The Shadow Read online

  I sit down next to Margo. She doesn’t say anything. She just slips her arm through mine and squeezes it tight.

  “Somehow,” she says, “I never pictured myself as a great-great-great-great-grandmother.”

  “I know,” I say. “They probably don’t even have cards for that.”

  Lamont sits down on the other side of Margo. He puts his arm around both of us. This seems like the time to say something momentous about our family tree, but for some reason I feel more comfortable changing the subject. Moving things forward. Focusing on the future.

  “We need someplace else to live,” I say. “This place is way too cramped for three grown humans.” What I don’t say is how much it depresses me to be here. There’s too much of my grandmother in those rooms.

  “I hear there’s a mansion uptown that’s available,” says Margo. “The basement needs a little work.”

  “Worst possible idea,” says Lamont. “That’s the first place he’ll look.”

  Margo’s face tightens. “You think he’ll be back?” she asks.

  “He always comes back,” says Lamont. “It’s just a matter of time.”

  “How can you be so sure?” says Margo.

  Lamont looks at me.

  “Oh, go ahead,” I tell him. “Say it.”

  So he does. With the whole deep voice and everything.

  “The Shadow knows.”

  CHAPTER 100

  SUDDENLY, I HEAR barking from around the corner. Then I see a flash of brown fur in front of the steps. I get a twinge in my gut. That dog could be Bando’s twin. He’s even got…

  “Bando! Wait up!” Grandma’s voice.

  Grandma’s voice?

  I jump up just in time to see her coming around the corner. We both freeze for a second. It can’t be. Is this a dream? I run into her arms, crying and shouting like crazy. As soon as she grabs me, I know it’s her. It’s really her. She smells like lilacs.

  “Grandma! You’re alive?”

  “Don’t say it like it’s a question,” she says. “Of course I’m alive.”

  “Jessica?” shouts Margo. She can’t believe it either.

  “Nice to see you all breathing,” says Grandma.

  “The warehouse!” says Lamont. “How did you…?”

  Grandma reaches out to hug Lamont and Margo while Bando runs happy circles around everybody.

  “As soon as you all left this morning,” says Grandma, “Bando started to get antsy. So I took him out for a walk. Which, as it turned out, was excellent timing. When I looked back, there was nothing but a cloud of smoke.”

  I still can’t believe it. I can’t believe she’s here. My heart feels like it’s about to pop right out of my chest. I go right back to hugging her. I can’t get enough.

  “And what happened to you?” she asks. She’s looking at the scratches on my face and the bruises on my arms. “Did you get into another fight?”

  “I did,” I say. “But I came out on top.”

  “That’s my girl,” says Grandma. Always my biggest fan.

  “Have you heard?” she says. “Gismonde’s gone. Everybody’s celebrating. They’re shooting holes in his video screens all over town.” She looks at Lamont.

  “Did the Shadow have anything to do with this?”

  Lamont puts his arm around her shoulders and leads her up the steps to the building. Margo follows right behind.

  “Jessica,” says Lamont. “We have a lot to catch up on.”

  I’d say that’s putting it mildly.

  Bando is jumping all over me, begging for some attention. I pick him up in my arms as we head up the stairs. He licks my face, and I kiss him right back. Now we definitely need a new place to live.

  Big enough for a family of five.

  CHAPTER 101

  AT DAWN THE next morning, Lamont and Margo walked slowly toward the place where they had spent more than a century of their lives.

  “Lamont,” said Margo. “In case you’ve forgotten, I really hate this neighborhood.”

  “We won’t stay long, I promise,” said Lamont.

  The warehouse foundation was still smoldering. The blast had collapsed the south wall of the building next door and reached all the way to the river. The wooden docks were shattered and the ghost ships had been blown apart. The ruins of Khan’s power.

  Lamont knew Khan wasn’t really defeated. Somehow, he’d find a different realm where he could gather his strength and return in a new form—more dangerous than before. The difference in Lamont’s world was that he now had a family to protect. And a great-great-great-great-granddaughter to teach. That thought alone made his head spin. He also had a life partner whom he didn’t intend to lose ever again.

  “This place gives me the creeps,” said Margo. “Why are we here?”

  “I’m looking for something,” said Lamont. “It’s a long shot. But it might still be here.”

  “Please,” said Margo. “There’s nothing left. Let’s go.”

  It was high tide and the water was almost lapping at what was left of the entry steps to the lab. In the explosion, the second floor of the warehouse had pancaked down onto the ground floor. Pieces of the massive stove were scattered among tangles of wire and lab equipment. At the center of the wreckage, part of the vault was still standing, its walls twisted from the heat.

  Lamont stepped onto the smoking pile, but Margo refused to go any farther.

  “Lamont,” she said. “Stop! You’ll step on a nail and get lockjaw!”

  Lamont scanned the splintered flooring, the collapsed walls, the bent pipes. Lying near the center was a cluster of charred blankets. Their bed. Lamont stood in debris up to his ankles as he pawed through the scraps of cloth and wood nearby. His hands were scratched and covered in soot.

