1st to Die - James Patterson [68]
I was relieved when I saw Raleigh waiting for me outside the bar. He came up to my car. I couldn’t help noticing that he looked good, as usual.
“Thanks for not making me go in,” I said.
He leaned on the edge of my open window. “I looked into Nicholas Jenks,” he said.
“And?”
“The guy’s forty-eight. Went to law school but never finished. Started writing novels his first year. Wrote two books that didn’t go anywhere. Then this twisted thriller, Crossed Wire, hit.
“There’s something you should know. Maybe seven years ago, give or take a few, cops were called out to his home in a domestic dispute.”
“Who made the call?”
“His wife. His first wife.” Raleigh leaned in closer. “I pulled up the report. First-on-the-scene described her as pretty beat-up. Bruises up and down her arms. Large bruise on her face.”
A thought flashed in my head—Merrill Shortley, on Kathy’s boyfriend: He was into intense sex games.
“Did the wife file?” I asked.
Chris shook his head. “That’s as far as it went. Never pressed charges. Since then, he’s cashed in big-time. Six huge bestsellers. Movies, screenplays. New wife, too.”
“That means there’s an old one out there who might be willing to talk.”
He had a satisfied expression on his face. “So, can I buy you a meal, Lindsay?”
A hot bead of sweat burned a slow path down my neck. I didn’t know whether to get out or stay in. I thought, If I got out…“Chris, I already ate. Had a commitment.”
“Jacobi.” He grinned. He could always get me with that smile of his.
“Sort of a women’s thing, a group of us. We meet once a month. Go over our lives. You know, nanny problems, personal trainers, country homes. Affairs, things like that.”
“Anyone I know?” Raleigh raised his eyebrows.
“Maybe one day I’ll introduce you.”
We sort of hung there, my blood slowly throbbing in my chest. The hair on Raleigh’s forearm gently grazed against mine. This was driving me insane. I had to say something. “Why’d you call me out here, Chris?”
“Jenks,” he replied. “I didn’t tell you everything. We ran a firearms check on him with Sacramento.” He looked at me with a glint in his eye. “He’s got several registered. A Browning twenty-two-caliber hunting rifle, a Renfield thirty-thirty. A Remington forty-point-five.”
He was leading me on. I knew he had struck pay dirt.
“There’s also a Glock Special, Lindsay. Nineteen-ninety issue. Nine millimeter.”
A rush of validation shot through my veins.
Chris frowned. “He has the weapon of choice, Lindsay. We’ve got to find that gun.”
I made a fist and brought it down against Raleigh’s in triumph. My mind was racing. Sparrow Ridge, the phone calls, now a Glock Special. It was all still circumstantial, but it was falling into place.
“What’re you doing tomorrow, Raleigh?” I asked with a smile.
“Wide open. Why?”
“I think it’s time we talked to this guy face-to-face.”
Chapter 75
HIGH ON THE CLIFFS above the Golden Gate Bridge, 20 El Camino del Mar was a stucco, Spanish-style home with an iron gate guarding the terra-cotta driveway.
Red Beard lived here—Nicholas Jenks.
Jenks’s home was low, stately, surrounded by decoratively trimmed hedges and bright, blossoming azaleas. In the driveway’s circle, there was a large iron sculpture, Botero’s Madonna and Child.
“Fiction must be good.” Raleigh let out a whistle, as we stepped up to the front door. We had made an appointment through Jenks’s personal assistant to meet him at noon. I had been warned by Sam Roth not to come on too hard.
A pleasant housekeeper greeted us at the door and took us back to a spacious sunroom, informing us that Mr. Jenks would be down in a short while. The lavish room seemed straight out of some designer magazine—with rich jacquard wallpaper, Oriental chairs, a mahogany coffee table, shelves of mementos and photographs. It opened onto a fieldstone patio overlooking the Pacific.
I