WIN by Coben, Harlan (best book reader txt) 📕

get you my work calendar if that will help.”

“That would be nice,” PT says.

I stick my nose in again. “Is there a point to this?”

“Win,” Patricia says. The edge in her voice is there but blunted. “Let me handle this.”

She is right, of course.

Patricia turns her attention to both PT and Max. “So what is your theory here? A quarter century after my father was murdered and I was kidnapped, I…what…found out that the perpetrator was living as a recluse in New York City, so I killed him?”

“No need to get defensive,” PT says.

“I’m not defensive.”

“You sure sound defensive. Your suitcase connects you to the murder scene. I would be remiss if I didn’t explore every avenue. Which leads me back to the night of your father’s murder and your abduction.”

“What about it?” she asks.

Special Agent Max takes out a binder and hands it to PT.

“I’ve gone over all the statements from that time period, and there are a few things I would like to clarify.”

Patricia offers up a what gives? look. I reply with a small shrug.

“Your mother, Aline Lockwood, found your father’s body when she came home from shopping. She then called the police.”

PT stops. Here again he leaves a little uncomfortable pause to see whether his suspect dives in. Patricia does not.

“Why wasn’t your mother at home with you and your father?” PT asks.

Patricia lets loose an aggravated sigh. “The report says, doesn’t it?”

“It says she was at a supermarket.”

We wait.

“It was almost ten p.m.,” he continues.

“Agent…” Patricia pauses. “Do I call you Agent PT?”

“PT is fine.”

“No, that doesn’t feel right. Agent PT, when my mother returned, I was tied up in the trunk of a car and blindfolded. I really couldn’t speak to what my mother was doing.”

“I’m simply asking whether your mother often went supermarket shopping at that hour.”

“Often? No. Sometimes? Yes. The FBI checked my mother’s alibi, didn’t they?”

“They did.”

“And she had been supermarket shopping, right?”

“Yes.” PT shifts in his seat. “Did you ever find that odd? I mean, she goes supermarket shopping. It takes under an hour. That’s a pretty narrow window—yet that’s when the killers show up. Convenient, don’t you think?”

Patricia shakes her head. “Wow.”

“Wow?”

“You don’t think I read up on my own case over the years?” she says, still keeping her temper in check, but the mercury is rising. “My mother, I mean, with all the crap you guys threw at her, she never complained. Of course, you guys thought it was her. You grilled her. You searched through her financials. You questioned everyone she ever knew. They found nothing.”

“Back then maybe.”

“What does that mean?”

“Were you supposed to be home, Patricia?”

“What do you mean?”

“When the killers arrived. You were a popular and attractive eighteen-year-old girl. It was a Friday night. My guess is, you were supposed to be out. My guess is, your dad was supposed to be home alone. According to the file, you were in your bedroom. You heard noises and then a gunshot. You came out of your room and you saw two masked men and your father dead on the ground.”

“Point being?” Patricia snaps.

“Point being, if it was a hit, how would the killers have known you were home? It was a Friday night. You didn’t have a car, did you?”

“No,” she says.

“So it’s not like they could have seen your car in the driveway. The hitmen come. They see only your father’s car. Your mother’s car is gone. They break in, they kill him right away, and then—bam—you surprise them. That’s all possible, right?”

“Possible,” Patricia allows.

“So then what happened?”

“You know. It’s in the file. I ran into my bedroom.”

“They kicked down the door?”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

“They told me to pack a bag and come with them.”

“Why pack a bag?”

“I don’t know.”

“But they specifically told you to pack a bag?”

“Yes.”

“And you did?”

Patricia nods numbly.

“This is the part we in the FBI”—PT nods toward Special Agent Max—“have never understood. We didn’t understand it back when your father was murdered. We don’t understand now, over twenty years later.”

Patricia waits.

“This whole suitcase thing. I don’t want to cast aspersions or anything, but it has never quite added up. Do you know what my colleagues back then concluded? I mean, once they found out about the suitcase being packed. Oh, and your mom didn’t tell them. Seems she didn’t notice. One of the agents went through your room. Saw clothes missing from a hanger.”

Patricia does not move.

“We don’t understand the suitcase, Patricia, do you?”

Her eyes well up. I debate calling a stop to this, but she gives me a strong side-eye that screams, Don’t you dare.

“Do you?” PT asks again.

“I do, yes.”

“Tell me then. Why would they ask you to pack a suitcase?”

Patricia leans a little forward and keeps her voice soft. “They wanted to give me hope.”

No one replies to that. The grandfather clock chimes. In the distance, a landscaper turns on a lawn mower.

“What do you mean, hope?” PT finally asks.

“The one guy,” Patricia continues, “the leader, he’s in my bedroom. His voice is almost kind. He tells me I’m going to stay in a nice cabin by a lake. That he wanted me to have my own clothes—‘Don’t forget a bathing suit,’ he actually said that—so I would be comfortable, he said. He said I would only be gone a few days, a week at the most. He did that a lot.”

PT leans further forward. “Did what a lot?”

“Gave me hope. I think he got off on it. Sometimes, after he raped me in that hut, he would tell me, ‘Oh, Patricia, you’re going to go home soon.’ He would say that my family was finally ready to pay the ransom. One day, he told me he finally got the money. He tossed a pair of handcuffs and a blindfold into the shed. Said to put them on for the ride. ‘You’re finally going home, Patricia,’ he tells me. He led me to a car. Helped me into the backseat. He put his hand on top of my head. ‘Don’t