Hide & Seek - James Patterson [18]
Oh yes, Will.
The man I was in here for killing.
“I've been working up to Will,” I said. “Will is in his own special class.”
CHAPTER 17
WILL HAD LEARNED to put on a good act in school, and to get by with it. He was already being touted as the best young football player in London. And he was very popular—with the girls anyway. He still didn't have a good friend though.
Early in the summer following his fourteenth birthday, he came down with the Asian flu. Chills and fever possessed him. He actually was afraid he might die, and go join his father.
His Aunt Vannie nursed him through the high fever. She was there for him. This was unusual, for until now, anytime Will got sick, it was Aunt Eleanor who brought him his food and comforted him. Indeed, sick or well, Vannie was a remote figure in his life. She went out almost every night, often on dates with men who squired her for a few evenings, and then disappeared to be replaced by others.
Mostly, Will and Vannie played chess, and they chatted. She was an avid player, but he learned the game rapidly, and by the end of the week they were able to play competitively. He found himself looking forward to the games with increasing excitement.
Chess enabled him to study his aunt up close. He and his brother, Palmer, had conducted countless, sworn-secret, late-night conversations about her. They wondered about Vannie's men, about her occasional trips to Bournemouth or the South of France. And now, as she studied the board, he was able to stare at her, watch her every move.
He examined her breasts whenever her eyes were occupied with the game board. He imagined kissing them, gently sucking on the soft nipples, which taunted him under every blouse and dress she wore. He imagined biting each nipple clean off.
“You can't fool me the way you do all the others,” Vannie told him during one of their tensest games. “I know that you're very clever, Will, and I know that you don't want us to know. But I know. I even know what you're thinking, dear boy.”
After six days, Will woke feeling a little bad about feeling so much better. He would have to get up, he knew, and the prospect of being able to play football again delighted him. But the times with Vannie would be over.
There was a knock on his door around nine-thirty that morning. Palmer was already gone—Eleanor was taking him to the Regent's Park Zoo—and Will decided he would pretend to be sicker than he actually felt. He liked to pretend, to act, to see how good he was.
“I'm awake,” he said in a weak voice like Tiny Tim's in A Christmas Carol. “Come in, please.”
Vannie opened the door. She was wearing a gingham dress, cut tightly across her breasts. He noticed her breasts right away—every time.
“I'm going to make eggs,” she said. “Scrambled eggs. Could you assist in the eating thereof, Master Will?”
“A little,” he said, still playing Tiny Tim, acting his heart out. “Maybe a half portion.”
“I don't know if I'm up to cooking that much.” She winked.
Which finally got him to smile.
Vannie called his smile scampish. He knew that she liked it. So he smiled for her. More acting on his part.
“Just lie there. I'll bring breakfast to you, Master Will.”
Trembling, he watched her leave. She returned in a half hour, bearing scrambled eggs and mashed potatoes for them both, and sat on the bed next to him. Now that was extremely nice.
Will felt as though he hadn't eaten properly in a month, but her nearness took away his appetite for food.
“Still not hungry?” she asked, finishing her own portion. “Then how about one last game. For the championship of Fulham? You look recovered enough to play.”
“You're on. For the championship.”
“And what shall we play for, Vannie? What is our championship worth?”
I think I know what you want to play for. I think I know.
CHAPTER 18
VANNIE QUICKLY CLEARED away the dishes, and set up the board on his bed. “The smaller pieces in front, they're called pawns,” she teased. “Please move any one of them, so I can begin to thrash you.”
Now he concentrated on the game. Her challenge