I realized there was a big bad world out there and I’d spent most of my life in Marlboro, New York, trying to avoid it. The world worked in mysterious and unethical ways, but it was time I took my head out of the sand and stood up to it.

The one thing I wasn’t going to let drop was Mabel’s death. I knew in my heart it was connected to this mess, probably because she showed me photos of the three strangers. No matter what happened, I intended to find some answers, but that could wait for another day.

I wrapped my arm around Bailey Mae as we walked. I was thankful that at least I got what I had come for and couldn’t wait to see Bailey Mae and her mother reunited. We had also managed to free the men held in those terrible conditions. Now, that was a victory I’d accept.

Life here in Marlboro had its moments.

Malicious

James Patterson
& James O. Born

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I HAD RACED through my paper route this morning, chucking papers onto the frozen front yards of Marlboro, New York, in January. Normally, I’d stop and chat with the customers who happened to be up around dawn, but today I just waved. It’s a shame, because that’s my favorite part of the job.

Now I was in my unofficial office for my unofficial second job. For the past few years I had made my office in a little diner off Route 9 named Tina’s Plentiful. Tina didn’t mind, because I occasionally brought in a little extra traffic. I have to admit that lately there hadn’t been much extra traffic. But right now, Edith Ledbetter sat across from me with a pleasant look on her aging face. No one under seventy is ever named Edith. She’d approached me about three months ago to see if I could locate her estranged daughter. They hadn’t spoken in twenty-six years, since the daughter turned twenty-one and thought that Syracuse University had turned her into the smartest human on earth.

But years have a way of making people lonely and feel their regrets more acutely. Even after I explained that I wasn’t a licensed private investigator, Edith said that she didn’t care and hired me on the spot. Word-of-mouth recommendations in the community had helped me. I was honest and generally let my clients decide how much they wanted to pay.

We’d been waiting together almost forty-five minutes and there was no sign of the daughter. She had told me she would be at the diner at eight o’clock. I didn’t like the looks of this at all.

Edith said, “It’s some kind of miracle that you found Linda after all these years.”

“All I really did was use the internet. It wasn’t that big a deal.”