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CHAPTER 41
WHEN I OPENED my eyes, Quentin jolted.Surely, he must have thought,the antidote couldn’t work that fast!He’d be right. The convulsions and frothing at the mouth had been just a ruse to bring him closer.
I used the elbow of my free arm to jackhammer his head into the metal radiator.Elbows and knees, Quentin, just like you taught me.The resulting collision seemed to reverberate throughout the entire plumbing system of the townhouse.
Even so, it was just meant to stun him and muddy his judgment enough for me to grab the back of his head and pull him close, almost as if I were about to deep kiss him.
Instead, I jammed the palm of my left hand—the cuffed one—against his chin. Quentin’s eyes widened in surprise. He knew better than anybody what was about to happen next. After all, he was the one who taught me the most effective way to break a man’s neck.
His final words were spat out machine-gun style: “Samantha-wait-you-don’t-understand-I’m-in-lo—”
I twisted as hard as I could. The last thing he saw was the ceiling. His limp body fell against mine.
After I pushed him away, I searched his suit for the handcuff keys.Right trouser pocket, I guessed correctly. I’d spent the past decade observing his patterns of behavior. That’s what he trained us to do. Look at the small details, he’d said. They add up toeverything.
But the tiny details hadn’t told me that I’d been in the employ of a monster all these years.
I climbed to my feet and shuffled through the living room. I tried two doors before I found what I was looking for: a bedroom. I couldn’t take many more steps without some rest. Maybe the antidote was working. Maybe not—maybe Quentin had lied and I was still a walking corpse. Either way, I wanted to lie down on something soft. Would I wake up tomorrow morning? No way to know for sure. Now that the two men responsible for my husband’s murder were dead, it didn’t really matter if I went on living.
But before I could lie down, there was one more surprise waiting for me.
You see, Quentin had prepared the bedroom. A dozen nutrient-rich pressed juices in a cooler. An air purifier. An IV pole and gear. Flowers. On the bedside table rested a selection of herbal teas and a cast-iron teapot. On top of the pot was a tiny cream-colored card with a handwritten note:
Love, Q
He’d managed to say it after all. This was to be the bed in which he’d nurse me back to health. In which he’d work on my mind, and convince me that he’d had my best interests at heart this whole time. That Kevin and Bill were the real enemies here. And then, when he was finished taking my mind apart and putting it back together just the way he wanted, we’d consummate our relationship.
I swept everything off the table with my arm, kicked over the IV pole, and collapsed into bed.
CHAPTER 42
THE NEXT MORNING, I strolled down the Unter den Linden as the sun crawled up out of its grave. I heard Kevin whispering excitedly into my ear:
Where we’re walking right now used to be nothing but a field of rubble, just after the war. Now look at it!
I walked past a Gothic pile situated next to the city’s iconic TV tower.
That’s the Berliner Dom, and it’s kind of a miracle the old cathedral is still standing.
Just like me. The world had tried to kill me, and failed. I lived to stroll another day. What would I do now?
I’d given that a lot of thought since waking up this morning. Even though my former mentor was dead, his secret chemical weapons operation was presumably up and running. There were almost certainly illegal tests being conducted in this city or somewhere else in Europe. Perhaps he had even gone as far as soliciting clients. Some of the chemical agent may even be out there in the world, waiting to be deployed in a bustling hotel or crowded stadium. Lives were on the line, and I was the only person who knew the truth.
If Quentin was right, and I had to be injected with the antidote on a regular basis, I had about thirty days to live.
Plenty of time.
WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST
James Patterson and Bill Schweigart
PROLOGUE
CHASE WELDON STOOD outside his lovely townhouse, holding a 9-millimeter pistol pressed to his leg.
The lightening sky reflected off the dark, blunt edges of the building in the Dupont Circle area of Washington, DC, where years ago he and his wife, Shay, had settled when Madison was young and Luke was just a baby. At this moment, in the predawn beginning to glow the barest color of rose, Chase wanted to be anywhere but home.
A wave of nausea rolled through him. When it passed, he straightened and fit his key into the lock, then stepped inside.
