“Please don’t,” she said, her voice quaking.
His stare intensified. He jerked the gun away from her head and placed it beneath his chin, pointing toward his own brain.
“Would Kevin do this for you?” he said, then squeezed the trigger.
She braced herself, then started at the sound of the click. He’d fired an empty round.
Rudy pulled the gun away, and spun the chamber again. “Now it’s his turn.” He rose and started toward the bed.
“Don’t,” said Peyton.
“Quiet,” he said sharply. “One more peep out of you, and I swear I’ll keep pulling the trigger till there’s a bullet in Kevin’s head.”
“Don’t be stupid. If that gun goes off, the police will be here in ten seconds. There’s no way out.”
“You’re my way out. I can go anywhere with a hostage.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Yes, you will. You want this as much as I do. You said it last night. You wanted to be rid of Kevin.”
She feared that screaming might get them both killed, but she had to stop this lunatic. She was about to shout for help when she saw something protruding from beneath the cop’s pant leg. It appeared to be a small leather strap just above the ankle, right at the hemline of his pants. Beneath the trousers, she could make out the outline of a holster.
He was wearing an ankle gun.
Rudy held the gun about a foot from Kevin’s face. “Are you watching, Peyton? I want you to watch.”
Peyton edged slowly toward the ankle gun, then in a final quick dive snatched it up and aimed at Rudy.
“Put the gun down!” she shouted.
He held his aim steady at Kevin’s head, smiling thinly. “Are you going to shoot me?”
“If I have to.”
“You think you can drop me in one shot? Because if you don’t, I pull the trigger.”
“Drop the gun, or I’ll shoot!”
“Can you risk it? There’s a one-in-six chance there’s a bullet in the chamber. You deliver anything less than a kill shot, and it will go off. Kevin could be dead.”
She glanced at Kevin, then back at Rudy. She adjusted her aim. She’d studied enough neurology to know that the most likely kill shot was at the bridge of the nose. A direct hit would drop him to the floor, instant death, no reflex action. “Don’t make me do this,” she said.
“You can’t do it.”
“My father was a cop. I’m an excellent shot.”
“But I’m not a jar of cotton balls on the counter at the Haverhill clinic. I’m not one of those black-and-white targets you shot up in the training course when you bought your gun.”
His words were yet more evidence how closely he’d monitored her life. They took her anger up a notch. “I’ll do it, I mean it.”
“You can’t kill me.”
She aimed between his eyes. Rudy stared back, as if challenging her. She had a clear shot, but she felt herself stalling at the final hurdle. It was the fear she’d had when she’d first purchased her gun, the fear she’d articulated to her lawyer after her deposition in the Haverhill clinic lawsuit. She’d devoted her life to healing. She’d never killed any living thing. She didn’t want to be anyone’s executioner.
He moved closer to Kevin and pressed the barrel more firmly to his head. “You can’t kill me, Peyton.”
“Drop the gun right now or you’re dead.”
“You can’t do it.”’
“I will.”
“You won’t. Because you love me.”
With that, she found the power within her.
Rudy’s finger twitched on the trigger, and Peyton reacted. The whole room seemed to erupt as her gun discharged in a single loud clap. Rudy’s head snapped back, but not before he was able to squeeze off his own shot. It was all one movement, but Peyton could almost see each segment unfolding separately. The bullet smashing through Rudy’s skull. His head jerking back in a crimson explosion. His knees buckling. And through it all, his finger still managing to follow through on the trigger.
“No!”
She lunged forward, only to be tugged back by the handcuffs. The sound ripped through her, the awful click of the gun hammer.
And then she heard it—wonderful silence.
She raised her head from the floor and looked through tears. Rudy was in a bloody heap beside the bed. Kevin was stirring in the bed, unscathed. Rudy had fired an empty chamber.
The door flew open. A nurse screamed, then wheeled and ran back into the hall, shouting for help.
Peyton dug the handcuff key from the officer’s pocket, unlocked herself, and rushed to Kevin’s side. In seconds the panicked nurse was back with a security guard and a doctor.
