Copyright © 2008 by James Patterson
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group USA
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com
First eBook Edition: June 2008
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real-persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
ISBN: 978-0-316-03250-6
Contents
The Crew
Prologue: Family Dunne Alive
One
Two
Three
Part One: The Family (Un)Dunne
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Part Two: Mayday
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Part Three: Ka-Blam, Ka-Blooey
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Part Four: All Together Now
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Part Five: Finders Keepers
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Part Six: Trust No One
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
Chapter 119
Chapter 120
Chapter 121
Chapter 122
Chapter 123
Epilogue: A Promise is a Promise
Chapter 124
Chapter 125
About the Authors
A complete list of James Patterson’s books can be found at the end of the book. For more information about James Patterson and his books, visit www.JamesPatterson.com.
For my sister, Shari—H.R.
For my sisters, Carole, Maryellen, and Terry—J.P.
The Crew
DR. KATHERINE DUNNE, forty-five, is a heart surgeon at Lexington Hospital in Manhattan. Four years ago she lost her husband, Stuart, in a scuba diving accident off their boat, The Family Dunne. As it turned out, Stuart was having an affair, and his mistress was there when he died. From that day on, Katherine’s relationship with her three children has never been the same. Things have only gotten worse since she remarried, bringing the lawyer Peter Carlyle into the family. But Peter is bright, funny, and compassionate, and he won Katherine’s heart.
CARRIE DUNNE, eighteen, is a freshman at Yale. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Carrie is bulimic and has suffered from bouts of depression. She has always accused Katherine of being more devoted to being a doctor than to her kids. Carrie’s best friend from New York recently told Katherine she was afraid that Carrie was capable of hurting herself.
MARK DUNNE, sixteen, is a sophomore at Deerfield Academy, where he’s well liked but also the resident stoner. Zero ambition, zero enthusiasm. “Why should I bust my ass like Dad when at any moment, poof!—the Grim Reaper comes and takes it all away from you.”
ERNIE DUNNE is ten—at least, that’s what his birth certificate says. But in this family, where it’s seemingly every Dunne for himself, he has grown up fast. And bewildered. “Mom, are you sure I’m not adopted?” Ernie asks Katherine at least once a day.
JAKE DUNNE, forty-four, is Katherine’s former brother-in-law. A true nautical nomad, he dropped out of Dartmouth to sail the world. It was a path far different from that of his older brother, Stuart, who stayed ashore to chase, and catch, millions on Wall Street. But as different as the two brothers always were, Jake and Stuart Dunne did have one thing in common: they were both in love with Katherine.
Prologue
Family Dunne Alive
One
EASING THROUGH the marina’s sapphire-blue water at a leisurely three-knot clip, Captain Stephen Preston took a long pull off his Marlboro Red, casually flicking the ash into the cool island breeze. Then, after waiting for just the perfect moment, he punched the horn of his forty-six-foot Bertram Sport Fisherman until everyone on the dock stopped to look.
Yeah, that’s right, boys and girls, take a gander at what Captain Steve reeled in!
It was a quarter past eleven in the morning. His charter, the Bahama Mama, wasn’t due back to shore until that afternoon at two, the same time as always.
But today was different.
Fuckin’ A it’s different, thought Captain Steve, hitting the horn another time. When you spear the biggest, baddest giant bluefin tuna ever seen around the Bahama Islands, you’re done fishing for the day. Hell, you might as well be done fishing for the year!
“What do you think she’s worth?” asked Jeffrey, the Mama’s first mate and Steve’s brother. He’d been with the boat for eleven years. Never took a sick day. And rarely ever smiled, before that morning anyway.
“I dunno,” replied Captain Steve, pulling on the rim of a Boston Red Sox cap. “I’d guess she’s worth somewhere between a boatload of money and a shitload.”
Jeffrey continued to smile widely beneath the brim of the tattered green visor he always wore. He knew a tuna this size could fetch upwards of $20,000, cash money, maybe even more if the sushi bidders at the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo liked what they saw. And why wouldn’t they?
Whatever the amount, he was in line to get a very healthy cut. The captain was good that way, a fair man in every sense.
“Are you sure those bozos signed the contract, Jeff?” Captain Steve asked.