  Then suddenly, against all odds, there it was—an object so small that only a trained detective would have spotted it. Lamont reached carefully into the debris to pull it out, then closed his hand around it.

  “Lamont!” Margo called out. “This is no time for souvenirs!”

  Lamont moved carefully through the wreckage on his way back toward her. For a moment, he thought about walking her to a different location. But in a way, this place felt completely right. It was where his life—and hers—had started again.

  “Believe it or not,” he said, “I found what I came for.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Margo.

  Lamont got down on one knee on the cement step. He opened his hand and held up a diamond ring.

  Margo gasped. Her eyes opened wide.

  “Margo Lane,” said Lamont, “will you…?”

  She didn’t even let him finish the question.

  “Yes!” she said. “Absolutely! Yes!”

  Lamont smiled. “You don’t want to wait and think it over?”

  Margo shook her head as the tears began to come.

  “Lamont,” she said. “I think we’ve waited long enough.”

  She held out her left hand. Lamont slipped the ring onto her finger. Then he stood up and wrapped his arms around her. When she tipped her face up to kiss him, he couldn’t believe how beautiful she was, and how much he loved her.

  It was the happiest he’d been in, well, over a hundred years.

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  About the Authors

  JAMES PATTERSON is the world’s bestselling author and most trusted storyteller. He has created many enduring fictional characters and series, including Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club, Michael Bennett, Maximum Ride, Middle School, and I Funny. Among his notable literary collaborations are The President Is Missing, with President Bill Clinton, and the Max Einstein series, produced in partnership with the Albert Einstein Estate. Patterson’s writing career is characterized by a single mission: to prove that there is no such thing as a person who “doesn’t like to read,” only people who hav
en’t found the right book. He’s given over three million books to schoolkids and the military, donated more than seventy million dollars to support education, and endowed over five thousand college scholarships for teachers. For his prodigious imagination and championship of literacy in America, Patterson was awarded the 2019 National Humanities Medal. The National Book Foundation presented him with the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, and he is also the recipient of an Edgar Award and nine Emmy Awards. He lives in Florida with his family.

  Brian Sitts is an award-winning advertising creative director and television writer. He has collaborated with James Patterson on books for adults and children. He and his wife, Jody, live in Peekskill, New York.

  The Chef

  In the Carnival days leading up to Mardi Gras, Detective Caleb Rooney is accused of murder—committed in the line of duty as a Major Crimes investigator for the New Orleans Police Department. I know what it’s like to love your home, so Rooney is in anguish as his beloved city is under attack. And the would-be terrorists may be local.

  Amid crowds of revelers, Rooney follows a fearsome trail of clues, racing from outlying districts into the city center. He has no idea what—or who—he’ll face in defense of his hometown, only that innocent lives are at stake. This might be my most delicious thriller yet.

  The Midwife Murders

  I can’t imagine a worse crime than one done against a child. But when two kidnappings and a vicious stabbing happen on her watch in a university hospital in Manhattan, her focus abruptly changes. Something has to be done, and senior midwife Lucy is fearless enough to try.

  Rumors begin to swirl, with blame falling on everyone from the Russian mafia to an underground adoption network. Fierce single mom Lucy teams up with a skeptical NYPD detective, but I’ve given her a case where the truth is far more twisted than Lucy could ever have imagined.

  The First Lady

  The US government is at the forefront of everyone’s mind these days and I’ve become incredibly fascinated by the idea that one secret can bring it all down. What if that secret is a US president’s affair that results in a nightmarish outcome?

  Sally Grissom, leader of the Presidential Protection Division, is summoned to a private meeting with the president and his chief of staff to discuss the disappearance of the First Lady. What at first seemed an escape to a safe haven turns into a kidnapping when a ransom note arrives along with what could be the First Lady’s finger.

  It’s a race against the clock to collect the evidence that all leads to one troubling question: Could the kidnappers be from inside the White House?

  Texas Ranger

  So many of my detectives are dark and gritty and deal with crimes in some of our grimmest cities. That’s why I’m thrilled to bring you Detective Rory Yates, my most honorable detective yet.

  As a Texas Ranger, he has a code that he lives and works by. But when he comes home for a much-needed break, he walks into a crime scene where the victim is none other than his ex-wife—and he’s the prime suspect. Yates has to risk everything in order to clear his name, and he dives into the inferno of the most twisted mind I’ve ever created. Can his code bring him back out alive?

  Juror #3

  In the deep south of Mississippi, Ruby Bozarth is a newcomer, both to Rosedale, and to the Bar. And now she’s tapped as a defense counsel in a racially charged felony. The murder of a woman from an old family has Rosedale’s upper crust howling for blood, and the prosecutor is counting on Ruby’s inexperience to help him deliver a swift conviction.

  Ruby is determined to build a defense that sticks for her college football star client. Looking for help in unexpected quarters, her case is rattled as news of a second murder breaks. As intertwining investigations unfold, no one can be trusted, especially the twelve men and women on the jury. They may be hiding the most incendiary secret of all.

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