if I was a toddler refusing to eat my peas.

  “Can you believe this?” she asked Nuñes.

  Nuñes just rolled her eyes. I couldn’t tell if the gesture was meant for me or her partner.

  “All I’m hearing from you is motive,” Haagen said. “A damn good motive, too. Maybe even self-defense. Hell, if you told this story to a jury, you might get off with a slap on the wrist. Maybe the judge would deport you and let that be the end of it. So why not cut to the confession? What happened in that kitchen? Tell me and I’ll put in a good word with the DA.”

  “You aren’t listening to me,” I said.

  I wanted to cry—not out of fear or anger or anything like remorse, but out of pure, deep-in-my-bones frustration. Talking with Haagen could do that to you. She’d bat your words around like cat toys, tune out whatever she didn’t want to hear, and keep pushing until you broke. I guess that’s her job, but beneath the hard-nosed facade she seemed to be enjoying herself a little too much.

  “Oh, I’m listening,” she said. “And you know what I think? I think somebody hired you to help them kill Anthony Costello. He deserved it, right? He was a bad guy. He did horrible things. To you. To people you cared about. Anyone in your position would have wanted him dead. So who was it you let in the house? Who did the stabbing?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You know, don’t you? You could solve this for us right now.”

  I nodded. We’d been squared off on opposite sides of a cold metal table for hours. It was time to bring the day to an end.

  “I know,” I said. “But he didn’t pay me, and I didn’t let him in. He did what he did all by himself.”

  “Who?”

  “You know who.”

  “Tell me anyway,” Haagen said. “Tell me all of it.”

  I started to look for Sarah, but I knew, I could feel it—something was off in the house. Something very bad was about to happen. Then I heard it: shouting, coming from the kitchen. Tony and another man. They were fighting over what sounded like the end of a business arrangement. It must have been their arguing that woke me.

  “Sorry,” Tony said, “but things don’t work that way. They only work the way I want them to work.”

  “Oh, that’s all changed,” the other man said. “You’ve played your name for all it’s worth. It’s open season now. Uncle Vincent won’t come to your rescue. Not this time. You’re an embarrassment. You’ll be lucky if you get a shallow grave.”

  The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Not at first.

  “You think he’ll believe you?” Tony said. “You think you can ruin me without ruining yourself?”

  I crept out of the den and tiptoed into the dining room. From there, I could see part of the kitchen through the open doorway—the part Tony was standing in. I watched him raise his fist, watched the veins bulge in his neck. He lunged forward. I heard a body slam into the refrigerator. I heard glass shatter. I heard cursing and stomping. And then I heard a gasp as Tony came staggering back into view, clutching his gut.

  “You son of a bitch,” he said, his voice strained and wet, as if his mouth was clogged with soup.

  I saw the blade before I saw Sean. He held it out in front of him like a bayonet and charged. Tony fell to the floor but Sean kept stabbing him, his arm rising and thrusting, rising and thrusting. I clamped my hands over my mouth, ducked under the dining room table.

  When Sean was done, he wiped the blade on Tony’s pants, stood for a while with his hands on his knees, then straightened up and walked down t
he long entrance hallway as if he was in no hurry at all. I didn’t dare move until I heard the front door pull shut.

  “By Sean,” Haagen said, “you mean Detective Sean Walsh?”

  I nodded.

  “The one who works in this building? The one who’s married to your friend Sarah?”

  I nodded again. Her voice was calm and even. It seemed as if she’d known all along, as if this was the very story she’d been pushing me to tell. She exchanged a look with Nuñes, then turned back to me.

  “You can prove it?” she asked. “You have proof that it was him?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t have—”

  “You’re saying Detective Sean Walsh committed murder, and you’re saying it on the record. You better be damn sure you’re right. Sean’s cleared a lot of cases in this department. Every one of them will be opened again. We’re talking untold man-hours. Criminals will go free. So let me ask you again: do you have proof?”

  I leaned forward, looked her dead in the eyes.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t have proof. But I saw where the proof went.”

  Chapter 33

  Detective Sean Walsh

  MY PLAN was to stop at Pete Owens’s Stow-and-Go on the way to Símon’s apartment. I had Serena’s file on the seat beside me, but I needed something more, something that belonged to Anthony and couldn’t be copied or reproduced. Something Vincent would recognize.

  There was a pistol from the Civil War that Anthony kept locked away in his storage unit because he was afraid the help might steal it. He’d inherited the gun from his father, Vincent’s brother. Vincent had hoped to inherit it himself. That was the closest uncle and nephew ever came to a major clash. Once the relic turned up in Símon’s apartment, there’d be no doubt: Anthony would have clung to that pistol until the undertaker pried it from his icy hand.