Jeffrey glanced toward the stern at the six-man bachelor party from the island of Manhattan. They’d been drinking since sunrise, when the trip began, and were already so stinking drunk they could barely high-five each other without falling overboard.
“Yeah, they signed the contract, all right,” said Jeffrey with a slow nod. “Though I doubt they ever read the fine print.”
If they had read the contract carefully, they’d have known that no binge-drinking, sunburned tourists would ever pocket a dime off a giant bluefin tuna. No way, not on the Bahama Mama. One hundred percent of the proceeds went directly to the captain and the crew. Period, end of Big Fish story.
“Well, then,” said Captain Steve, cutting the boat’s twin engines as they approached the dock, “let’s go cause a scene.”
Two
SURE ENOUGH, even in the ultra-laid-back Bahamas it took less than a New York minute for a large and curious throng to gather around the fishing boat, the buzz swelling as a forklift carried the humongous tuna toward the marina’s official scale. Christ, was that scale even big enough?
Captain Preston beamed, giving a hearty slap to the back of the groom-to-be and announcing that he’d never met a finer bunch of anglers in all his life. “You guys are the best,” he said. “And you proved it today.”
“Rather be good than lucky!” one guy shouted back.
Of course, the truth would stay strictly between him and Jeff. These big-city misfits had no clue what they were doing. They couldn’t catch a cold, let alone a fish.
Yet here they all were, basking in the relentless click, click, click of digital cameras—the crowd, the excitement, the anticipation of the weigh-in growing bigger by the second.
“Tie her up good!” urged Captain Steve as the tail of the tuna was wrapped with double-braided rope, the strongest on hand.
On the count of three, she was hoisted high into the air. The crowd oohed and aahed appreciatively. This was some fish.
Six hundred . . . seven hundred . . . eight hundred pounds!
The arm of the scale shot up like a rocket. When it finally settled at a record-busting 912 pounds, the entire marina let out a tremendous roar, the bachelor-party guys loudest of all.
And that’s when it happened.
Plunk!
Something very strange fell out of the tuna’s mouth.
Three
“What the hell is that?” someone asked from the back. “Let us in on the joke.”
But everyone else could see plain as day what it was. A Coke bottle. The old-fashioned kind, real glass.
“That’s some funny-lookin’ bait you used, Steve,” joked a captain from another boat.
The crowd laughed as Steve bent and scooped up the bottle. He held it up to the bright morning sun and immediately scratched his head of curly blond hair. There was something inside. What the hell was it?
Quickly he removed the makeshift seal of a small plastic bag held tight by a knot made of vines. This was getting stranger by the minute. With two shakes he was able to reach the edge of the contents with his pinkie.
He pulled it out.
It wasn’t paper—more like some kind of fabric. And there was writing on it.
“What’s it say?” asked Jeffrey.
The entire dock was silent as Steve Preston read the note to himself. The words were written in a deep crimson color, smudged but still legible. Could that be blood? he was wondering now. And whose blood is it?
“C’mon, what’s it say?” asked Jeffrey again. “You’re killin’ us with suspense.”
Captain Steve slowly turned the note so that those around him could see for themselves. The collective gasp that followed was instantaneous.
“That family—they’re alive!” he managed. “The Dunne family.”
In a flash, a vacationing reporter from the Washington Post reached for his cell phone to call his newsroom. He was back on the job.
Meanwhile, Captain Stephen Preston just stood before the crowd and smiled. All he could think about was how the note in the bottle ended, the part about the reward.
The dollar sign.
The number one.
And all those amazingly beautiful zeroes after it.
“Jeff,” he said slowly, “this tuna’s worth a hell of a lot more than we thought.”
Part One
The Family (Un)Dunne
Chapter 1
“I’M CRAZY, right? I mean, I have to be absolutely, certifiably mad to take this trip! This sailboat extravaganza with my family! And Jake!”
I’ve had this same thought for weeks, but today is the first time I’m saying it out loud. Screaming it, actually, at the top of my lungs. Thankfully, Mona’s Upper West Side office used to be a recording studio for a talk-show host. The walls are soundproof, or so Mona tells me.
The way I’m acting, they should also be padded.
