Murder in Paradise Read online

  The floor was concrete and staggered with drains. A dozen stainless steel fermentation tanks rose around them like bunkered missiles. The air was thick with the sour tang of tannins.

  A figure stood at the end of the room. Stelling. His hair flaxen. His skin pale. He wore a sweater vest, robin’s-egg blue. He hardly looked like someone capable of murder—until he looked at them. His mouth was arranged in a grimace and his teeth showing in a serrated line. “Do you know one of the downfalls of modern medicine?” he said. “Everyone’s living.”

  “Please get down on the floor,” Abi said.

  But he continued on as if he hadn’t heard her. “There are too many of us. And too few are actually benefiting the world. People complain that health care is too expensive, but it’s not expensive enough. What this country needs is a good cleansing.”

  He didn’t carry a weapon, and she let her own lower to her side. The threat seemed over. “Please get down on the floor,” she said again.

  She took another step and then another step toward him, and Jeremy paced her.

  “You think you’ve got me cornered,” Stelling said. “But you’re wrong.” His voice was a fluttering whisper.

  She did her best to sound like someone in a cop show, shouting at him. “Down on the floor!”

  “Do as she says, Mr. Stelling,” Jeremy said.

  “And then what?” Stelling said. “Are you going to call the police?”

  She and Jeremy continued their steady march toward him.

  “There are too many of us to contend with,” Stelling said. “And too little evidence. All it takes is a phone call and a bottle goes down the drain. All it takes is an envelope full of money and I make another friend.”

  With that, he reached his hands toward a lever. One that opened the hatch to one of the wide-bellied tanks.

  “Stop,” she said, knowing what it must contain. His latest batch of black wine.

  Stelling yanked at it twice, before it budged. And then the door swung open violently and released a tide of wine. Even over the splash, she heard the crack of the door’s metal corner striking his temple.

  Only then did Stelling do as she told him, finally falling to the floor. His body was limp and moved only because of the wine pouring over him. It flopped his body over, shoved him one way, then another, before pinwheeling him toward the drain, where the wine swirled downward in a bloodred whirlpool.

  Chapter 30

  Abi had been hollowed and soured with worry before, but now her body felt carved out by a jagged spoon. She was at once too hot and too cold. Her belly stabbed through with cramping pains.

  “What’s wrong?” Jeremy said when she dropped the pistol and leaned heavily against him.

  “Everything.”

  “How can I help?”

  “Just…get me outside,” she said. Thinking the sun might help. Thinking it would do her good to escape the wine-soaked body of Eric Stelling, who was staring blankly upward while the emptied tank dripped and the floor drain gurgled.

  The sun had set, and the evening gloom felt like it matched her mood. Out in the vineyard, lights glowed and the harvest continued.

  She made it only a few paces before falling to her knees, completely overcome. She retched and some bile splattered the shell driveway.

  Jeremy rubbed her back and said, “I’m worried you’re going into shock.”

  “I’m pregnant,” she said, the words coming out as a coughing gasp.

  He took a moment to respond. “What?”

  She spit and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I was going to tell you, but—”

  “You’re… Jesus.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. You’re hurt—and you think it’s the baby?” He patted his pocket, hunting for the phone that wasn’t there. “I need to call an ambulance.”

  “No calls. No.” She was speaking without really thinking. The pain was such that she felt distanced from her body. Someone else might as well be saying to Jeremy, “We don’t know who might come.”

  He tried to help her stand, to hoist her up, but she couldn’t just yet.

  “No calls,” she said. “No ambulance.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Just tell me what to do. We need to do something.”

  “Take me to the hospital,” she said, and hugged her belly. “Take me to the hospital, please.” She gritted her teeth and pushed herself upward and into his waiting arms. “Take me to Jamet.”

  The next hour passed in a haze as she slipped in and out of wakefulness. A traffic light glowed red. A hand squeezed hers. The moon rose and silvered the hills. A voice whispered to her, “Abi? Abi?”

  And then she snapped open her eyes and everything came suddenly into focus. She was wearing a hospital gown and lying on an exam table, her feet in stirrups. Her belly throbbed like an open wound.

  A woman stood nearby. In a white lab coat. Jamet. She was studying her phone, the screen lighting up her glasses. She wore feather earrings that dangled to either side of her downturned face.

  “Jamet?” Abi said, her voice a croak.

  Jamet looked up suddenly but didn’t offer her a comforting smile. Just a dead gaze.

  “Where’s…my husband?” she said. “Where’s Jeremy?”

  “He’s being taken care of. The same as you.” Jamet held the phone as if weighing it in her hand. It had a polka-dot cover…the same as Abi’s.

  “Is that…?” Abi said.

  “Your phone?” Jamet said, and held it out as if to hand it over. Instead she dropped it on the floor. It hit the tile with a crack.

  And then Jamet stomped on it—once, twice, three times—until it broke open and its electronic guts spilled everywhere.

  “Why… What’s happening?” Abi didn’t feel lucid. Everything seemed to be happening too slowly and her words came out in a mushy slur. “What are you doing?”

  “You took those pills I gave you, like a good patient,” Jamet said. “And they did the trick.”

