The Shut-In Read online

  A bemused grin appears on his face. On most guys it would look charming. On this guy, it comes across as creepy.

  “And what’s that?”

  “How you did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “Take out a senator in broad daylight and then vanish into thin air.”

  He takes a moment to study me. I mean, really study me. As if my question boggled his mind. Finally, after a small eternity, he opens his mouth and speaks again. “You’re serious,” Archer says.

  I bug my eyes out a little, as if to say, Do you think I’m kidding around here?

  “If we had more time together,” he says, “I’d be happy to walk you through the whole plan, step by step. I’m proud of my work. And I’ve done a lot of it in preparation for this mission. But the clock is ticking. Suffice to say that people always see what they want to see. They’re not trained to observe the truly unexpected.”

  “Like the arrow that magically appeared out of your sleeve,” I say.

  Archer nods.

  “But once the senator was hit, how were you not tackled by a dozen Secret Service guys?”

  “Witnesses will swear they saw a woman take that shot. In the confusion, I simply ceased being that woman and transformed into just another panicked spectator. It’s easier than you think. The basic principles have been around for centuries.”

  “Amazing.”

  Archer smiles. “I’m so glad you’re impressed.”

  I laugh. “No, I’m not impressed by your nerdy Renaissance Faire assassination plan. Arrows? Seriously? No, I think it’s amazing you just confessed.”

  Archer moves closer, attempting to box me in. There’s an old storefront behind me. If I try to run in either direction, he’ll definitely be able to catch me.

  “It doesn’t matter that I confessed to you,” he says quietly. “You’re the only one who heard, and in a few seconds, you will be dead.”

  “But that’s the thing. I’m not the only one who heard.”

  Chapter 41

  Say hello, Amelia I.

  Yep, she’s right above our heads, still caught in the ancient rusty sign on that rooftop where she crashed a while ago. With her little camera trained on this exact location. And she’s captured everything.

  While I was still on the rooftop a couple of minutes ago, I opened her app on my cell phone and saw that she had just enough power to pull this off. Then I texted the link to Officer Yates and told him to watch—This will explain everything.

  And then, of course, I climbed down the front of a three-story brownstone and ran like hell, all with a trained killer nipping at my heels.

  Oh, the look on Archer’s face as he glances up and sees Amelia I, notices that there’s a blinking green light near her camera, and instantly puts it all together.

  What’s that old saying? You can fool all of the people some of the time, and you can fool some people all of the time, but not all of the people all of the time?

  Well, when a drone is watching you when you’re trying to fool people, forget about it. You’re screwed.

  “What did you do?” Archer snarls. “WHAT DID YOU DO?”

  I’m about to respond with a wisecrack, but I never get the chance. Because Archer immediately lunges for me.

  Chapter 42

  I’ve suffered through multiple panic attacks this past week. Each time, I’ve likened the experience to “hands squeezing my throat” or some other metaphor for strangulation.

  Well, let me tell you—a panic attack feels nothing like actually being strangled.

  There are no “invisible hands.” You feel every bony finger—especially the fat thumbs, crushing your windpipe like it’s the cardboard tube inside a roll of paper towels.

  Archer doesn’t need arrows to kill. His hands are more than capable of pulling off this particular job.

  The murder of a nosy shut-in.

  Oh, I fight back, for what it’s worth. I dig my nails down into his flesh, hoping to strike down into the bones of his hands. But the strength fades from my limbs before I can do anything resembling damage, and I’m sure Archer is so furious he doesn’t feel a thing.

  It really sucks that the last thing I’m ever going to see is Archer’s red, trembling, angry face.

  What happens when you die, you might ask? Do you see stars or clouds? A long tunnel with a bright light at the end? Or simply black nothingness?

  In my case, it’s none of the above. Instead, I see faces. Not the faces of long-deceased relatives come to take me home. Still, they are faces I recognize, even though I can’t assign names to them.

