Crosshairs, page 1
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2024 by James Patterson
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ISBN 9780316403580
E3-20231214-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Acknowledgments
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CHAPTER 1
ADAM GLOSSNER HAD to work hard to conceal his smile, sitting on the edge of his three-year-old son’s tiny bed. The little boy giggled as he squeezed the doll again. A shaky, recorded voice said, “Oh, geez. C’mon, Rick.”
Brooke, Glossner’s six-year-old daughter, snickered from the other bed.
Glossner said, “Are you sure you’ve never watched Rick and Morty?”
The little boy kept smiling and shook his head.
“How did Grandpa know you’d like this Morty doll?”
Jeremy shrugged his little shoulders and kept the huge grin on his face. From the other bed, Brooke said, “Grandpa is smart. He said that’s why me and Jeremy are smart. It skips a generation.”
Glossner couldn’t keep from laughing out loud at that. His father often threatened to buy the kids a drum set if he didn’t get to see them enough. All Glossner could do now was hug his son and do the little ritual where he tucked the blankets tightly around him. Jeremy was an amazingly still sleeper. Glossner would often find him in the same position in the morning. The boy looked like a tiny mummy.
He stepped over to his daughter’s bed and leaned down to give her a kiss.
Brooke said, “Daddy, can we go to the LEGO store soon?”
“Sure. What’s my engineer need this time?”
“They have a new Star Wars collection. I just need one more TIE fighter.”
“Wow. When did you guys go full science fiction on me?”
Brooke smiled and said, “We’re not from the olden days. We grew up this way.”
Glossner snorted. “Six whole years of growing up. Nothing like the dark ages I had to live through.” He kissed his daughter on the forehead. “Once upon a time, I had to watch the commercials during Giants games. No fast-forwarding and no pausing either.”
“Really? All the commercials?”
“Yep.”
Glossner slipped out of the bedroom and down the hallway. His wife, Victoria, stepped out of their bedroom suite. She still could walk a runway as a model but looked like she was going out for a jog, in shorts and a T-shirt. She liked to sleep in the same clothes she intended to work out in the next morning.
“I love how Brooke lets Jeremy sleep in her room,” Glossner said. “It’ll be helpful when more siblings arrive.”
His wife said, “You better not expect too many more kids. I’ll be too old before you have the volleyball team you want.”
He chuckled as he leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. “We’ve got plenty of time. Want to come out on the balcony with me?”
Victoria shook her head. “I have to give my sister a call, then I’m down for the count.” As she turned to walk past him, she gave him a swat on the butt. “Not bad for a guy who doesn’t have time to work out.”
A couple of minutes later, Adam Glossner stood on his third-floor balcony, gazing out at the park in front of his apartment and the Hudson River beyond it. The air was cool but not uncomfortable. No snow so far this year, but that was always iffy before Thanksgiving. The wind was from the east, so he didn’t catch that salty smell that came off the river. He held a snifter of brandy in his left hand. He’d given up smoking cigars in the evening when Brooke told him they smelled gross. He had to admit he felt better for it.
He could see the three closest buildings around a bend in Riverside Drive. Something caught his attention. A movement on one of the lower balconies. Then a boat on the river distracted him. He took a sip of the Rémy Martin Cognac and gazed back out at the river.
His brain didn’t have time to process the sound of the bullet before it punched into the side of his head and sent him tumbling through the open French doors onto the Italian tile they’d just paid a fortune to have laid in their living room.
CHAPTER 2
I LAY IN bed, appreciating the dark bedroom. The apartment was quiet. With ten kids, that was rare. My wife, Mary Catherine, had been pushing both of us toward a healthier lifestyle. That include
I could hear Mary Catherine’s light snore. It was cute. Not that I could ever tell her that. She had the belief that she never snored. As Trent once said to her, “You claim you don’t burp. But I’ve seen you burp a couple of times. According to my debate class, that would negate your entire premise. Besides, everyone burps.” That had earned my youngest son a stern look and a small portion of roast pork with rice and beans. It also put Trent on notice that Mary Catherine really didn’t care for him pointing out her personal habits.
I was mature and experienced enough to know never to make a similar comment. I didn’t care if Mary Catherine burped after a pepperoni pizza; I’d act like I didn’t hear or smell anything at all. Maybe that was the secret to our very happy marriage. That or the fact that we’d been married less than two months.
Then my cell phone rang. As I picked up the phone, I saw that it was my boss, Harry Grissom, calling me at 6:01 a.m. There was only one thing he’d be calling about this early.
“Hey, Harry,” I kept my voice low even though I knew the ring itself would’ve woken Mary Catherine.
“Sorry for the early call, Mike.” Somehow his voice didn’t sound quite as gravelly as it did during the day.
“What’s up?”
Harry said, “This may shock you, but I’m calling because of a homicide.”
“No, really? I thought you might want me to meet for you breakfast or maybe go for a walk.”
I sat up in bed, then reached into my nightstand drawer and pulled out the little notebook I always keep there. “Where am I heading before breakfast?”
Harry gave me the address. I said, “Wait. Where?”
“I know. It’s close to your apartment,” Harry said. “You could probably walk there. We got a problem, though. The body was found a few hours ago, but someone screwed up, patrol got overwhelmed, and no one called us immediately. There’s already media on the scene.”
“That does make things trickier. I can’t believe too many reporters are at the scene of a homicide. Even if it is probably some rich guy based on the address.” I stopped and thought about it for a moment. I was careful when I said, “Harry, why is there already media there at this time in the morning?”