  “No,” Abi said, and then lurched toward Jamet, only to discover she was lashed to the table. “No!”

  “This is for the best, Abi. The last thing this world needs is another undesirable.”

  “Where’s Jeremy?” she said.

  Jamet’s eyes tracked across the room, and it was only then that Abi realized they weren’t alone. Matthew O’Neel and Stacie Parsons stood there, watching Abi with grim expressions.

  “What are you doing here?” Abi said. “Where’s my husband?”

  “He’s at the winery,” Matthew said. “It’s a shame. A murder-suicide. The motives are unclear, but it appears Jeremy had diverted some funds from the clinic, and when Stelling confronted him about it, he flipped.”

  “No,” Abi said, and kept repeating the word, faster and faster, until it matched her pounding pulse.

  “Peter Rustad will be collecting the bodies and performing the autopsies. He’ll swing by here afterward. Pick you up.”

  “No.”

  “Though you could probably do him a favor and fill out your own autopsy report, Abi. Did you know you died in childbirth? A tragedy.”

  “No.”

  “We were sloppy before,” Jamet said. “We’ll be more careful this time.” She moved toward Abi, holding a syringe. On the middle finger of her other hand was a black band.

  The Shut-In

  James Patterson

  with Duane Swierczynski

  Chapter 1

  Come, fly with me.

  That’s it—up, up and away. Don’t be afraid. I’ve got you. Everything’s going to be all right.

  We float up one story…two stories…three stories…and there, we’ve just cleared the edge of the rooftops.

  If you’re nervous, don’t look down. Just look out…at the skyline of Philadelphia, my adopted hometown. Falling away below us is my neighborhood, Spring Garden, just on the fringes of Center City.

  Let’s soar a little higher, shall we?

  (Don’t wo
rry. I’m not going to drop you.)

  It’s just after eight, which means lots of people will be making their way downtown for work. Prime people-watching time.

  An endless variety of people—millennials with their gelled hair and too-tight jeans, probably off to work at some start-up with exposed beams, reclaimed wood, and a foosball table. Lawyer-types in their fine suits and even more expensive shoes who will spend their days in air-conditioned conference rooms. Ordinary Philly dudes in jeans and button-down shirts, trying to make it to 6 p.m. as fast as they possibly can.

  Or take a look at the middle-aged woman just below us. She’s probably in her late forties or early fifties, wearing business attire that’s at least a decade out of style. Maybe she moved to Spring Garden full of excitement twenty years ago and never quite figured out how to leave. She walks like her feet hurt. The last thing she wants to do is shuffle downtown to an office where she’s ignored or undermined at every turn.

  She stops at the corner of 19th and Brandywine, looking up at the bus route sign, then seems to think better of it. Instead, she continues down 19th.

  Go, girl, I want to tell her. Fight the good fight.

  But all too soon, our time is up. We must glide back home. Which is a sad proposition as much as it is a delicate one.

  Because if we don’t stick the landing in just the right way, we’re going to end up splattered all over the side of this building.

  Chapter 2

  No, you weren’t just floating along with a friendly neighborhood guardian angel. I’m not dead, and you’re not a ghost.

  Those glorious city views are courtesy of my personal drone, Amelia. I send her out every morning and evening to see a bit of the world that I can’t.

  I pilot Amelia using an app on my smartphone. The controls are super sensitive, so getting her to zoom back in through my rear window without knocking off a propeller takes a bit of finesse. When I first bought Amelia, she bumped into the side of my brownstone building so many times I’m surprised she’s still in one piece.

  Some lucky drone owners are able to go outside into an empty field and launch their quadcopters straight up into the air.

  But not me.

  My name is Tricia Celano. Call me “Trish” at your own peril. I’m twenty-five years old, live in a small but sweet studio apartment at 20th and Green, and if I step outside, the sun will kill me.

  No, for real.

  I have a condition called solar urticaria, which is a rare allergy to the sun. Yes, the same ball of swirling gas ninety-three million miles away that gives everything else the gift of life wants to give me a severe case of death.

  My symptoms were minor back in college—hives, itching, burning. But soon I was breaking out in severe body rashes that made me look like a lobster–human mutant hybrid. By senior year, the condition was so severe that I stayed in my room to finish classes remotely and even had to sit out my graduation.

  All of which turned me into a twenty-five-year-old shut-in—confined to my apartment all day, every day.

  But you’d be surprised how easy it is to live your entire life indoors. Before the Internet, I’m sure I would have withered away and died. But now I can order pretty much everything online—food, clothing, entertainment—and have it delivered, downloaded, or streamed straight into my apartment.

  As for other forms of entertainment…well, sometimes I’ll pull a Jimmy Stewart and spy on the people coming and going from my building. I especially like to watch the hot dark-haired guy who lives upstairs in 3-D. I’ve gotten to the point where I recognize the way he clomps down the stairs toward the entrance of the building just a few feet from my door. Usually it’s a mad scramble to the peephole to catch even a tiny glimpse of him, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen his entire face. But the parts that I have seen…

  Anyway. You might say, But Tricia, if you’re allergic to the sun, why don’t you just go out at night?

