Hide & Seek - James Patterson [1]
—Detroit News and Free Press
“Along Came a Spider is a first-rate thriller—fasten your seatbelts and keep the lights on.”
—Sidney Sheldon
“Along Came a Spider is written simply, powerfully, with shifting points of view. The book will satisfy mystery and thriller fans, as well as students of the human condition.”
—Washington Post Book World
“Along Came a Spider deserves to be this season's #1 bestseller and should instantly make James Patterson a household name.”
—Nelson DeMille
THE NOVELS OF JAMES PATTERSON
Featuring Alex Cross
Mary, Mary
London Bridges
The Big Bad Wolf
Four Blind Mice
Violets Are Blue
Roses Are Red
Pop Goes the Weasel
Cat & Mouse
Jack & Jill
Kiss the Girls
Along Came a Spider
The Women's Murder Club
4TH of July (and Maxine Paetro)
3RD Degree (and Andrew Gross)
2ND Chance (and Andrew Gross)
1ST to Die
Other Books
The Lifeguard (and Andrew Gross)
Maximum Ride
Honeymoon (and Howard Roughan)
santaKid
Sam's Letters to Jennifer
The Lake House
The Jester (and Andrew Gross)
The Beach House (and Peter de Jonge)
Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas
Cradle and All
Black Friday
When the Wind Blows
See How They Run
Miracle on the 17th Green (and Peter de Jonge)
Hide & Seek
The Midnight Club
Season of the Machete
The Thomas Berryman Number
For more information about James Patterson's novels, visit www.jamespatterson.com
For Carole Anne, Isabelle Anne, and Mary Ellen: the mothers of invention
Prologue
Hide & Seek
I
I LAY WITHOUT moving in the low, narrow crawl space under the front porch of our home near West Point. My face was pressed tightly against the brutally cold, frozen ground littered with dry leaves and scratchy brambles. I knew I was going to die soon, and so was my baby girl. The words from a song, Crosby, Stills, and Nash—“Our house is a very, very, very fine house”— played in my mind.
“Don't cry … oh please don't cry,” I whispered into my baby's ear.
There was no way out—no escape from here, at least not carrying the baby. I was smart, and I'd thought of every possible escape route. None of them would work.
Phillip was going to kill us when he found our hiding place. I couldn't let him. I just didn't know how I could stop it. I kept my hand lightly over Jennie's mouth. “You mustn't make a sound, sweetheart. I love you. You mustn't make a sound.”
I could hear Phillip raging above us inside the house. Our house. He was rampaging from floor to floor, ransacking rooms, overturning furniture. Angry. Relentless. Absolutely crazy. Worse than he'd ever been. It was cocaine this time, but really it was life that Phillip couldn't handle very well.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are, Maggie … come out, Maggie and Jennie … it's only Daddy. Daddy's going to find you anyway,” Phillip screamed over and over until he was hoarse. “Come out, come out, Maggie … game's over.
“Maggie, I command you to come out wherever the hell you're hiding, you disobedient little bitch.”
I lay shivering under the old sagging porch. My teeth were chattering again. This couldn't be happening. It was unthinkable. I gently held my little girl, who had wet her pants. “You mustn't cry, Jennie. Please don't cry. Don't cry. You're such a good little girl. I love you so much.”
Jennie nodded, and stared into my eyes. I wished that this were a nightmare. That it would go away. But it wasn't a bad dream. This was as real as my mother's fatal heart attack when I was thirteen years old and the only one home. This was even worse.
I could hear my husband, my husband, stomping up and down the stairs of the house. He was still screaming … hadn't stopped screaming for over an hour. Pounding his fist against the walls. Captain Phillip Bradford. Math instructor at the Academy. Officer and gentleman. That was what everyone believed, what they wanted to believe, what I had believed myself.
The hour stretched to two hours.
Then to three hours in the pitch-black, freezing-cold crawl space—in this living hell.
Mercifully, Jennie had finally fallen asleep. I held her to my chest, tried to keep