The Warning Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  About the Authors

  By the Same Authors

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  Read More

  Copyright

  About the Author

  JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. His books have sold in excess of 385 million copies worldwide. He is the author of some of the most popular series of the past two decades – the Alex Cross, Women’s Murder Club, Detective Michael Bennett, and Private novels – and he has written many other number one bestsellers including romance novels and stand-alone thrillers.

  James is passionate about encouraging children to read. Inspired by his own son who was a reluctant reader, he also writes a range of books for young readers including the Middle School, I Funny, Treasure Hunters, Dog Diaries and Max Einstein series. James has donated millions in grants to independent bookshops and has been the most borrowed author of adult fiction in UK libraries for the past eleven years in a row. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.

  Also by James Patterson

  ALEX CROSS NOVELS

  Along Came a Spider • Kiss the Girls • Jack and Jill • Cat and Mouse • Pop Goes the Weasel • Roses are Red • Violets are Blue • Four Blind Mice • The Big Bad Wolf • London Bridges • Mary, Mary • Cross • Double Cross • Cross Country • Alex Cross’s Trial (with Richard DiLallo) • I, Alex Cross • Cross Fire • Kill Alex Cross • Merry Christmas, Alex Cross • Alex Cross, Run • Cross My Heart • Hope to Die • Cross Justice • Cross the Line • The People vs. Alex Cross • Target: Alex Cross

  THE WOMEN’S MURDER CLUB SERIES

  1st to Die • 2nd Chance (with Andrew Gross) • 3rd Degree (with Andrew Gross) • 4th of July (with Maxine Paetro) • The 5th Horseman (with Maxine Paetro) • The 6th Target (with Maxine Paetro) • 7th Heaven (with Maxine Paetro) • 8th Confession (with Maxine Paetro) • 9th Judgement (with Maxine Paetro) • 10th Anniversary (with Maxine Paetro) • 11th Hour (with Maxine Paetro) • 12th of Never (with Maxine Paetro) • Unlucky 13 (with Maxine Paetro) • 14th Deadly Sin (with Maxine Paetro) • 15th Affair (with Maxine Paetro) • 16th Seduction (with Maxine Paetro) • 17th Suspect (with Maxine Paetro) • 18th Abduction (with Maxine Paetro)

  DETECTIVE MICHAEL BENNETT SERIES

  Step on a Crack (with Michael Ledwidge) • Run for Your Life (with Michael Ledwidge) • Worst Case (with Michael Ledwidge) • Tick Tock (with Michael Ledwidge) • I, Michael Bennett (with Michael Ledwidge) • Gone (with Michael Ledwidge) • Burn (with Michael Ledwidge) • Alert (with Michael Ledwidge) • Bullseye (with Michael Ledwidge) • Haunted (with James O. Born) • Ambush (with James O. Born)

  PRIVATE NOVELS

  Private (with Maxine Paetro) • Private London (with Mark Pearson) • Private Games (with Mark Sullivan) • Private: No. 1 Suspect (with Maxine Paetro) • Private Berlin (with Mark Sullivan) • Private Down Under (with Michael White) • Private L.A. (with Mark Sullivan) • Private India (with Ashwin Sanghi) • Private Vegas (with Maxine Paetro) • Private Sydney (with Kathryn Fox) • Private Paris (with Mark Sullivan) • The Games (with Mark Sullivan) • Private Delhi (with Ashwin Sanghi) • Private Princess (with Rees Jones)

  NYPD RED SERIES

  NYPD Red (with Marshall Karp) • NYPD Red 2 (with Marshall Karp) • NYPD Red 3 (with Marshall Karp) • NYPD Red 4 (with Marshall Karp) • NYPD Red 5 (with Marshall Karp)

  DETECTIVE HARRIET BLUE SERIES

  Never Never (with Candice Fox) • Fifty Fifty (with Candice Fox) • Liar Liar (with Candice Fox) • Hush Hush (with Candice Fox)

