James Patterson - Violets Are Blue

Also by James Patterson
Roses are Red Pop Goes the Weasel Cat and Mouse 1st to Die Cradle and All When the Wind Blows Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas Miracle on the 17th Green (with Peter de Jonge) JA7VIES PATTERSON
VIOLETS ARE BLUE
HEADLINE FEATURE Copyright 2001 James Patterson
The right of James Ratterson to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2001 by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING A HEADLINE FEATURE book 10 987654321
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
P&tterson, James, 1947Violets are blue 1. Cross, Alex (Fictitious character) - Fiction 2.Serial murders - United States - Fiction 3. Suspense fiction I.Title 813.5'4[F]
ISBN 0 7472 6348 5 (hardback) ISBN 0 7472 7432 0 (trade paperback)
Typeset by Letterpart Ltd Reigate, Surrey Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic
HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING A division of Hodder Headline 338 Euston Road London NW1 3BH
www.headline.co.uk www.hodderheadline.com This is for my friend, Kyle Craig, who doesn't work for the FBI, but who has, I think, a really cool name. I should mention a few other patrons of the arts: Jim Heekin, Mary Jordan, Fern Galperin,Maria Pugatch, Irene Markocki, Barbara Groszewski/Tony Peyser, and my sweet Suzie. PROLOGUE
WITHOUT ANY WARNING Chapter One
Nothing ever starts where we think it does. So of course this doesn't begin with the vicious and cowardly murder of an FBI agent and good friend named Betsey Cavalierre. I only thought that it did. My mistake, and a really big and painful one. I arrived at Betseys house in Woodbridge, Virginia, in the middle of the night. I'd never been there before, but I didn't have any trouble rinding it. The FBI and EMS were already there. There were flashing red and yellow lights everywhere, seeming to paint the lawn and front porch with bright, dangerous streaks. I took a deep breath and walked inside. My sense of balance was off. I was reeling. I acknowledged a tall, blonde FBI agent I knew named Sandy Hammonds. I could see that Sandy had been crying. She was a friend of Betsey's. On a hallway table I saw Betsey's service revolver. Beside it was a printed reminder for her next shooting qualifier at the FBI range. The irony stung. I forced myself to walk down a long hallway that led from the living room to the back of the house, which looked to be close to a hundred years old. It was filled with the kind of country clutter that she'd loved when she was alive. The master bedroom was situated at the end of the hall. I knew instantly that the murder had happened in there. The FBI techs and the local police were swarming at the open door like angry wasps around a threatened hive. The house was strangely, eerily quiet. This was as bad as it gets, worse than anything else. Ever. JAAAES PA-TTERSON
Another one of my partners was dead. The second one brutally murdered in two years. And Betsey had been much more than just a partner. How could this have happened? What did it mean? I saw Betsey's small body sprawled on the hardwood floor and I went cold. My hand flew to my face, a reflex over which I had no control. The killer had stripped off her nightclothes. I didn't see them anywhere in the bedroom. The lower body was coated with blood. He'd used a knife. He'd punished Betsey with it. I desperately wanted to cover her, but I knew I couldn't. Betsey's brown eyes were staring up at me, but they saw nothing. I remembered kissing those eyes, and that sweet face. I remembered her laugh, high-pitched and musical. I stood there for a long time, mourning Betsey, missing her terribly. I wanted to turn away, but I didn't. I just couldn't leave her like this. As I stood in the bedroom, trying to figure out something coherent about Betsey's murder, the cell phone in my jacket pocket went off. I jumped. I grabbed it, but then hesitated. I didn't want to answer. 'Alex Cross,' I finally spoke into the receiver. I heard a machine-filtered voice and it cut right through me. I shuddered against my will. 'I know who this is and I even know where you are. At poor, dear, butchered Betsey's. Do you feel a little bit like a puppet on a string, Detective?You should/said the Mastermind,'because that's what you are. You're my favorite puppet, in fact.' 'Why did you kill her?'I asked the monster on the other end of the phone line. 'You didn't have to do this.' He laughed a mechanical laugh and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.'You ought to be able to figure that out, no? You're the famous Detective Alex Cross. You have all those big, important cases notched on your belt. You caught Gary Soneji, Casanova. You solved Jack and Jill. Christ, you're impressive.' I spoke in a low voice. 'Why don't you come after me right now? How about tonight? As you say, you know where I am.' VIOLETS ARE BLUE
The Mastermind laughed again, quietly, almost under his breath. 'How about I kill your grandmother and your three kids tonight? I know where they are, too. You left your partner with them, didn't you?You think he can stop me? John Sampson doesn't have a chance against me.' I hung up and sprinted out of the house in Woodbridge. I called Sampson in Washington and he picked up on the second ring. 'Everything okay there?' I gasped. 'Everything's fine, Alex. No problems here. You don't sound too good, though. What's up? What happened?' 'He said he's coming for you and Nana and the kids,' I told John. 'The Mastermind.' 'Not going to happen, sugar. Nobody will get past me. I hope to hell he tries.' 'Be careful, John. I'm on my way back to Washington right now. Please be careful. He's crazy. He didn't just kill Betsey, he defiled her.' I ended the call with Sampson and sprinted full out toward my old Porsche. The cell phone rang again before I got to the car. 'Cross,' I answered, still running as I spoke, trying to steady the receiver against my chin and ear. It was him again. He was laughing maniacally. 'You can relax, Dr Cross. I can hear your labored breathing. I'm not going to hurt them tonight. I was just rucking with you. Having some fun at your expense. 'You're running, aren't you? Keep running, Dr Cross. But you won't be fast enough. You can't get away from me. It's you I want. You're next, Dr Cross.' PART ONE
THE CALIFORNIA MURDERS Chapter Two
United States Army Lieutenant Martha Wiatt and her boyfriend, Sergeant Davis O'Hara, moved at a fast pace as the evening fog began to roll in like a sulfurous cloud across Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. The couple looked sleek, even beautiful, in the waning light of day. Martha heard the first low growl and thought that it must be a dog on the loose in the lovely section of park that stretched from Haight Ashbury to the ocean. It came from far enough behind them that she wasn't worried. 'The Big Dawg!' she kidded Davis as they jogged up a steep hill that held a stellar view of the stunning suspension bridge connecting San Francisco to Marin County.'Big Dawg'was a pet expression they used for everything over-sized - from jet-liners, to sexual apparatus, to very large canines. Soon the thick fog would blanket the bridge and bay completely, but for now it was a gorgeous sight, incomparable, one of their favorite things in San Francisco. 'I love this run, that beautiful bridge, the sunset - the whole ball of wax,' Martha said in a steady, relaxed cadence. 'But enough bad poetry. It's time for me to kick your well-formed, athletic-looking butt, O'Hara.' 'That sounds like cheap-shot female chauvinism to me,' he grunted, but he was grinning, showing off some of the whitest teeth she had ever seen, or run her tongue across. Martha kicked up her pace a notch. She'd been a cross-country JA/V1ES PA-TTERS01M