The Summer House
- Автор: Паттерсон Джеймс, Дюбуа Брендан
- Год: 2020
- Язык: английский
- Год: Little, Brown and Company
- ISBN: 978-0-316-53955-5
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «The Summer House». Краткое содержание книги:
To ensure that justice is done, the Army sends Major Jeremiah Cook, a veteran and former NYPD cop, to investigate. But the major and his elite team arrive in sweltering Georgia with no idea their grim jobs will be made exponentially more challenging by local law enforcement, who resists the Army’s intrusion and stonewall them at every turn.
As Cook and his squad struggle to uncover the truth behind the condemning evidence, the pieces just won’t fit — and forces are rallying to make certain damning secrets die alongside the victims in the murder house. With his own people in the cross-hairs, Cook takes a desperate gamble to find answers — even if it means returning to a hell of his own worst nightmares...
Williams nods in thanks, walks quickly over to the small room with shelves stacked with canned foods and boxes of macaroni and cheese, and answers her burner.
Congressman Mason Conover says, “My latest polling shows we’re going to win by at least ten points next Tuesday. Tell me you’ve got everything under control.”
Williams says, “I’ve got everything under control.”
“Good,” he says, his voice suddenly sounding cheerful, a tone she’s not heard in months. “That being the case, Emma, you can start packing your bags in the morning.”
He disconnects the call, and Williams needs to lean against the nearby concrete wall for relief.
So close, so very, very close.
She jumps as her burner phone rings again.
“Yes?”
“You know who this is,” comes another familiar male voice.
“I do,” she says. “How did it go?”
“We did what you asked us to do, but there’s...”
Her sense of relief flashes away, like a sliver of ice dropped on the sidewalk in the middle of August. “What happened? What went wrong?”
“Ah... Sheriff, like I said, we did what you asked us to, but there was more... shooting. Seems like DD was talking to this woman, and she was armed, and she shot back. My poor nephew Ricky, he got himself killed.”
Williams says something extraordinarily foul and obscene about the man’s nephew Ricky and then says, “Go on. What else.”
“Well, his cousin Bo, he fired back, and he shot that woman in the head. Near enough killed her. And later I found out... Damn it, Sheriff, that woman is some sort of agent or investigator with the Army.”
Williams feels like the concrete-block wall she’s leaning against is now pushing back at her, threatening to collapse and bury her at this very moment.
Her mouth suddenly dry, Williams says, “How long was DD with her?”
“I don’t know,” the man says. “It’s just that DD and her were sittin’ in a booth when Ricky and Bo went in.”
“But she’s alive.”
“Barely, I guess,” he says. “Took a round to the head. I tell you, Bo must have been some angry and spooked to miss like that, not take the top of her head off.”
She stands up from the wall. “Then Bo will have a chance to make it right.”
“What’s that, Sheriff?”
Williams closes her eyes, concentrates. “The shooting took place outside Savannah. Gunshot wound to the head. Nearest trauma unit is... Memorial Health University Medical Center, in Savannah. Tell Bo to get over there and finish the job. I can’t have any loose ends out there, especially if that bitch wakes up.”
“Sheriff...”
“And another thing,” she says. “Your idiot brother. Tell him to be home tonight and all through the morning. I need to talk to him about a job. Got it?”
A pause from the other end of the line.
“I said, got it?”
The man’s voice changes to a pleading tone. “Sheriff, I don’t know if Bo is up to it. I mean, he’s good at tuning folks up if they do you wrong, making a truck delivery down to Mobile, or lifting whatever car you might need, but getting into a hospital and—”
She takes a step. “You listen to me, you squirmy little peckerwood bastard! Those two nephews of yours, I sent them on a job, because you told me they could do it and do it well! And they screwed it up! Now that Bo of yours is going to get over to Savannah as quick as he can, and he’s gonna end it! You understand me? I said, do you understand me?”
The voice is meek. “Yes, ma’am.”
She won’t let it go. “Well, just to make it clear, you slimy little toad, I want that woman gone. Got it? I want her out of the picture this afternoon, and I want confirmation. And it better be a firm and complete confirmation or I’ll send you in next time to saw off her goddamn head and give it to me as a trophy! Do you get it now?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the man replies again, sounding like he’s six years old and he just peed in the bed.
“Good!” she says. “I didn’t work and sweat and bleed to get where I am just to throw it all away ’cause of idiot men like you! Get the job done!”
Williams disconnects the call, turns, and is horrified to see two young girls there, maybe eleven or twelve, dressed in sweet little pink and yellow dresses. The girl on the left is holding one of her campaign signs, and the one on the right is holding a black marker clenched in her tiny hands.
“Sorry you girls had to hear that,” Williams finally says, taking the black marker pen from the one girl and scrawling her name on the poster held by the other. “You’ll learn soon enough what I was talking about, how important it is not to depend on men.”
Chapter 76
Special Agent Manuel Sanchez is speeding east on Interstate 16, about fifteen minutes outside Savannah, when he glances up at the rearview mirror and sees a dark-blue police cruiser right on his tail, blue lights flashing.
Sanchez looks at the speedometer.
One hundred two miles per hour.
It’ll be hard to talk his way out of this one, but he’s going to try.
He switches on the Ford’s directional and slowly pulls over to the side, where there is nothing around save for tall pines and flat swampy areas, while recalling the text he got a few minutes ago from Pierce, back at Sullivan.
YORK IN CRIT CONDITION, ICU, MEMORIAL HEALTH UNIV MED CTR, SAVANNAH.
A thought comes to him. If he’s lucky and can spin a good tale, maybe this trooper will let him go. Hell, almost everyone down here is a huge supporter of the military. Say the right words, Sanchez thinks, and maybe the trooper back there will give him a police escort to the hospital, shave off some of the desperate minutes left in his travel time.
The cruiser pulls to the side as well, comes up to him, and in Sanchez’s rearview mirror, he spots that it’s from the Georgia State Patrol. The cruiser sits there, and Sanchez taps his fingers on the steering wheel, impatient for the process to start. From the glove box he pulls out the rental agreement and takes his driver’s license out of his wallet.
The door to the cruiser opens up. A heavyset African American woman steps out, putting on her gray campaign-style hat, and starts walking in his direction. She has on a light-blue uniform shirt and gray trousers with a black stripe down the side.
Sanchez lowers the window, switches off the engine.
She maintains a distance behind him and says, “Are you sick, sir? Is there an emergency?”
“I’m fine,” he says. “But there is an emergency. I’m trying to get to Memorial Health in Savannah as fast as I can.”
“I see,” she says. “Family member?”
“No, ma’am,” he says. “My coworker. I’m a special agent with the US Army. She’s been shot.”
The woman bends over a bit. “May I see your license and registration?”
He passes over his California driver’s license and rental agreement. “I don’t have a registration. This vehicle is a rental.”
“Uh-huh,” the officer says. She seems to take her time examining his license and the rental agreement.
Minutes seem to drag as traffic roars by, the occasional tractor-trailer truck buffeting the Ford.
What’s taking her so long?
“Mr. Sanchez, you say you’re a special agent? With the US Army?”
“That’s right,” he says. “Hold on, I’ll show you my identification.”
He opens his leather wallet with the badge and identification, and she gives it a quick glance. Her eyes seem to darken, and she bites her lower lip.
“Well, I’ll be,” she says. “You sure are an agent, then. A special agent.”
Sanchez takes back his identification and says, “Yes, ma’am. And please... would you consider giving me an escort to Memorial Health?”