  Why do you all look so familiar? is my last thought before all of the lights turn out.

  Later, I would understand why I knew those faces.

  Chapter 43

  Those faces belonged to my neighbors in Spring Garden, the very same people I used to watch as they headed off to work in the morning, and then trudged home later that evening, tired or defeated. Some were the people who came home happy, looking forward to spending the night with someone they cared about. I saw them all through the eye of Amelia and experienced their lives vicariously.

  Lawyer-types in their fine suits and even more expensive shoes who spent 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…

  I heard that about a dozen of them were running up to pull Archer off me. He wriggled like a maniac apparently, but there were just too many of them.

  One neighbor, a nurse at Pennsylvania Hospital, worked on reviving me while the others subdued Archer, tackling him to the sidewalk.

  You have to understand that in Philly, when we make reference to “subduing” someone, what we really mean is that we beat the holy crap out of them. Later, at the trial, Archer’s face was still badly bruised and his jaw wired shut. The doctors said he’ll never look the same.

  Pity.

  After all my neighbors saved me, Yates and Sears made it to the corner of 20th and Hamilton in time to slap the cuffs on Archer and read him his Miranda rights. They pretty much got instant credit for the whole thing.

  Archer’s real name, by the way, turned out to be…

  You know what? I don’t want to give that creepy guy any more notoriety than he already has. He can remain anonymous in my story.

  Besides, to me he’ll always be Mrs. Archer, the (supposedly) professional assassin in a dress who got his butt kicked by a shut-in.

  Chapter 44

  After the whole story made the news, I became sort-of famous. You know what they call it now—“internet famous.” The kind of fame that lasts for a couple of minutes, tops, before the world is fascinated by, like, somebody in a Chewbacca mask telling knock-knock jokes or a dog who knows how to pump its paws to heavy metal.

  Even Yates and Sears made it onto a few talk shows, even though they didn’t do much aside from watch a link I’d texted them and show up to finish the job that my Spring Garden neighbors had started.

  “We knew you weren’t responsible for the senator,” Yates later admitted to me.

  “Yeah, we just thought you were nutty,” Sears added.

  Thanks, fellas.

  But my brief hit of fame did bring a lot of my old friends out of the woodwork, and they all insisted on taking me out for a drink. Or five.

  Which sounds great to me.

  No, I’m not cured. My solar urticaria is still a consistent source of annoyance and a constant threat to my health. The only way I ever see my beloved city while the sun is shining down upon it is through the camera lens of a drone. And I use Amelia I, if you must know—the original.

  Yates pulled the old girl down from that rusty old sign, knocked on my door shyly, and presented it to me as if it were a lost kitten. I felt like hugging the thing, but thought that might be a little weird.

  As it turns out, I ended up giving Yates a hug instead. He’s not so bad, once you get past the uniform and the beer belly. I invi
ted him in for some instant coffee. Seemed to be the decent thing to do, even if he busted down my apartment door (and yeah, the landlord charged me for it).

  “So what would you do if I were to ask you out?” Yates says to me one night, acting shy once again.

  “I’d ask how you’d feel about a threesome.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says, choking on his coffee, “w-what did you just say?”

  “You heard me. Amelia’s gotta chaperone. The thing is, I don’t trust the police.”

  By now, I have made my peace with the outside world.

  In fact, tonight I’m meeting a couple of my lovely Spring Garden neighbors at my new favorite joint, which happens to be BYOB. It’s open only after sundown. There’s an amazing view of nighttime Philadelphia, and yet it’s never crowded. Best of all, it’s a very short walk from my apartment.

  Just four flights up.

  About the Authors

  James Patterson has written more bestsellers and created more enduring fictional characters than any other novelist writing today. He lives in Florida with his family.

  Duane Swierczynski is the Edgar-nominated and Anthony Award–winning author of Canary and Revolver. He’s also written for comic books, TV, and film.

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