“No, you’re not crazy,” says Mona, being her usual calm self. “On the other hand, are you biting off more than you can chew? Perhaps?”
“But don’t I always?”
“Yes,” she says, “for as long as I’ve known you, anyway. Don’t say the number.”
Twenty-seven years, to be exact—ever since Mona and I met during our freshman orientation at Yale and discovered we were both closet General Hospital fans and harbored ridiculous crushes on Blackie, the character played by a very young—and incredibly cute—John Stamos.
Wow, did I just date myself, or what?
Anyway, for the past two months Mona has been more than my best friend and the sister I never had. She’s also been Dr. Mona Elien, my psychiatrist.
Yes. I know. On paper, that arrangement might not be a good idea. But who lives on paper?
Not me.
I live on caffeine, adrenaline, and relentless sixteen-hour shifts at Lexington Hospital, where I’m a heart surgeon. I just didn’t have the time or patience for the get-to-know-you phase of therapy. Besides, there’s no one’s opinion I trust more than Mona’s. There’s no one I trust more, period.
“It’s not that I’m weighing in against the sailboat trip, Katherine. In fact, I think it’s a great idea,” she says. “My only concern is how much hope you’re pinning on it, the pressure you seem to be putting on yourself and the kids. What if it doesn’t work?”
“That’s easy,” I say. “I’ll just kill them and myself and put us all out of our collective misery.”
“Well,” says Mona, straight-faced as always, “it’s good to know you have a Plan B.”
The two of us crack up. How many other shrinks could I do that with?
Mona’s right, though. I am pinning a lot of hope on this sailing trip, maybe too much.
Only I can’t help it.
That’s what can happen when your family is falling to pieces before your eyes and you believe that it’s all your fault.
Chapter 2
LONG STORY SHORT—boring personal story made palatable—the problems really kicked in four years ago when my husband, Stuart, suddenly died. It was a devastating shock. Even though Stuart had strayed on me, and more than once, I blamed my career and work schedule at least as much as I blamed him.
At any rate, Stuart’s death was even worse for ou
r three children. I just didn’t realize it at first. Maybe I was too self-centered.
For some reason I thought our family would all rally around, that we’d pull through by pulling together.
I was fooling myself.
Stuart was the family’s anchor; he was almost always there, while I was more often than not at the hospital, or at least on call. Without him around, the kids became their own little islands. They were angry, confused, and worse, they wanted little to do with me. Not that I could blame them. In all candor, I’ve never been in danger of winning any Mother of the Year award. I’m living proof—like so many other women, I suppose—of how hard it is to have both a successful career and time for a great relationship with your kids. Not impossible, just very hard.
But that’s all about to change. At least I hope so. Desperately.
Starting this Friday, I’m taking a two-month leave of absence from Lexington Hospital. Dr. Katherine Dunne is officially checking out.
The kids and I are setting sail for the bulk of the summer on The Family Dunne, the boat that always used to bring us together when Stuart was alive. It was his pride and joy—and that’s probably why I could never bring myself to sell it. I couldn’t do that to the kids.
Of course, Carrie, Mark, and Ernie hate this whole idea, but I don’t care. Even if I have to drag them kicking and screaming, they’re getting on that boat!
“Oh, here’s some good news,” I tell Mona as we wrap up our session. “The kids have finally stopped referring to this as ‘the dysfunctional Dunne family vacation.’ ”
“That is good news,” says Mona with the tinkly laugh I love.
“Yeah,” I say. “Now they’re just calling it ‘Mom’s guilt trip from hell.’ ”
Mona laughs again and I join her this time. It’s either that or start crying and maybe do a swan dive out her window.
What have I gotten myself into? And how can our family survive?
Two very good questions that I can’t answer right now.
Chapter 3
AFTER A LIGHT DRIZZLE that persisted all through Friday morning, a noontime fog settled over the Labrador Island Marina in exclusive and very tony Newport, Rhode Island.
Fog.
How fitting, thought Jake Dunne, stretching his lean six-foot-one frame as he stood on the teakwood deck of his late brother’s boat. Maybe that was because he still wasn’t clear about this trip—what to expect, how it would play out. Would he live to regret it?