The House Husband Read online

  “What did you do to him?”

  “Don’t think about that right now,” Posehn says. “I want you to open your mind and think about the possibility of us. It’s not as crazy as it sounds.”

  But Teaghan is not thinking about us. She’s thinking about the lockbox on her kitchen counter.

  And how she’s very, very happy that she didn’t put her service revolver into it before stepping into the living room.

  CHAPTER 36

  I don’t know if I’m reaching her.

  After all, Teaghan’s a cop; she’s trained to pretend. I’ve seen plenty of cops on the witness stand who deserve an Academy Award. They promise they’re going to help you out and be your friend right up to the moment they swab the crook of your arm and prepare to jab you with the lethal injection.

  But it’s important that Teaghan believes me. Otherwise, this evening will have to go a very different way. And trust me, nobody wants that. Least of all me. With all of this work I’ve put into this new relationship so far, I’d hate to have to start all over again.

  “What do you think, Teaghan?” I ask.

  “If you want there to be an us,” Teaghan says, looking me right in the eyes, “then let me feed the baby so we can talk in peace.”

  And for a microsecond there, I totally believe her. She’s that good. Her bright eyes lock with mine, telling me that we’re practically man and wife already. And the baby in my arms is really ours. So sure, why wouldn’t I let her breastfeed him? It’s the most natural thing in the world. What am I saying? It’s perhaps the most beautiful moment between a woman and a child, and I’ll be privileged to be able to see it.

  “That’s it,” she says quietly. “Give him to me.”

  But then I see her right hand dart toward the small of her back. And I see the slight grimace on her face, because the movement clearly hurts.

  The C-section scars, you see. They’re probably still tender. I saw it when she moved around the crime scene on Christian Street. It hurt her to move.

  And I’ll bet anything she hasn’t practiced drawing her gun since enduring the surgery. She didn’t realize how much it would hurt.

  Probably nothing in comparison to how much it hurts me right now. All of my dreams, dashed in an instant. Just like they were six weeks ago. Why is it so hard to be a parent these days?

  Oh, well. I guess this evening is going the other way.

  I sigh and squeeze the trigger.

  CHAPTER 37

  The bullet catches Teaghan in her upper arm and propels her body backward, slamming her against the living-room wall.

  What’s strange is that Christopher immediately stops crying, even as the shot is still echoing off the apartment walls. The explosion must have been deafening to his tiny ears. It either shocked him into silence or blew out his eardrums.

  The pain in Teaghan’s body is unreal, as if someone has swung a sledgehammer straight into her bicep, crushing bone and immediately numbing her limb all the way down to her fingertips.

  She’s never been shot before. The very idea always filled her with an existential kind of dread, because her Job is all about putting herself between innocent civilians and the guns of very bad men. Sometimes she would lie awake at night, thinking about what it would feel like.

  But much to her surprise, the pain is nothing compared to what she experienced during childbirth and the aftermath of abdominal surgery.

  And you know what? It’s nothing compared to the white-hot rage she’s feeling now.

  While it was the detective who tried to talk her way out of this horrible situation, it is the mom inside Teaghan who now reaches her left hand toward the small of her back and grabs the handle of the revolver. Because the mom in Teaghan will do anything to protect her family.

  Including aiming the gun with a hand she’s never practiced with before and squeezing the trigger.

  Blood sprays from Posehn’s right shoulder, mere inches over her baby boy’s head. The gun drops from Posehn’s hand and falls onto the hardwood floor with a thump.

  “Ow!” Posehn screams, not so much in agony as at the utter betrayal. “H-h-how could you? I wanted to give you everything! And this is how you treat me? Without even talking to me?”

  The psycho puts his other hand around the baby’s neck. Christopher’s head looks so tiny next to Posehn’s adult fingers.

  Teaghan screams, aims, and fires again, this time placing a bullet in Posehn’s left shoulder. His hand falls away from Christopher, and his whole body begins to writhe on the futon, unable to move either arm now, snarling at her.

  “I’ll do the same thing to you that I did to Ruth. You ask her. Then you’ll see what happens when you defy me!”

  Baby Christopher, still in shell-shocked silence, begins to slide down the psycho’s legs, headed for the edge of his knees.

  Teaghan drops her revolver and falls to her own knees, biting her tongue to keep from passing out. She lunges forward with her one good arm and pushes out with her legs.…

  Her baby is screaming and falling…

  But Mommy’s hand is there to break the worst of his fall.

  She pulls him close to her, not feeling any pain at all now.

  The very touch of him, the smell of him, is all the anesthetic she needs.

  CHAPTER 38

  Teaghan holds her baby boy close as they go looking for Daddy.

  The psycho is passed out on their futon, most likely from the shock and blood loss, and Teaghan has already called it in. She expects uniformed officers to be knocking down her front door in a matter of minutes.

  But there’s one thing she’s not going to let happen, and that is having someone else tell her what happened to Charlie. She needs to see it with her own eyes.

  So she heads down the wooden steps to the basement, her legs extremely shaky beneath her body weight. Please don’t let me pass out, she prays. Let me keep it together long enough to see him one last time.

  Christopher, perhaps picking up on his mother’s fear, begins to fuss again.

  “It’s okay, baby boy,” she whispers. “Everything will be okay.”

  Not believing it herself, but sometimes a parent has to be the rock in this kind of situation.

  She steadies herself against the doorframe and peers inside.

  Charlie’s body is in their bedroom, sprawled across their bed, his hair wet with blood. His open laptop is on the floor, splayed open like a plastic butterfly. He was probably writing, taking advantage of the baby’s napping, when the psycho broke in and surprised him mid-sentence.

  Her poor, sweet husband.

  Your former husband…

  CHAPTER 39

  Teaghan holds her breath and grabs her husband’s wrist, expecting it to be cold, expecting the emotional dam to burst any second now.

  Instead, Charlie stirs, moaning, waking up, his hands flapping around like dying fish, trying to make sense of his surroundings.

  “Ssss’okay,” he says. “I’m up, I’m up, I’ll get the baby…”

  “Charlie!” Teaghan exclaims.

  Baby Christopher looks at his mother in surprise. He’s never heard her use that tone of voice before.

  Teaghan can’t lift her husband and hold her baby at the same time, so she goes for the next-best thing, crawling into bed next to him, the baby between them. She knows this won’t last for long. For one thing, it hurts like crazy to put any kind of pressure on her right arm. For another, her colleagues will be here soon, in full force, and they’re all going to have to be transported to the hospital. And the doctors are going to have one hell of a fight on their hands if they think they’re going to take Christopher away from her for even a second.

  “Sweetie,” Charlie says, still dazed, his eyes finally locking onto his wife. He smiles like a goof. “You’re home early.”

  About the Authors

  James Patterson has written more bestsellers and created more enduring fictional characters than any other novelist writing today. He lives in Flori
da 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.

  bookshots.com

  jamespatterson.com

  Follow James Patterson on Facebook