“What happened?” shouted the guard.
“This crazy guy had a gun!” said Peyton. “He’s dead. Help the downed officer. Blunt trauma to the back of the head.”
As they hurried to the officer, Kevin groaned, rousing from his drug-induced sleep.
Peyton touched his face. “Are you all right?”
His eyes blinked open. The doctor was calling out orders over the injured officer. Kevin looked barely coherent. “Man, it’s noisy as hell in this place.”
She had to chuckle, a release of emotion. “We had an incident.”
“Is it over?”
She glanced at Rudy’s twisted body on the floor. His eyes were still open. A pool of blood had oozed from the gaping wound in his head.
“Yes,” said Peyton. “It’s finally over.”
Epilogue
FOUR DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS, PEYTON AND KEVIN WERE DOING their one-stop shopping. It had been a long time coming, but Kevin’s novel was finally in bookstores.
A light snow was falling in the late afternoon, and a fresh, clean layer of white marked the east side of the bare tree limbs along the Boston Common. The storefronts of surrounding shops were decorated for the season with wreaths, twinkling lights, and menorahs. Peyton took Kevin’s arm as they crossed the street, passing right in front of a horse-drawn carriage. It was a magical time of year, and the thing she loved about Boston was that if you squinted your eyes and blocked out the traffic noise, you could, for a dreamy moment, put yourself in another century.
The trial, thank heaven, was already beginning to feel like another era. Most important, Rudy was gone. Right along with him went the criminal charges against Peyton and Kevin. Even if the cop in Kevin’s hospital room hadn’t heard the confession, Rudy’s apartment and his computer were filled with self-incrimination. Records, photographs, computer files, and maps created a veritable scrapbook of everything that had happened in the past year—his stalking of Peyton, his murder of Andy Johnson and Gary Varne, and his first attempt to kill Kevin. They even found Peyton’s gun under his bed, which he’d used to kill Gary.
Peyton didn’t like to think of the last two months as “getting back to normal,” since it was hard to know what normal was. Her mother had yet to be charged with a crime, but in Peyton’s mind she’d been convicted. Her father had filed for divorce, and neither he nor Peyton had spoken to her since. She was tempted to track down her half sister, but in the end she decided that it was up to the child who was given up for adoption to seek out her biological family, not the other way around. That the girl was still a minor made it even more sensitive.
On a more upbeat note, she was happy to be back at Children’s Hospital for her residency, and she’d forgiven Kevin for his night with Sandra Blair. Kevin was working at a small litigation firm, part-time lawyer and part-time writer. He was just happy to be published, but their trial had turned him and Peyton into minor celebrities, boosting the book onto the Boston best seller list.
“There it is,” said Peyton as they entered the bookstore.
On the table right in front: LYING WITH STRANGERS, A NOVEL BY KEVIN STOKES.
She felt tingles for Kevin as they approached the display. He picked up the book and held it carefully, as if it were breakable.
“I’ve waited so long for this,” he said.
“Let’s buy a copy.”
“Kind of crass buying your own book, isn’t it?”
“There’s worse crap you could buy in here.”
“Thanks a lot. Maybe you can give me a blurb for the paperback: ‘It doesn’t suck’—Peyton Shields.”
She reached under the table and grabbed the stack. “Here, let’s get all of these.”
“Peyton,” he said, groaning.
“What? We have to buy gifts for our friends anyway.”
“Do you think the CEO of McDonald’s gives his friends Happy Meals as gifts?”
“Yes, I do. And it’s not the same thing anyway.”
“We’ll buy one copy,” he said.
He started toward the register. Peyton acquiesced and put the rest of the books back—not under the shelf, where she’d found them, but on top, prominently positioned with the display copies.
Kevin watched with a boyish grin as the young clerk rang up the sale. He’d been playing it so cool, but Peyton knew that he couldn’t possibly walk out without taking at least one feeble stab at triggering some recognition.
“This is my book, you know,” he said proudly.
The clerk gave him a stupid look. “Yeah, it will be. When you pay for it.”