Harry said in a flat tone, “It’s another victim of the sniper.”
CHAPTER 3
THE ONLY KID I encountered during my attempt to escape the apartment quietly was Jane, who often got up early to study. Even by her standards, though, this was a little excessive. I gave her a kiss on the top of her head and headed for the door. A cop’s kids know not to ask questions when they see their mom or dad leave early or in a hurry.
Just as I was passing through the door, Jane called out, “Be careful, Dad.”
It put a smile on my face.
It took me longer to walk across the street and up to the parking garage where I park my NYPD Chevy Impala than it did for me to drive the few blocks to the crime scene. But the entire trip gave me a little time to think. The media had been playing up the story of two people shot from long range almost a month apart. I think it was the Brooklyn Democrat that came up with a catchy name: the Longshot Killer. It was easier to appreciate a good nickname for a killer before you met the victim’s family. For now, I respected someone’s poetic license.
This was the only victim in Manhattan. The first, Marie Ballard, had been a single grandmother in Queens. The next one was Thomas Bannon, a fireman who lived on Staten Island. I was already racking my brain, trying to find a pattern to the killings.
Every homicide detective tends to note homicides with similar details. You never know when it might reveal a serial killer. I wasn’t even sure if I was up for another major investigation after my past few months. But I learned a long time ago that neither the NYPD nor the public cares one bit how tired I am or what kind of mood I’m in.
I pulled up next to a parked patrol car. I recognized the patrol officer but couldn’t think of his name as he waved to me. After a dozen steps, I stopped for a moment. I sucked in a deep breath like a free diver attempting a hundred-foot dive. Then I listened to the sounds of the city just waking up. I never know how frantic my life might become as soon as I dive into a homicide investigation. I like to savor my last moments of relative calm.
I noticed half a dozen reporters and three cameramen hovering near the entrance to the building. A young female patrol officer stood by the door, blocking the media people.
One of the reporters stepped right up to the officer, trying to intimidate her. He said in a loud voice, “I live in the building. I demand you let me in.”
The young cop let a smile slide across her face. She said, “I’m sure you do. In your mind. But I expect it’s more likely you live in a studio somewhere in Queens. I’m just basing that on what reporters at your shitty station are paid.”
I let out a laugh.
Before I got any closer, I heard someone call my name. It was Lois Frang from the Brooklyn Democrat. She had a decent reputation among the cops for honest reporting and being a straight shooter. I knew she’d worked at one of the big newspapers years ago but left under a cloud of some kind. She seemed to get a charge out of racing around the city, writing about some of the more lurid crimes. She also seemed to love working for the small Brooklyn newspaper. Even if the little paper had more ads than articles.
Lois said, “Must be big if they brought you in on this, Detective Bennett.”
“C’mon, Lois, no one’s bringing in anyone. It’s a homicide in Upper Manhattan. If you’ll recall, my assignment is to the Manhattan North Homicide unit. I’d get called no matter the circumstances.”
“Can you give me any insights?” Lois had pulled a small pad from her purse, which looked more like a duffel bag.
“The best insight I can give you is that cannabis stocks might be a good investment.”
“Very funny. Anything about this homicide?”
“Technically, we don’t know it’s a homicide yet. Until I get up there and look around it’s still a death investigation.”
“Cut the shit, Bennett. We all know he was shot at long range. Why do you think everyone’s out here at this ungodly hour? We want to pick up details about the latest victim of the Longshot Killer.”
“Did you come up with that name, Lois?”
She beamed for a moment. “Why, yes, I did.”
“Well played. Descriptive without being too campy. You could give lessons to the Daily News or the Post about variety and imagination when naming a killer.”
“Thanks, Bennett. It would be an even better story if you could give me a few details.”
I shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell you, Lois.”
“We heard the victim was well-known.”
I shrugged again. I honestly didn’t know anything yet except the victim’s name: Adam Glossner.
CHAPTER 4
THE APARTMENT WAS on the third floor, so I took the stairs. When I stepped through the stairwell door on the third floor, the scene was exactly as I had expected. Cops, medical examiner workers, and tenants all milled around the open door to an apartment. A few doors down, sitting in a chair that looked like it came from the apartment, was a distraught doorman. Several crime-scene techs were getting their equipment ready, and a uniformed patrol sergeant kept nonessential workers and gawkers away from the door.
The sergeant looked up and said, “About time someone from Homicide showed up.”
I smiled at Sergeant Leslie Asher and said, “We show up as soon as we’re called.”
“Touché.” She smiled and said, “I already sent the imbecile who didn’t call you home. What we got isn’t pretty.”
“Talk to me, Leslie.”
“The victim is forty-one-year-old Adam Glossner. Some kind of hedge-fund manager. His wife found the body about two hours ago, when she realized he wasn’t in bed. She said he’d been headed out to the balcony when she went to bed around nine. It’s a single bullet hole visible on the right side of his head. Looks like he sort of bounced off the French door frame and fell on the floor. The two kids are with the wife in one of the neighbors’ apartments. There, you’re up to date.”
I stepped into the apartment and let the videographer and photographer do their job before the crime-scene techs moved in. The body was still on the floor where it had been found. Someone from the medical examiner’s office was waiting outside to take Mr. Glossner.
I paused and said a quick prayer for Adam Glossner’s soul. My grandfather always tells me how important it is to take every life seriously. By extension we must take every death seriously. This isn’t a ritual I treat lightly. But I wish I didn’t have to do it so often.
