Free 10th Anniversary by James Patterson Page A

Beale’s pupils were dilated.
    I also took in the state of the room.
    Kristin’s side had a post-tornado, morning-after look. The floor around her unmade bed was strewn with clothes, books, and candy wrappers.
    The other side, Avis’s side, was as tidy as a banker’s desk. A pillow on the bed was embroidered with the letter
A,
and there was a picture of the Richardson family on her dresser.
    Avis’s closet was open. I quickly went through her clothes and saw that she had them in two sizes. Size eight and extra large.
    Her computer was turned off on her desk, untouchable without a warrant.
    “Is Avis okay?” Kristin asked, in a tone that told me she didn’t care at all.
    “She’s with her parents,” I said. “She’s doing okay, but she’s been through an ordeal. Kristin, has Avis called you or written to you? We’re trying to find her baby.”
    “Baby? I don’t know anything about a baby.”
    “Avis was nine months pregnant,” I said. “You saw her every day. Unless you’re blind, you must have known she was pregnant.”
    “Well, I didn’t,” the girl said. “She was a pretty good eater and she didn’t work out.”
    Turning to Conklin, I said, “You know, Inspector, I’m getting sick of these kids lying their faces off.”
    “I don’t think they understand that we are homicide cops,” he said. “Maybe they think that because they go to a rich kids’ school, they’re outside of the law.”
    The girl was staring at us now, eyes going back and forth between us and darting to a spot on the floor. I followed her eyes to a pile of laundry and saw the corner of a plastic bag under a sock.
    I said to Conklin, “You’re right. They’re spoiled. They’re living in a separate universe. A universe where this,” I said, toeing the sock aside, “a few ounces of marijuana, isn’t illegal. But, of course it’s possession of an illegal substance, and in this case, given how much you have here, Kristin, I’m thinking it could even be possession with intent to sell.”
    “That’s not mine. I never saw it before.”
    I had to laugh. Two feet from her bed and she’d never seen it before.
    “I say it’s your grass and that your urine is going to show that you’ve been smoking it.”
    I reached under my coat for my cuffs, and the girl backed up.
    “Kristin Beale, you’re under arrest for possession of narcotics.”
    “No… what, are you—kidding? I’ll get kicked out of here. Okay, okay, okay. Like, what do you want to know?”
    “Where is the baby?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Who is the father of Avis’s baby?” I said.
    “She never told me. I am telling you the
truth.
”
    “Someone got her pregnant,” said Conklin.
    “She’s gone out with boys, but no one regularly.”
    “More lies,” I said. “I think you’ll tell us the truth at the station. Of course, we’ll have to call your parents.”
    “I think she was going out with a married man,” the kid yelled at me. “Look. She didn’t tell me. One time, I asked her if she was pregnant. She said, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ I asked if her secret boyfriend was married, and she gave me a look. Like
this.
And she told me to never tell anyone. And that is everything I know. Everything. She never talked about the baby again. Maybe she told Larry Foster. Those guys are tight.”

Chapter 32
    I PUT MY CARD on Kristin’s desk and told her to call me if she had any thoughts she’d like to share that might save a baby’s life. I flushed the weed down the toilet in the bathroom down the hall, and then, muttering under my breath about teenagers, my partner and I left the dorm.
    During the six hours we had spent interviewing Avis’s friends at Brighton, her parents had called me a dozen times. I had nothing for them, so I’d let the calls go through to voice mail. But as we were driving away from the campus empty-handed, Brady called.
    I picked up the call on the third ring.
    The lieutenant sounded agitated.
    “The press has