  INSTINCT SERIES

  Instinct (with Howard Roughan, previously published as Murder Games) • Killer Instinct (with Howard Roughan)

  STAND-ALONE THRILLERS

  The Thomas Berryman Number • Hide and Seek • Black Market • The Midnight Club • Sail (with Howard Roughan) • Swimsuit (with Maxine Paetro) • Don’t Blink (with Howard Roughan) • Postcard Killers (with Liza Marklund) • Toys (with Neil McMahon) • Now You See Her (with Michael Ledwidge) • Kill Me If You Can (with Marshall Karp) • Guilty Wives (with David Ellis) • Zoo (with Michael Ledwidge) • Second Honeymoon (with Howard Roughan) • Mistress (with David Ellis) • Invisible (with David Ellis) • Truth or Die (with Howard Roughan) • Murder House (with David Ellis) • Woman of God (with Maxine Paetro) • Humans, Bow Down (with Emily Raymond) • The Black Book (with David Ellis) • The Store (with Richard DiLallo) • Texas Ranger (with Andrew Bourelle) • The President is Missing (with Bill Clinton) • Revenge (with Andrew Holmes) • Juror No. 3 (with Nancy Allen) • The First Lady (with Brendan DuBois) • The Chef (with Max DiLallo) • Out of Sight (with Brendan DuBois) • Unsolved (with David Ellis) • The Inn (with Candice Fox)

  NON-FICTION

  Torn Apart (with Hal and Cory Friedman) • The Murder of King Tut (with Martin Dugard) • All-American Murder (with Alex Abramovich and Mike Harvkey)

  MURDER IS FOREVER TRUE CRIME

  Murder, Interrupted (with Alex Abramovich and Christopher Charles) • Home Sweet Murder (with Andrew Bourelle and Scott Slaven) • Murder Beyond the Grave (with Andrew Bourelle and Christopher Charles)

  COLLECTIONS

  Triple Threat (with Max DiLallo and Andrew Bourelle) • Kill or Be Killed (with Maxine Paetro, Rees Jones, Shan Serafin and Emily Raymond) • The Moores are Missing (with Loren D. Estleman, Sam Hawken and Ed Chatterton) • The Family Lawyer (with Robert Rotstein, Christopher Charles and Rachel Howzell Hall) • Murder in Paradise (with Doug Allyn, Connor Hyde and Duane Swierczynski) • The House Next Door (with Susan DiLallo, Max DiLallo and Brendan DuBois) • 13-Minute Murder (with Shan Serafin, Christopher Farnsworth and Scott Slaven)

  For more information about James Patterson’s novels, visit www.jamespatterson.co.uk

  CHAPTER 1

  Jordan

  “WELL, THE TOWN doesn’t appear to be glowing.”

  Mom kept her eyes on the road. The silence lingered until Charlie blurted out, “Crickets!”

  I laughed and angled toward the back seat. “Where’d you get that from?”

  “You, you big dummy!” Charlie cackled. He was six. “‘Awkward silence equals crickets,’ you said.”

  I gave his knee a squeeze. Mom had traveled this rou
te thousands of times but not in the past eleven months and never as part of a bumper-to-bumper convoy that stretched on for miles toward the outskirts of town. “I just don’t think it’s funny is all,” she said.

  “I don’t, either,” I said. “I’m the one who was in the hospital.”

  She shot me a glare, then returned her attention to the rear bumper of a black Toyota SUV with the number 80 affixed to its license plate. “Not from radiation, though.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “The meltdown played no role in my accident.”

  Mom gripped the steering wheel tighter. The accident was a sticky subject.

  “It wasn’t a meltdown,” she said.

  “Right,” I said. “It was an explosion at a nuclear plant that caused the evacuation of an entire population. Nothing to see here.”

  “I didn’t hear a boom,” Charlie chimed in. “Explosions go boom.”

  “I didn’t hear a boom, either,” I said. “We’ll have to ask Dad whether there was one.”

