Jack & Jill

URDER C LUB

    The 6th Target
(and Maxine Paetro)
    The 5th Horseman
(and Maxine Paetro)
    4th of July
(and Maxine Paetro)
    3rd Degree
(and Andrew Gross)
    2nd Chance
(and Andrew Gross)
    1st to Die
    O THER B OOKS

    The Quickie
(and Michael Ledwidge)
    Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports
    Step on a Crack
(and Michael Ledwidge)
    Judge & Jury
(and Andrew Gross)
    Maximum Ride: School’s Out
—
Forever
    Beach Road
(and Peter de Jonge)
    Lifeguard
(and Andrew Gross)
    Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment
    Honeymoon
(and Howard Roughan)
    santaKid
    Sam’s Letters to Jennifer
    The Lake House
    The Jester
(and Andrew Gross)
    The Beach House
(and Peter de Jonge)
    Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas
    Cradle and All
    Black Friday
    When the Wind Blows
    See How They Run
    Miracle on the 17th Green
(and Peter de Jonge)
    Hide & Seek
    The Midnight Club
    Season of the Machete
    The Thomas Berryman Number

    For previews of upcoming James Patterson novels and information about the author, visit www.jamespatterson.com .

For John Keresty

Thank you
—Robin Schwarz, for the poesy, Irene Markocki, Barbara Groszewski, Maria Pugatch, Fern Galperin, Julie Goodyear, Diana Gaines, Mary Jordan, Tommy De Feo, Frank Nicolo, Michael Hart, Stephanie Apt, Liz Gruszkievicz, Nancy Temkin, Donald M.
    And, Richard and Artie Pine, Larry Kirshbaum, Charlie Hayward, Mel Parker, Amy Rhodes, Malcolm Edwards. And, last and most of all, Fredrica Friedman.
    We share the same nightmares. I try to get them down on paper and temporarily make them go away.

Prologue

    The Games Begin

    I

    SAM HARRISON swung his agile body out of the silver blue Ford Aerostar, which he had parked on Q Street in the Georgetown section of Washington.
Horror stories and games are popular for a good reason,
he was thinking as he locked the vehicle and set its alarm.
Not the comfortable sit-around-the-campfire horror tales and games we used to cherish as kids, but the real-life horror stories that are around us everywhere these days.
    Now I’m living one myself. I’m about to become part of the horror. How easy it is. How terribly, terribly easy to move past the edge and into the darkness.
    He had stalked and shadowed Daniel Fitzpatrick for two long Weeks. He’d done his job in New York City, London, Boston, and finally, here in Washington, D.C. Tonight he was going to murder the United States senator. In cold blood, execution-style. No one would be able to figure out why. No one would have a clue that might matter later on.
    That was the first and most important rule of the game called Jack and Jill.
    In many ways this was a textbook celebrity-stalker pattern. He knew it to be true as he took up his post across from 211 Q Street.
    And yet, if anyone bothered to look more closely, it was like no other stalking pattern before. What he was going to do now was more provocative than secretly observing Senator Fitzpatrick down obscene numbers of Glenlivet cocktails at The Monocle, his favorite bar in Washington. This was the truest form of madness, Sam Harrison knew. It was
pure
madness.
He didn’t believe he was mad. He believed only in the validity of the game of chance.
    And then, less than thirty yards across the shiny-wet street—there was Daniel Fitzpatrick himself. Right on schedule. At least, close enough.
    He watched the senator stiffly climb out of a gleaming, navy blue Jaguar coupe, a 1996 model. He wore a gray topcoat with a paisley silk scarf. A sleek, slender woman in a black dress was with him. A Burberrys raincoat was casually thrown over her arm. She was laughing at something Fitzpatrick had said. She threw her head back like a beautiful, spirited horse. A wisp of her warm breath met the cool of the night.
    The woman was at least twenty years the senator’s junior. She wasn’t his wife, Sam knew. Dannyboy Fitzpatrick rarely if ever slept with his wife. The blond woman walked with a slight limp, which made the two of them even more intriguing. Memorable, actually.
    Sam Harrison concentrated fiercely.
Measure twice, measure five times, if necessary.
He took stock of all the details one final time. He had arrived in Georgetown at eleven-fifteen. He looked as if he
belonged
in the chic, attractive, fashionable neighborhood around Q Street. He looked exactly right for the part he was going to play.
    A very big part in a very big story, one of the biggest in America’s history. Or some would say American theater.
    A leading-man role, to be sure.
    He wore professorial,