Worst Case - James Patterson [53]
“The man from the paper. The one the police are looking for,” she said instead.
He nodded, grinned.
“Guilty as charged,” he said. “I won’t lie to you. The people who have died so far have done so because they failed a test. We no longer have the luxury in this world to allow those who are unworthy to live. That’s why I have brought you here. I need to find out if you are worthy.”
A test, Mary Beth thought as the man rolled and then lit a cigarette. As he exhaled blue fragrant smoke from his nose, she allowed herself a tiny sliver of hope. She suspected that he was lying, just playing games with her, but if he wasn’t, maybe she could pull this off.
If anything, she was smart. She’d gotten a 2120 on her SAT, been early accepted to Bard, her first choice. Most kids she knew came up with a whole bunch of bull crap for their college applications, but hers, all her volunteering and extracurricular activities, were actually true. She really did love to learn and read and engage her mind.
Please let it be true, she thought.
He tapped some ash on the table between the razor blade and the gun.
“Okay, question one: Tell me about fair trade coffee prices and their effect on South American coffee growers.”
Oh, my God, Mary Beth thought excitedly. I actually know this. It was last month’s topic from her Political Awareness committee at school.
“The modern fair trade movement began in ’eighty-eight in Holland,” she said. “It came about because of the horrendous exploitation of the Southern Hemisphere fieldworkers. It’s basically an economic partnership that protects small coffee growers and gives consumers a choice to pay a little more for their joe while providing a living wage for the workers. The summer I was fifteen, I actually went on a fair harvest trip to Nicaragua.”
For a moment, it looked like the cigarette was going to drop from the gray-haired man’s lower lip. He recovered quickly.
“You’re right,” he said, taking a drag. “Now let’s shift gears to global warming: How many gallons of gasoline are consumed by Americans each year?”
“One hundred forty-six billion gallons,” Mary Beth said without hesitation. She knew this answer because of the mock United Nations project she’d completed at school. She’d been given the role of representative from Darfur on their global-energy-issues debate.
For the first time, the man with the gray hair seemed to genuinely smile. He crushed his cigarette under his shoe. He even took the razor off the table and put it back into his pocket.
“Correct again,” he said. “That’s good, Mary Beth. You’re doing well. So far, at least. But we have many more questions to get through. Now, question three. The subject: abject hunger in the world’s richest nation.”
Chapter 60
WE SAT THERE, staring at the phone. It just didn’t make sense. The kidnapper should have called back by now. Every other time, he’d called to let us know where the body was. Was not telling us and leaving the parents hanging his latest method of torture? If it was, it was working like a charm.
The only whiff of a lead came when Verizon Wireless called back with a cell site triangulation of his first call. It had come from somewhere in the vicinity of Gateway National Beach, on the south shore of Staten Island. But not surprisingly, when detectives from the 122nd Precinct had raced to the scene, they found nothing but gulls. The killer could have been in a car when he’d called—or who knew? A boat maybe. Another stone wall. Another dead end.
When I went to the window for about the thirtieth time, I noticed a funny thing happening on the sidewalk out in front of the Haases’ brownstone. A crowd had formed. It looked like a block party.
I went outside, thinking at first it was the press, but then I spotted a Brearley sweatshirt. Mary Beth’s friends. They were holding candles beside a pile of teddy bears and flowers and a signed volleyball. Almost every member of the Brearley senior class showed up to the vigil. They were crying, smoking, holding pictures of her.
I thought about breaking it