  Dad worked for the Mount Hope Nuclear Power Plant and stayed there while we were relocated to a refugee camp.

  Mount Hope, South Carolina, is tucked into a valley between two mountain ranges. It’s accessible only by two roads, one from the north and one from the south. Likewise, there were two refugee camps, the main one north of town and the so-called sick (code for radiation exposure) camp to the south. Mom, Charlie, and I were in the latter one, thanks to my accident. Most folks I knew—including almost every other kid—were in the healthy-people camp, though even they were quarantined.

  And now we were all getting to go home at last.

  “Dad says it’s not going to be safe to live in Chernobyl for twenty thousand years,” I said. “So we’ve got a 19,999-year jump on them.”

  Mom wasn’t having it. “And I say this wasn’t Chernobyl. It was more like Three Mile Island, if you want to start comparing nuclear-plant incidents.”

  “I was thinking The China Syndrome,” I said.

  “This happened in China, too?” Charlie asked.

  “How do you even know that movie?” Mom asked.

  “I have my ways,” I said, detecting what, for the first time in a while, appeared to be the crack of a smile on my mom’s face.

  She can’t help it. She’s amused that I drop references to movies from her era and before. People don’t realize there’s this thing called the internet—and YouTube and On Demand, for that matter.

  Speaking of which, I checked my phone again. Still no signal.

  At the camp, there was no cell-phone service, and our data was limited. We could send and receive emails—no attachments, of course—but getting onto a website? Fuggedaboutit.

  “You know who says it’s safe?” Mom asked. “Your father.”

  “Right. Dad,” I said. “I remember that guy.”

  “Jordan, don’t.”

  “No, it’ll be nice not to be in a single-parent household. Truly.”

  Crickets.

  “Will Daddy still have a sunburn?” Charlie asked.

  “Good question,” I said. “Maybe he’s catching up to me on the shade scale.”

  We were able to talk to Dad a couple times on the camp landline—he had clout enough to arrange that—and he told us about the radiation burns he’d received. Normally his skin was on the light-but-not-too-light side that would make people wonder whether he was Italian or Middle Eastern or even … black? Mom brought the darker cocoa to the mix, which explained why Tico liked to call me Latte.

  Our beat-up Nissan sedan inched forward, with Mom keeping a healthy distance behind car No. 80. Our SUV was totaled in the accident.

  The town alarms had sounded, and the evacuation was shifting into high gear. And so, apparently, was Hank Bradshaw’s Ford F-350. Mom was rushing to pick up Dad at the plant, not knowing that he wouldn’t be joining us after all. She certainly didn’t know that we’d sustain a direct hit to the passenger-side door and would all wind up in the hospital and then the so-called sick camp.

  Her right leg got snapped like a wishbone, though now she not only was walking without a limp but had resumed her morning jogs. Charlie took some flying glass in his left arm and across his forehead but otherwise, miracle of miracles, was in tip-top shape. As for me, well …

  Like I said, we were gone for eleven months. I remember ten of them. I was in pretty bad shape, or so they tell me. Mom tallied the surgeries for me: seven. Her tearstained face was what I saw when I finally came out of the coma-slash-delirium that the docs had me in. Being a mom isn’t the easiest job, and I admit I’m no walk in the park.

  “How’s your head?” she asked now, eyes fixed on the road.

  “Fine,” I replied, though it had been aching over the past few days. I reached up and touched the scar on the back of my scalp. I’d never been able to adjust the mirrors in the hospital or our trailer to get a full view, but my phone camera captured the spiderweb of pink scar tissue that contrasted brightly against my smoky skin.

  My skull had been fractured in three places, though doctors said there had been zero lasting damage. I couldn’t say the same about my right arm, which had a zipper running lengthwise along its underside. It was full of pins and screws and always felt a little numb. My right knee had a neat circle drawn around the cap, and my chest wounds looked as if they were outlining pectoral muscles that I was just starting to develop. The four broken ribs on my right side hurt whenever I did anything athletic, which was going to be a problem when I tried out for football.