Kevin was about to speak up, but Peyton stopped him. “We’ve had our taste of fame. Let’s enjoy the anonymity.”
He smiled, wondering if the clerk would match the author’s name to the name on the credit slip. Just in case, he signed it Mickey Mouse.
Peyton snickered. The clerk didn’t even check. He just placed the book in a bag and passed it over the counter. “Seems like a lot of people are buying this book. Must be good.”
“Best book I ever—”
Peyton pinched his ribs, knowing that he was about to say “wrote.”
“Ever bought,” he said. “Best book I ever bought.”
The clerk gave him another stupid look.
Peyton took Kevin’s hand and led him to the door, smiling.
“Come on, Ernest. We’ve got a bullfight to get to.”
Acknowledgments
IN THIS WORLD OF REVOLVING DOORS, I’M WHAT YOU MIGHT CALL A professional anomaly. From the very start of my career, I’ve had the same agent (Richard Pine and, until his death in 2001, his father, Artie) and the same publisher (HarperCollins). I’ve also had the same editor (Carolyn Marino) since my second novel. I treasure these relationships. It is because of them that I am able to do what I love for a living.
Lying with Strangers marked the beginning of some new and exciting relationships. I’m eternally grateful to Markus Wilhelm, CEO of Bookspan, who tells me that he picked up one of my “Jack Swyteck” novels at an airport and was a fan for life by the time the plane landed. It was Richard Pine who suggested that he might like a non-Swyteck novel that I had in the works. The rest, as they say, is history. I’d been a “Main Selection” only once before in my life—my wife told me I was hers when she married me—so I’m deeply honored that Lying with Strangers was the first of my novels to be a Main Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Guild, and Doubleday Book Club.
Carole Baron should also take a bow. They say that an editor has done her best work when you can’t tell she’s been there, but trust me, Carole’s mark is all over this book. She is a real pro, and I can’t thank her enough for stepping out of her role in senior management and cutting on my manuscript, pushing me as a writer to another level. I’m also grateful to my reliable early readers, Dr. Gloria M. Grippando, Janis (“Conan the Grammarian”) Koch, and Eleanor Rayner.
A huge thank-you also goes to David Weinstein, M.D., and the staff and administration at Boston Children’s Hospital who allowed me to shadow David. It was some of the most educational and enjoyable research I’ve ever done.
Dr. Weinstein is now at the University of Florida, which has given him the opportunity to create and direct the ideal program for children with glycogen storage disease. Dr. Weinstein’s program is now the largest in the world, and the University of Florida has more researchers looking for a cure and new treatments for this rare disease than the rest of the world combined. One of the patients Dr. Weinstein treats is a boy named Jacob Gordon, whose family has provided critical support for the program. In honor of Jacob, and in a show of appreciation to the Gordon family, Dr. Peyton Shields’s favorite patient in Lying with Strangers is named Jacob Gordon.
Finally, I want to thank my wife, Tiffany, who helped me bring this story to you through the eyes of a female lead. Admittedly, it took me years to get it right. I started Lying with Strangers in 1999, and I can still see Tiffany looking up from the early manuscript, rolling her eyes, and telling me, “A woman would never say that!” Lying with Strangers is now one of her favorite James Grippando thrillers. I hope it will be one of your favorites, too.
About the Author
JAMES GRIPPANDO is the bestselling author of twelve novels, including When Darkness Falls, Got the Look, Hear No Evil, and Last to Die, which are enjoyed worldwide in more than twenty languages. He lives in Florida, where he was a trial lawyer for twelve years.
www.jamesgrippando.com
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Also by James Grippando
When Darkness Falls*
Got the Look*
Hear No Evil*
Last to Die*
Beyond Suspicion*
A King’s Ransom
Under Cover of Darkness
Found Money
The Abduction
The Informant
The Pardon*
And for Young Adults
Leapholes
*A Jack Swyteck Novel
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
LYING WITH STRANGERS. Copyright © 2007 by James Grippando. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub edition April 2007 ISBN 9780061747175
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About the Publisher
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United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
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United States
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Lying with Strangers Page 35
