Liar Liar by James Patterson

Author:James Patterson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2019-01-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 60

IN THE KITCHEN, my backpack sat fat and zipped up on the counter.

“There’s plenty of food,” she said. “And I put in an extra jacket and a rain poncho. I put the cash you had in your jeans in there, your wallet…I charged your phone while you were asleep.”

“Thank you. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”

“Well, it’s not every day you get to harbor a wanted woman,” Melina said. “I’ll see you off, and then I’m taking Janna and heading for a hotel. I got a call from one of your colleagues.”

I warmed slightly at the knowledge that someone was warning victims from my past cases that Regan was interested in them. I grabbed the bag and prepared to leave, but before I could, Melina hugged me. I held on, not realizing how much I’d needed the physical contact until that moment. Melina was leaner and stronger now than she had been when I first met her, sitting with a couple of family members in the station interview room. I remembered her elbows and knees had been grazed from being thrown on the floor of the public toilet where she was attacked. She’d been a good witness, strong and practical. She’d come to the interview with a notepad, scribbled with notes of everything she could remember about her attacker. Now here she was, aiding and abetting a dangerous vigilante, packing my bag for me like a mother sending her kid off to camp.

“I’ve gotta go,” I said when she broke away from me.

“One more thing,” she said, handing me her phone. “This has been running all morning.” Another press conference, this one with a very familiar face sitting wedged between a decidedly smug-looking Detective Nigel Spader and Deputy Commissioner Joe Woods. My mother had dolled herself up for the interview, but she was dressed inappropriately as always in a denim miniskirt and low-cut singlet top that showed off her upper-chest tattoos.

“I’m asking you, Harriet, to please make contact with the police,” Julia was saying. She was reading from a prepared statement, her finger moving slowly across the page. “I am concerned about your welfare, as are your…coll…”

Woods leaned in and whispered in her ear.

“Colleagues,” Julia said.

As the press conference ended, Julia picked up an orange-and-white coffee cup that had been sitting by her microphone and held it at chest height. Nigel and Woods boxed her in as the cameras flashed around them, talking over her shoulder. She was captured on the screen for a good five or six seconds, simply standing there holding the coffee cup. I recognized the distinct orange-and-white pattern from the Bristol Gardens hotel chain, the big letter “B” on the side of the cup confirming it as the trio eventually moved off the screen. The old honeypot ruse. Woods and Nigel would have put Julia up at the Bristol Gardens Hotel in the CBD and jammed the place up with undercover police, hoping Regan would see the press conference, take the bait, and make an appearance.

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