Swimsuit (29 page)

IT ALL CHANGES — NOW.

This is the story I was born to tell
.

Read on, while you still can.

—
JAMES PATTERSON

COMING IN DECEMBER 2009

WISTY

IT’S OVERWHELMING. A city’s worth of angry faces staring at me like I’m a wicked criminal — which, I promise you,
I’m not.
The stadium is filled to capacity —
past
capacity. People are standing in the aisles, the stairwells, on the concrete ramparts, and a few extra thousand are camped
out on the playing field. There are no football teams here today. They wouldn’t be able to get out of the locker-room tunnels
if they tried.

This total abomination is being broadcast on TV and on the Internet too. All the useless magazines are here, and the useless
newspapers. Yep, I see cameramen in elevated roosts at intervals around the stadium.

There’s even one of those remote-controlled cameras that runs around on wires above the field. There it is — hovering just
in front of the stage, bobbing slightly in the breeze.

So, there are undoubtedly millions more eyes watching than I can see. But it’s the ones here in the stadium that are breaking
my heart. To be confronted with tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands of curious, uncaring, or at least indifferent, faces…
talk about
frightening.

And there are no moist eyes, never mind tears.

No words of protest.

No stomping feet.

No fists raised in solidarity.

No inkling that anybody’s even thinking of surging forward, breaking through the security cordon, and carrying my family to
safety.

Clearly, this is not a good day for us Allgoods.

In fact, as the countdown ticker flashes on the giant video screens at either end of the stadium, it’s looking like this will
be our
last
day.

It’s a point driven home by the very tall, bald man up in the tower they’ve erected midfield — he looks like a cross between
a Supreme Court chief justice and Ming the Merciless. I know who he is. I’ve actually met him. He’s The One Who Is The One.

Directly behind his Oneness is a huge N.O. banner —
the New Order.

And then the crowd begins to chant, almost sing, “The One Who Is The One! The One Who Is The One!”

Imperiously, The One raises his hand, and his hooded lackeys on the stage push us forward, at least as far as the ropes around
our necks will allow.

I see my brother, Whit, handsome and brave, looking down at the platform mechanism. Calculating if there’s any way to jam
it, some way to keep it from unlatching and dropping us to our neck-snapping deaths. Wondering if there’s some last-minute
way out of this.

I see my mother crying quietly. Not for herself, of course, but for Whit and me.

I see my father, his tall frame stooped with resignation, but smiling at me and my brother — trying to keep our spirits up,
reminding us that there’s no point in being miserable in our last moments on this planet.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m supposed to be providing an
introduction
here, not the details of our public
execution.

So let’s go back a bit....

WHIT

SOMETIMES YOU WAKE up and the world is just plain different.

The noise of a circling helicopter is what made me open my eyes. A cold, blue-white light forced its way through the blinds
and flooded the living room. Almost like it was day.

But it wasn’t.

I peered at the clock on the DVD player through blurry eyes: 2:10 a.m.

I became aware of a steady
drub, drub, drub
— like the sound of a heavy heartbeat. Throbbing. Pressing in. Getting closer.

What’s going on?

I staggered to the window, forcing my body back to life after two hours passed out on the sofa, and peeked through the slats.

And then I stepped back and rubbed my eyes. Hard.

Because there’s no way I had seen what I’d seen. And there was no way I had heard what I’d heard.

Was it really the steady, relentless footfall of hundreds of soldiers? Marching on my street in perfect unison?

My street wasn’t close enough to the center of town to be on any holiday parade routes, much less to have armed men in combat
fatigues coursing down it in the dead of night.

I shook my head and bounced up and down a few times kind of like I do in my warm-ups.
Wake up, Whit.
I slapped myself a couple of times for good measure. And then I looked again.

There they were. Soldiers marching down our street.
Hundreds of them as clear as day, made visible by a half-dozen truck-mounted spotlights.

Just one thought was running laps inside my head:
This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.

Then I remembered the elections, the new government, the ravings of my parents about the trouble the country was in, the special
broadcasts on TV, the political petitions my classmates were circulating online, the heated debates between teachers at school.
None of it meant anything to me until that second.

And before I could piece it all together, the vanguard of the formation stopped in front of my house.

Almost faster than I could comprehend, two armed squads detached themselves from the phalanx and sprinted across the lawn
like commandos, one running around the back of the house, the other taking position in front.

I jumped back from the window. I could tell they weren’t here to protect me and my family. I had to warn Mom, Dad, Wisty —

But just as I started to yell, the front door was knocked off its hinges.

WISTY

IT’S QUITE HIDEOUS to get kidnapped in the dead of night, right inside your own home. It went something like this.

I awoke to the chaotic crashing of overturning furniture, quickly followed by the sounds of shattering glass, possibly some
of Mom’s china.

Oh God, Whit,
I thought, shaking my head sleepily. My older brother had grown four inches and gained thirty pounds of muscle in the past
year. Which made him the biggest and fastest quarterback around, and, I must say, the most intimidating player on our regional
high school’s undefeated football team.

