Free Private L.A. by James Patterson, Mark Sullivan Page A

or whatever, a guy who—
    “Go!”
    She threw her feet overhead, balanced against the wall, and started to grind out the workout.
One, little sister. Four more now
.
    When it was over, she’d done twelve rounds in the allotted twenty minutes. Not the best in the gym, but a perfectly respectable showing given the lack of sleep. She peeled herself off the floor as Paul staggered up and said, “This is bad. I’m supposed to give a lecture on
Moby-Dick
in my AP class, and I feel like the harpooned whale.”
    Justine laughed. It was an absurd line, but she liked it. A funny guy too.
    “So,” Paul said. “That guy who picked you up yesterday?”
    Justine hesitated, then said, “My boss.”
    “Oh,” Paul said, looking relieved. “What do you do?”
    As a rule Justine didn’t like talking about what she did, especially with single men. When they found out she worked for Private, many of them were intimidated. One guy had recently told her he couldn’t date a woman who was capable of discovering his deepest secrets.
    “Actuarial,” she said. “Boring.”
    “Sounds fascinating, actually,” Paul said, glanced at his watch. “Feel like grabbing a cup of coffee before work? It’s only seven.”
    For a second Justine was tempted, but then she shook her head. “Can’t. Sorry, I have to be on a flight to Mexico at eight.”
    “For actuarial work?”
    “As a matter of fact,” Justine said. “Rain check?”
    “You bet,” he said, beaming. “I’d like that.”
    “Good,” Justine said, and left.
    She ran across to her car, thinking that maybe the romantic part of her life was not such a mess after all. She had opportunities on the horizon.

Chapter 24
    I DON’T THINK I moved a muscle all night. I opened my eyes around seven thirty, rolled over, and put a pillow over my head to block out the sunlight.
    Dozing dreams are the most real, don’t you think? I do. On the edge of consciousness, my mind conjured a scene from my childhood. I lay on the grass, screaming in agony while Tommy laughed because I’d broken my wrist trying to skateboard as well as he did. I played college football, but that had more to do with my tenacity; my brother was always the gifted one athletically.
    My dreams mutated and I found myself lost in some kind of Rube Goldberg contraption populated by the people who had gathered in the mayor’s office in response to the No Prisoners killings.
    “Find him, Jack,” Mayor Wills said, sounding like the Queen of Hearts in
Alice in Wonderland
. “Stop him.”
    “By any means necessary,” Chief Fescoe said.
    “We’ll work with and parallel to you,” said District Attorney Billy Blaze, who strangely wore a button with Tommy’s ten-year-old face on it.
    “But we don’t want to know a thing about your tactics,” added Sheriff Cammarata. “Are we clear on that, Morgan?”
    In my dreams, it had all seemed perfectly clear. Find and capture No Prisoners, then turn him over, Private’s role a complete secret to everyone but a select inner circle. But when my cell rang, waking me up for good, things quickly became murkier.
    “I don’t like this, Jack,” said Del Rio by way of hello. “I’ve been up half the night because I feel like we’re being set up to take a fall somehow.”
    “They’re granting us blanket immunity in advance. I’m supposed to see a copy of the document by nine.”
    “What do they expect us to do that they can’t?”
    “I’m not sure they know,” I admitted. “Whatever it takes to get No Prisoners behind bars.”
    “They should be forming a task force or something. Put a hundred men on it. Bring in Cal Justice investigators. Bring in the FBI.”
    “City, county, and state are all cash strapped. I guess they see Private as the cheaper alternative. And they don’t want to cede authority to the bureau.”
    “I still don’t like it.”
    “I don’t either, but I gave my word, said we’d do it.”
    Silence.
    Another call came in. Mo-bot. I told Del Rio