Steal, page 27
Then she saw his big hand coming toward her, and she flinched.
Eddie laughed. “Relax. I’m just turning up the heat.” He twisted a knob, and hot air blasted in her face. “I’m one of the good guys,” he said. “Husband, dad, all that white-picket-fence business. Shoot, I even got a dang poodle. That was my wife’s idea, though. I wanted a blue heeler.”
“How old are your kids?” AnnieLee asked.
“Fourteen and twelve,” he said. “Boys. One plays football, the other plays chess. Go figure.” He held out a battered thermos. “Got coffee if you want it. Just be careful, because it’s probably still hot as hellfire.”
AnnieLee thanked him, but she was too tired for coffee. Too tired to talk. She hadn’t even asked Eddie where he was going, but she hardly cared. She was in a warm, dry cab, putting her past behind her at seventy miles per hour. She wadded her poncho into a pillow and leaned her head against the window. Maybe everything was going to be okay.
She must have fallen asleep then, because when she opened her eyes she saw a sign for Lafayette, Louisiana. The truck’s headlights shone through slashing rain. A Kenny Chesney song was on the radio. And Eddie’s hand was on her thigh.
She stared down at his big knuckles as her mind came out of its dream fog. Then she looked over at him. “I think you better take your hand off me,” she said.
“I was wondering how long you were going to sleep,” Eddie said. “I was getting lonely.”
She tried to push his hand away, but he squeezed tighter.
“Relax,” he said. His fingers dug into her thigh. “Why don’t you move closer, Ann? We can have a little fun.”
AnnieLee gritted her teeth. “If you don’t take your hand off me, you’re going to be sorry.”
“Oh, girl, you are just precious,” he said. “You just relax and let me do what I like.” His hand slid farther up her thigh. “We’re all alone in here.”
AnnieLee’s heart pounded in her chest, but she kept her voice low. “You don’t want to do this.”
“Sure I do.”
“I’m warning you,” she said.
Eddie practically giggled at her. “What are you going to do, girl, scream?”
“No,” she said. She reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out the gun. Then she pointed it at his chest. “I’m going to do this.”
Eddie’s hand shot off her leg so fast she would’ve laughed if she weren’t so outraged.
But he got over his surprise quickly, and his eyes grew narrow and mean. “Hundred bucks says you can’t even fire that thing,” he said. “You better put that big gun away before you get hurt.”
“Me get hurt?” AnnieLee said. “The barrel’s not pointing at me, jackass. Now you apologize for touching me.”
But Eddie was angry now. “You skinny little tramp, I wouldn’t touch you with a tent pole! You’re probably just another truck stop hoo—”
She pulled the trigger, and sound exploded in the cabin—first the shot, and then the scream of that dumb trucker.
The truck swerved, and somewhere behind them a horn blared. “What the hell’re you doing, you crazy hobo bitch?”
“Pull over,” she said.
“I’m not pull—”
She lifted the pistol again. “Pull over. I’m not kidding,” she said.
Cursing, Eddie braked and pulled over onto the shoulder. When the truck came to a stop, AnnieLee said, “Now get out. Leave the keys in and the engine running.”
He was sputtering and pleading, trying to reason with her now, but she couldn’t be bothered to listen to a word he said.
“Get out,” she said. “Now.”
She shook the gun at him and he opened the door. The way the rain was coming down, he was soaked before he hit the ground.
“You crazy, stupid, trashy—”
AnnieLee lifted the gun so it was pointing right at his mouth, so he shut it. “Looks like there’s a rest stop a couple miles ahead,” she said. “You can have yourself a nice walk and a cold shower at the same time. Pervert.”
She slammed the door, but she could feel him beating on the side of the cab as she tried to figure out how to put the truck into gear. She fired another shot, out the window, and that made him quit until she found the clutch and the gas.
Then AnnieLee grabbed hold of the gearshift. Her stepdad might’ve been the world’s biggest asshole, but he’d taught her to drive stick. She knew how to double-clutch and how to listen to the revs. And maybe songs weren’t the only thing she had a natural talent for, because it didn’t take her long at all to lurch that giant rig off the shoulder and pull out onto the highway, leaving Eddie screaming behind her.
I’m driving, she thought giddily. I’m driving!
She yanked on the horn and shot deeper into the darkness. And then she started singing.
Driven to insanity, driven to the edge
Driven to the point of almost no return
She beat out a rhythm on the steering wheel.
Driven, driven to be smarter
Driven to work harder
Driven to be better every day
That last line made her laugh out loud. Sure, she’d be better tomorrow—because tomorrow the sun would come out again, and tomorrow she had absolutely no plans to carjack an eighteen-wheeler.
Chapter
3
Ruthanna couldn’t get the damn lick out of her head. A descending roll in C major, twangy as a rubber band, it was crying out for lyrics, a bass line, a song to live inside. She tapped her long nails on her desk as she scrolled through her emails.