  Mom breathed in and out through her mouth, in the shape of an “o,” then said, “What if our house was looted?”

  “That’s what you’re worried about?” I laughed.

  “It’s been sitting there for almost a year. You never know.”

  She stretched an arm to the back-seat floor to grab a cigarette pack in her purse.

  “No,” I said.

  She’d quit smoking before I was born but started again after the evacuation. She went from smelling like lavender shampoo to stinking of stale smoke, but at least she smoked only outside. She knew better than to make Charlie and me suffer in the car.

  “Sorry,” she said, dropping the pack back into her purse. “It’s just, they said at the camp that we shouldn’t get our hopes up that everything is going to be perfect. Why would they say that if there wasn’t going to be a lot of damage?”

  “If someone messed with our house,” Charlie declared, “I’ll hunt them down and pop a cap in their ass!” Mom almost swerved off the road before shooting me an accusatory look.

  “I might have been quoting Pulp Fiction to him again,” I muttered.

  “Don’t worry, Mom,” Charlie said. “I’m trying real hard to be the shepherd.”

  Mom’s right foot alternated between the gas and brake pedals. We were moving that slowly. But soon I saw the green sign that read WELCOME TO BOXSMITH COUNTY, and I knew we were close. Everything looked more familiar now, even the trees, which had grown especially lush since we left.

  “Do you know when you’re going back to work?” I asked Mom.

  “Doug emailed me that the bank may open as soon as tomorrow because people want to check on their money.”

  The caravan meandered along the south road beside the Sweetbay River.

  I checked my phone again. Still no signal.

  Mom turned on the radio, and a deep, authoritative voice intoned, “… continue along your directed route. When you reach Mount Hope town limits, military police will direct you further. Please continue along your directed route …”

  It was a loop. I punched the button for the classic-rock station, but the message was there, too. It was everywhere, up and down the dial, AM and FM. Mom turned it off.

  “Do you think everything will look the same?” Charlie asked.

  “We’ll know soon enough,” I replied.

  CHAPTER 2

  Jordan

  EVERY HALF MILE or so, a military Jeep was parked on the side of the road with ca
mouflage-clad officers monitoring the caravan with walkie-talkies pressed to their faces. One especially muscle-bound guy fixed his steely eyes on me until we moved past him.

  My head hurt even more until I saw the Tastee Freeze. The sign’s hundreds of little lightbulbs were all lit, perhaps for the first time ever.

  “Let’s get ice cream!” Charlie announced.

  “It won’t be open now,” Mom said. “It’s ten in the morning, and people are just getting back.”

  “But it is. Look!”

  Sure enough, a line of about twenty smiling people snaked from the pickup window around the corner into the parking lot.

  “Huh,” she said again, guiding the car past the courthouse and library, their lawns full, green, and perfectly manicured. As we paraded up Main Street, the storefronts and sidewalks all looked power-washed, their windows glinting in the late-morning sunlight.

  “What town is this?” Mom asked. “It’s a little too perfect, isn’t it?”

  As she turned onto Oak, the traffic dispersed, and we had a clear shot home. But when we arrived at a stop sign, I announced, “You know what? I’m gonna get out here if you don’t mind.”

  “Are you crazy, Jordan?” Charlie barked, but Mom had a knowing look on her face.

  “Tell Maggie we say hi,” she said.

  “Sure thing,” I said, chagrined, as I closed the door behind me and was immediately overwhelmed by the scent of freshly mown grass and flowers in full bloom. Since when did Mount Hope smell like a greenhouse at peak season?

  Mom lowered the passenger-side window. “Please be back soon to help unpack. I may need your help figuring out what was looted.”

  “Ha,” I said. “Okay.”

  “Give your girlfriend a big KISSY!” Charlie chimed in.

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” I muttered as they pulled away. I pulled up her number on my phone, but still … no service.