Run for Your Life - James Patterson [53]
I’d wait until I came face-to-face with him. Then I’d turn loose my rage.
Chapter 53
WHEN I GOT BACK TO MY BUILDING, even my doorman Ralph knew better than to mess with me. It must have been the stark expression on my face.
Upstairs, I made sure all the locks on the doors and windows were secured before I found my bedroom.
It was going to require smelling salts to wake me come morning, but I did not care. I was not going to brush my teeth. I barely had the energy to take off my shoes. I was going to fall into my bed and sleep until someone wrenched me out of it with great physical force.
I had just pulled my beloved body pillow to my chest when I heard the giggling. It was coming from the other side of the bed.
No, I prayed. Please, Lord. No.
The pillow was tugged out of my grip. A wide-awake Shawna lay there staring at me with a beaming smile.
“Sweetie, this isn’t your bed,” I pleaded softly. “This isn’t even the bathtub. Do you want a pony, Shawna? Daddy will get you a whole herd of ponies if you let him have some rest.”
She shook her head, immediately getting into the spirit of this new game. I felt like weeping. I was doomed, and I knew it. The problem with the youngest kids in a big family is that by the time you’ve gotten to them, you realize it’s actually easier to do things for them than to sit around and agonizingly wait for them to do things for themselves. They instinctively know this. They sense the emptiness in threats the way an ATF dog can detect explosives. Resistance is futile. You are theirs.
As this was going through my mind, I heard more giggling, then felt the movement of something small climbing into the bottom of my bed. I didn’t even have to look to know that Chrissy was getting into the act. She and Shawna were as thick as thieves.
Next, tiny hands separated the largest and second largest toes of my right foot.
“Toe pit sensitivity training,” my daughters screamed in glee as they wriggled their fingers between my toes.
I couldn’t take any more, and I sat up to tell them they had to go back to their own beds. But I stopped when I saw the undiluted delight radiating off them. What the heck. At least they weren’t puking.
Besides, how could you argue with a light beam and an angel?
“All right, I’ll show you some sensitivity training,” I mock-threatened.
Their happy shrieks threatened to shatter the light fixture as I tried the Vulcan nerve pinch on both of them simultaneously.
A few minutes later, after an elaborate ritual of arranging stuffed animals and squish pillows, I managed to tuck in my daughters next to me.
“Tell us a story, Daddy,” Chrissy said as I collapsed again.
“Okay, honey,” I said with my eyes closed. “Once upon a time, there was a poor old detective who lived in a shoe.”
Chapter 54
“BENNETT? YOU THERE?!”
I lunged up from the mattress, hand groping for my service weapon, as a shrill voice drilled a hole in my right eardrum. Then I realized with bewilderment that I was in my own bedroom filled with morning sunlight, not some murky, death-harboring alley of nightmare. My cell phone, folded open, was resting on my pillow beside where my head had been. One of my kids must have answered it and helpfully stuck it next to sleeping daddy’s ear.
“Yeah?” I said, lifting it with an unsteady hand.
“Nine o’clock meeting at the Plaza, and I don’t mean the Oak Room,” Chief of Detectives McGinnis snapped, and hung up as sharply as he’d spoken.
Not only did I make it into my unmarked Chevy in ten minutes flat, I was even showered and dressed. I got the car rolling and dug for the Norelco I kept in the glove compartment, feeling like I’d died and gone to heaven. I must have gotten close to five hours of real, delicious sleep.
I strode through the doors of One Police Plaza with a full forty seconds to spare, and took the elevator up to twelve, to the same cramped conference room where the first task force meeting had been held. The same tired and wired-looking cops were sitting there. I poured myself a coffee, grabbed a chocolate glazed, and took