  Because…well, life really likes to stick it in and twist sometimes.

  In the three years since graduation, I’ve also developed this oh-so-charming phobia of the dark. The very thought of stepping out into the night paralyzes me with raw, naked fear. Logically I know I’d be fine. But try telling my subconscious that.

  Friends from college will try to coax me out for a drink, but…I just can’t. Once I was even showered and dressed, makeup and hair done…and then broke down sobbing in the vestibule of my building.

  I miss the outside world so very, very badly. Chatting through social media or even Skype doesn’t quite fill the void. I yearn to be out in the world again, eating it, drinking it, bathing in it.

  So, as I did with my other challenges, I came up with a technological solution.

  Amelia—named after legendary aviatrix Amelia Earhart—is a ready-to-fly quadcopter with a built-in camera and absolutely no problems with the sun. She cost me a shade under three hundred bucks, but who can put a price tag on the feeling of being part of the world?

  I can fly Amelia within a half-mile radius of my apartment, and her camera feed is sent straight to my cell phone in real time. She’s my amazing, soaring window on the world. Or at least my tiny sliver of it.

  Technically, I’m breaking the law. There’s this thing in drone culture called “line of sight,” or LOS, which basically means that you’re supposed to keep visual contact with your drone at all times.

  But the Philadelphia Police Department has bigger fish to fry than tracking a lonely girl’s renegade drone. Which is a good thing. Because what started as a hobby has turned into a bit of an obsession. And now I’m not sure how I’d live without it.

  I work as a marketing associate for an entertainment company with offices in California, Scotland, and Germany, so I find myself working at odd hours anyway. My day is broken up by Amelia flights, at least three per day. They span eleven minutes each, which is exactly how long her batteries last.

  First flight is usually during the morning rush, when there’s a lot of people to watch. Same goes for the evening commute. But lunchtime has become fun, too. I like to take Amelia downtown, just beyond the tightly packed rows of Victorian homes, where you can make out the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. It’s modeled after the Champs-Élysées in Paris and is usually full of a mix of tourists and homeless people.

  When darkness falls, however, it’s game over. It’s too risky to fly Amelia in the dark, and not just because of my phobia. The images on my phone are too dim to help me avoid the obstacles out there.

  Night is when I feel most like a prisoner.

  Chapter 3

  But this is a bright Thursday morning in early September, and it’s time to send Amelia out into the world to see what’s up.

  Or down, as it were.

  If you’ve ever used an app on your phone, you already know how to pilot a drone like Amelia. There’s a little gray circle on the lower left that controls her altitude, and a bigger gray button on the right that controls her horizontal movements. If you hold the right button down, you can spin her around. Working all these buttons in tandem, however, is the tricky part.

  I tap the green Fly button at the bottom of the screen, and we’re up, up and away.

  I send Amelia zipping down Green Street, then tweak the controls so she makes a smooth, gliding right onto 19th Street. Turns are the hardest thing to master. Play with the buttons too much, and whammo, you’re kissing a brick wall.

  When I want to play it safe, I take Amelia over the rooftops. But up there, it’s too hard to see what all the people with real lives are doing. So I try to keep her no more than two stories above the sidewalk.

  Amelia zooms down 19th Street, toward the Free Library. Along this path there’s a stunning amount of new construction—condos and restaurants, mostly. It’s crazy how fast this stuff goes up. Sometimes I send Amelia out and I really have to study the images on my phone to figure out where the heck we are.

  But instead of checking out the cranes and the construction guys—who don’t catcall
or wolf-whistle at a drone, by the way—I steer Amelia to one of my favorite places in the neighborhood: the old Philadelphia & Reading Viaduct that’s currently under construction.

  Most Philadelphians have no idea this thing is in progress. That’s because its only access point is an unmarked opening on the block between Hamilton and Callowhill on 19th Street. But go past the caution signs…and it’s basically a wonderland up there. And in the daytime, it’s all mine.

  I only happened upon it last month, and it took me a few weeks to work up the courage to fly Amelia directly above it. Even now, the very idea sends a flutter through my nervous system. Back in the late 1800s, it was a bustling railway that would carry steel to the Baldwin Locomotive factory. But then the twentieth century happened and it was no longer used. By the 1990s, the tracks were torn up for scrap. A few years ago, a group petitioned the Reading Railroad to turn the area into a public green space. In the meantime, however, they’ve sealed it off.

  Too bad they can’t seal it off from Amelia…

  From above the abandoned space, I watch the sunlight cast its rays through the sidewalk grates. It’s dim in the early morning light, but the space is brightened by the wild plant life that’s already started to grow here. Some quick googling helped me identify the goldenrod, foxglove trees, and even a weird Southern magnolia that sprouted up in a lonely corner, as if in defiance of the northern climate. It’s amazing.

  Each time I visit, I push Amelia a bit further. I move her along the viaduct, hoping to catch a glimpse of something new.

  Today does not disappoint.

  Shockingly, there are two people here, right off the main chasm in clear violation of SEPTA rules. Now I’m sure urban spelunkers explore this place all the time, but I’ve never seen anyone here in the daylight hours. What could they be doing?