“Later,” she said, to herself or to the lick, she wasn’t entirely sure. “We’ll give you some attention when the boys show up to play.”
It was nine o’clock in the morning, and already she’d fielded six pleading requests for Ruthanna Ryder, one of country music’s grandest queens, to grace some big industry event or another with her royal presence.
She couldn’t understand it, but people just failed to get the message: she’d retired that crown. Ruthanna didn’t want to put on high heels, false eyelashes, and a sparkling Southern smile anymore. She wasn’t going to stand up on some hot, bright stage in a dress so tight it made her ribs ache. She had no desire to pour her heart out into a melody that’d bring tears to a thousand pairs of eyes, hers included. No, sir, she’d put in her time, and now she was done. She was still writing songs—she couldn’t stop that if she tried—but if the world thought it was going to ever hear them, it had another think coming. Her music was only for herself now.
She looked up from the screen as Maya, her assistant, walked into the room with a crumpled paper bag in one hand and a stack of mail in the other.
“The sun sure is bright on those gold records today,” Maya said.
Ruthanna sighed at her. “Come on, Maya. You’re the one person I’m supposed to be able to count on not to harass me about my quote, unquote, career. Jack must’ve called with another ‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.’”
Maya just laughed, which was her way of saying, You bet your white ass he did.
Jack was Ruthanna’s manager—ahem, former manager. “All right, what does he want from me today?”
“He wouldn’t tell me yet. But he said that it’s not what he wants. He’s thinking about what you really want.”
Ruthanna gave a delicate snort. “I really want to be left alone. Why he thinks he knows something different is beyond me.” She picked up her ringing phone, silenced it, and then threw it onto the overstuffed couch across the room.
Maya watched this minor tantrum serenely. “He says the world’s still hungry for your voice. For your songs.”
“Well, a little hunger never hurt anyone.” She gave her assistant a sly grin. “Not that you’d know much about hunger.”
Maya put a hand on her ample hip. “And you got room to talk,” she said.
Ruthanna laughed. “Touché. But whose fault is it for hiring Louie from the ribs place to be my personal chef? You could’ve picked someone who knew his way around a salad.”
“Coulda, woulda, shoulda,” Maya said. She put a stack of letters in Ruthanna’s inbox and held out the paper bag. “It’s from Jack.”
“What is that, muffins? I told Jack I was off carbs this month,” Ruthanna said.
Not that Jack believed anything she told him lately. The last time they’d talked she’d said that she was going to start gardening, and he’d laughed so hard he dropped the phone into his pool. When he called her back on his landline he was still wheezing with delight. “I can’t see you out there pruning roses any more than I can see you stripping off your clothes and riding down Lower Broadway on a silver steed like Lady Godiva of Nashville,” he’d said.
Her retort—that it was past the season for pruning roses anyway—had failed to convince him.
“No, ma’am,” Maya said, “these are definitely not muffins.”
“You looked?”
“He told me to. He said if I saw them, I’d be sure you opened them. Otherwise he was afraid you might chuck the bag in a bin somewhere, and that’d be…well, a lot of sparkle to throw away.”
“Sparkle, huh?” Ruthanna said, her interest piqued.
Maya shook her head at her, like, You just don’t know how lucky you are. But since lovely Maya had a husband who bought her flowers every Friday and just about kissed the ground she walked on, she was considerably fortunate herself. Ruthanna, divorced seven years now, only got presents from people who wanted something from her.
She took the bag. Unrolling the top, she looked inside, and there, lying at the bottom of the bag—not even in a velvet box—was a pair of diamond chandelier earrings, each one as long as her index finger, false nail included. “Holy sugar,” Ruthanna said.
“I know. I already googled them,” Maya said. “Price available upon request.”
Ruthanna held them up so that they caught the light brilliantly and flung rainbows onto her desk. She owned plenty of diamonds, but these were spectacular. “They look like earrings you’d buy a trophy wife,” she said.
“Correction,” said Maya. “They look like earrings you’d buy a woman who made you millions as she clawed her way to the top of her industry and into the hearts of a vast majority of the world’s population.”
The office line rang, and Ruthanna put the earrings back into the bag without trying them on. She gestured to Maya to answer it.
“Ryder residence,” Maya said, and then put on her listening face. After a while she nodded. “Yes, Jack, I’ll pass that information along.”
“He couldn’t keep his little secret after all, could he?” Ruthanna asked when her assistant hung up.
“He says they want to give you some big giant honor at the Country Music Awards—but you’d actually have to go,” Maya said. “And he’d like me to tell you that you really shouldn’t pass up such a perfect opportunity to wear those earrings.”
