Detective Carson Ryder Thriller Series Books 4-6: Blood Brother, In the Blood, Little Girls Lost. J. Kerley A.
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Название: Detective Carson Ryder Thriller Series Books 4-6: Blood Brother, In the Blood, Little Girls Lost
Автор: J. Kerley A.
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Приключения: прочее
isbn: 9780007535170
isbn:
Instead, it was my big brother who finally exploded. Only later, after interviewing a hundred fiercely dysfunctional minds, did I realize Jeremy’s explosion had saved me from an escalating madness destined to end in a house full of dead bodies with the standard news bites from the neighbors.
“We never knew the Ridgecliffs real good, but they seemed decent enough … Earl didn’t seem the kind of man to do that to his family and hisself … it’s a tragedy, is what it is …”
Jeremy knew how it would end, and took the only course he could take. I am alive because my father never got the chance to kill me.
Every breath I take is a gift from Jeremy.
I arrayed Jeremy’s files before me in chronological order, starting with paperwork generated the day my father died. One of the first officers at the scene was Jim Day of the county police. Though higher-ranking officers had been in early attendance – Sergeant Willis Farnsworth, Lieutenant Merle Baines, Captain Hollis Reamy – it was Day who wrote up the report. It may have been that Farnsworth, Baines and Reamy wanted to avoid paperwork, not unusual for guys with the rank to lay the work on others; but it could also have been Day’s eye for minutiae and vocabulary for description.
Victim’s intestine, Day wrote, appeared to have been severed at lower end and pulled like rope from the slit in victim’s abdomen. This “rope” extended across the ground for a dozen feet. And later in the report: A kidney appears to have been thrown with great force into a tree, bursting like a water balloon. Fragments were on the ground at the tree’s base.
And near the conclusion of the report, Day noted that, “the scene seemed one of total anger. The feeling was of a threshold crossed, some form of decision acted on.”
It took an hour to read Jim Day’s details and descriptions. When finished, I was soaked in sweat and my hands shook, forced to experience the crime as it unfolded. I’d heard the screams for mercy, smelled the cut-copper reek of flowing blood. My mind’s-eye watched my brother cut my father apart with a knife I’d used to slice bologna.
I blotted sweat from my brow and pushed aside the six-inch-tall stack of copies generated by Jeremy’s remaining murders of the five innocent women. I’d get to them later.
Tomorrow for sure.
Twilight painted the air a clean and fragile blue as Jeremy Ridgecliff rode a subway car downtown. He was feigning sleep while shooting sidelong glances at his quarry, a pasty little man, fortyish and balding. He was dressed in khakis and a gray wool cardigan, and had wary, flickering eyes that often shot to the tattered briefcase locked beneath his arm.
Jeremy had spent the afternoon wandering in the library, never going too far from the Political Science stacks and the Archived Newspapers: Cheese for a very special kind of mouse.
Had he found one?
Jeremy had watched the man working in a carrel, muttering to himself and making notes. After an hour, the man exited the library cautiously, clutching the briefcase to his chest and jitter-stepping to the street, shooting glances over his shoulders.
Jeremy had followed, his antennae quivering.
The man had stopped at a cart for a sandwich. He opened the bread like it was booby-trapped, and inspected the interior. After wolfing the sandwich down, he’d skittered to the subway entrance. Jeremy slipped his Metro Pass from his pocket, followed the man into the ground.
Next stop Chambers Street …
The train slowed. Jeremy saw his quarry’s hands tighten on the bar, ready to exit, but not wanting anyone to know. The wheels squealed to a halt. Doors snapped open. People entered and exited. At the last possible moment, the man jumped from his seat and slipped through the closing doors.
Jeremy was already outside, waiting in the shadows. The man walked east for a dozen blocks, entering a neighborhood of expensive high-rise apartments and condos.
Jeremy slipped ahead with the stealth of a cat, appearing at the man’s side.
“Keep walking,” Jeremy growled. “Walk or die. Don’t make a sound.”
The man moaned. Jeremy steered him to a paved area outside an empty dog run. A dirty streetlamp turned the twilight into yellow haze. Jeremy’s finger jabbed the man toward a bench.
“Sit,” he demanded.
The man sat and held up the briefcase like a shield. “I-I have c- copies. If anything h-happens to me, copies g-go to the New York Times, the Wuh-Washington Post, the Chicago T-Tribune and the R-Rocky Mountain News.”
“Shut up or I’ll slice your throat. Show me what you have.”
The man fumbled at the locks with trembling fingers. The open case revealed hundreds of tattered pages. He selected what seemed an important page, names and dates linked by colored arrows. He pushed the page at Jeremy.
“You c-can’t hurt me. It’s all backed up. I have c-copies.”
Jeremy moved beneath the streetlamp. He studied arrows and lines snaking from Trilateral Commission to Ronald Reagan to the House of Saud to GW Bush. The Bay of Pigs was represented, as were the Kennedys. Each name was followed by a half-dozen exclamation points.
Jeremy stepped to the man’s side. Shook the page in front of the man’s eyes. “How long have you known about this?”
“T-Twenty-two years.”
Jeremy replaced the anger in his face with calm. He surprised the man by gently squeezing his shoulder.
“It’s terrible, isn’t it? They used hidden speakers to fill my house with noises at night. They were always sneaking up on me, dressed as repairmen. They put things in my food to make me sick.”
The man’s eyes widened. “You’re … one of us?”
Jeremy looked from side to side, whispered, “They were after me for a decade, but I managed to get free.”
“HOW?”
Jeremy put a finger to his lips and pointed to an approaching jogger, a man in white sweats, MP3 player wire running to his ears. The jogger shot an uninterested glance as he padded past.
“He saw us,” the man gasped. “Do you think he’s one of Them?”
“He’d been wired for sound,” Jeremy said. “Did you notice one wire was black, the other one white?”
The man’s hand swept to his mouth. “Oh Jesus …”
Jeremy crouched to look the man in the eyes. “Things are falling apart in Washington. They might be willing to forget you. I made them forget me.”
“TELL ME HOW! I’ll do anything!”
“Shhhhh. I bribed them. And I was free.”
“The NSA takes bribes? The CIA?”
Jeremy rubbed his fingers in the money-whisk motion. СКАЧАТЬ