Off the playing field, though, Whit could be about as clumsy as your average bear — if your average bear were hopped-up on
a case of Red Bull and full of himself because he could bench-press 275 and every girl in school thought he was the hunk of
all hunks.

I rolled over and pulled my pillow around my head. Even before the drinking started, Whit couldn’t walk through our house
without knocking something over. Total bull-in-the-china-shop syndrome.

But that wasn’t the real problem tonight, I knew.

Because three months ago, his girlfriend, Celia, had literally
vanished
without a trace. And by now everyone was thinking she probably would never come back. Her parents were totally messed up
about it, and so was Whit. To be honest, so was I. Celia was —
is
— very pretty, smart, not conceited at all. She’s this totally cool girl, even though she has money. Celia’s father owns
the luxury car dealership in town, and her mom is a former beauty queen. I couldn’t believe something like that would happen
to someone like Celia.

I heard my parents’ bedroom door open and snuggled back down into my cozy, flannel-sheeted bed.

Next came Dad’s booming voice, and he was as angry as I’ve ever heard him.

“This can’t be happening! You have no right to be here. Leave our house
now!
”

I bolted upright, wide awake. Next came more crashing sounds, and I thought I heard someone moan in pain. Had Whit fallen
and cracked his head? Had my dad been hurt?

Jeez, Louise,
I thought, scrambling out of bed. “I’m coming, Dad! Are you all right? Dad?”

And then the nightmare to start a lifetime of nightmares truly began.

I gasped as my bedroom door crashed open. Two hulking men in dark gray uniforms burst into my room, glaring at me as if I
were a fugitive terrorist cell operative.

“It’s her! Wisteria Allgood!” one said, and a light bright enough to illuminate an airplane hangar obliterated the darkness.

I tried to shield my eyes as my heart kicked into over-drive. “Who are
you?!
” I asked. “What are you doing in
my freaking bedroom?
”

Witch & Wizard.

In stores December 2009.

JAMES PATTERSON is one of the bestselling writers of all time, with more than 170 million books sold worldwide. He is the
author of the top-selling detective series of the past twenty years — the Alex Cross novels, including
Kiss the Girls
and
Along Came a Spider,
both of which were made into hit movies. Mr. Patterson also writes the bestselling Women’s Murder Club novels, set in San
Francisco, and the new series of #1
New York Times
bestsellers featuring Detective Michael Bennett of the NYPD. He won an Edgar Award, the mystery world’s highest honor, for
his first novel. He lives in Florida.

James Patterson’s lifelong passion for books and reading led him to launch a new Web site, ReadKiddoRead.com, which helps
parents, grandparents, teachers, and librarians find the very best children’s books for their kids.

MAXINE PAETRO is a novelist and journalist. She lives with her husband in New York.

Books by James Patterson

FEATURING ALEX CROSS

Cross Country

Double Cross

Cross

Mary, Mary

London Bridges

The Big Bad Wolf

Four Blind Mice

Violets Are Blue

Roses Are Red

Pop Goes the Weasel

Cat & Mouse

Jack & Jill

Kiss the Girls

Along Came a Spider

THE WOMEN’S MURDER CLUB

The 8th Confession
(with Maxine Paetro)
7th Heaven
(with Maxine Paetro)

The 6th Target
(with Maxine Paetro)

The 5th Horseman
(with Maxine Paetro)
4th of July
(with Maxine Paetro)

3rd Degree
(with Andrew Gross)

2nd Chance
(with Andrew Gross)

1st to Die

FEATURING MICHAEL BENNETT

Run for Your Life
(with Michael Ledwidge)

Step on a Crack
(with Michael Ledwidge)

THE JAMES PATTERSON PAGETURNERS

Daniel X: Watch the Skies

MAX: A Maximum Ride Novel

The Dangerous Days of Daniel X

The Final Warning: A Maximum Ride Novel

Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

Maximum Ride: School’s Out — Forever

Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment

OTHER BOOKS

Swimsuit
(with Maxine Paetro)

Against Medical Advice: One Family’s Struggle with an Agonizing Medical Mystery
(with Hal Friedman)

Sail
(with Howard Roughan)

Sundays at Tiffany’s
(with Gabrielle Charbonnet)

You’ve Been Warned
(with Howard Roughan)

The Quickie
(with Michael Ledwidge)

Judge & Jury
(with Andrew Gross)

Beach Road
(with Peter de Jonge)

Lifeguard
(with Andrew Gross)

Honeymoon
(with Howard Roughan)

SantaKid

Sam’s Letters to Jennifer

The Lake House

The Jester
(with Andrew Gross)

The Beach House
(with Peter de Jonge)

Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas

Cradle and All

When the Wind Blows

Miracle on the 17th Green
(with Peter de Jonge)

Hide & Seek

The Midnight Club

Black Friday
(originally published as
Black Market
)

See How They Run
(originally published as
The Jericho Commandment
)

Season of the Machete

The Thomas Berryman Number

For previews of upcoming books by James Patterson

and more information about the author, visit

www.JamesPatterson.com
.