Ruthanna laughed. Jack really was something else. “That man can buy me diamonds until hell turns into a honky-tonk,” she said. “I’m out of the business.”
About the Authors
James Patterson is the world’s bestselling author and most trusted storyteller. He has created many enduring fictional characters and series, including Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club, Michael Bennett, Maximum Ride, Middle School, and I Funny. Among his notable literary collaborations are The President Is Missing, with President Bill Clinton, and the Max Einstein series, produced in partnership with the Albert Einstein Estate. Patterson’s writing career is characterized by a single mission: to prove that there is no such thing as a person who “doesn’t like to read,” only people who haven’t found the right book. He’s given more than three million books to schoolkids and the military, donated more than seventy million dollars to support education, and endowed more than five thousand college scholarships for teachers. For his prodigious imagination and championship of literacy in America, Patterson was awarded the 2019 National Humanities Medal. The National Book Foundation presented him with the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, and he is also the recipient of an Edgar Award and nine Emmy Awards. He lives in Florida with his family.
Howard Roughan has cowritten several books with James Patterson and is the author of The Promise of a Lie and The Up and Comer. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.
Killer Instinct
The murder of an Ivy League professor sends my smartest crime fighter, Dr. Dylan Reinhart, back to the streets of New York, where he reunites with his old partner, detective Elizabeth Needham. A heinous act of terror and a name on the casualty list rock Dylan’s world. Is his secret past about to be brought to light?
Dylan literally wrote the book on the psychology of murder, and he and Elizabeth have solved cases that have baffled conventional detectives. But the sociopath they’re facing now is the opposite of a textbook case. I’ve come up with a test that they have no time to study for—and if they fail, they die.
The Midwife Murders
I can’t imagine a worse crime than one done against a child. But when two kidnappings and a vicious stabbing happen on senior midwife Lucy’s watch in a university hospital in Manhattan, her focus abruptly changes. Something has to be done, and Lucy is fearless enough to try.
Rumors begin to swirl, with blame falling on everyone from the Russian mafia to an underground adoption network. Fierce single mom Lucy teams up with a skeptical NYPD detective, but I’ve given her a case where the truth is far more twisted than Lucy could ever have imagined.
The First Lady
The US government is at the forefront of everyone’s mind these days, and I’ve become incredibly fascinated by the idea that one secret can bring it all down. What if that secret is a US president’s affair that results in a nightmarish outcome?
Sally Grissom, leader of the Presidential Protection Division, is summoned to a private meeting with the president and his chief of staff to discuss the disappearance of the first lady. What at first seemed an escape to a safe haven turns into a kidnapping when a ransom note arrives along with what could be the first lady’s finger.
It’s a race against the clock to collect the evidence that all leads to one troubling question: could the kidnappers be from inside the White House?
Texas Ranger
So many of my detectives are dark and gritty and deal with crimes in some of our grimmest cities. That’s why I’m thrilled to bring you Rory Yates, my most honorable detective yet.
As a Texas Ranger, he has a code that he lives and works by. But when he comes home for a much-needed break, he walks into a crime scene where the victim is none other than his ex-wife—and he’s the prime suspect. Yates has to risk everything to clear his name, and he dives into the inferno of the most twisted mind I’ve ever created. Can his code bring him back out alive?
Juror #3
In the deep south of Mississippi, Ruby Bozarth is a newcomer, both to Rosedale and to the bar. And now she’s tapped as a defense counsel in a racially charged felony. The murder of a woman from an old family has Rosedale’s upper crust howling for blood, and the prosecutor is counting on Ruby’s inexperience to help him deliver a swift conviction.
Ruby is determined to build a defense that sticks for her client, a college football star. Looking for help in unexpected quarters, her case is rattled as news of a second murder breaks. As intertwining investigations unfold, no one can be trusted, especially the twelve men and women on the jury. They may be hiding the most incendiary secret of all.
RAVES FOR
JAMES PATTERSON
“Patterson knows where our deepest fears are buried…There’s no stopping his imagination.”
—New York Times Book Review
“James Patterson writes his thrillers as if he were building roller coasters.”
—Associated Press
“No one gets this big without natural storytelling talent—which is what James Patterson has, in spades.”
—Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series
“James Patterson knows how to sell thrills and suspense in clear, unwavering prose.”
—People
“Patterson boils a scene down to a single, telling detail, the element that defines a character or moves a plot along. It’s what fires off the movie projector in the reader’s mind.”
—Michael Connelly
“James Patterson is the boss. End of.”
—Ian Rankin, New York Times bestselling author of the Inspector Rebus series
“James Patterson is the gold standard by which all others are judged.”
—Steve Berry, #1 bestselling author of the
Colton Malone series
“The prolific Patterson seems unstoppable.”
—USA Today
“Patterson is in a class by himself.”
—Vanity Fair
James Patterson, Steal
