Run for Your Life by James Patterson Read Free Book Online

got to the door, he noticed another suave clerk, crouched beside a cashmere upholstered club chair. This man was shivering in shock, too terrified even to scream for help.
    The Teacher paused long enough to press the Colt’s barrel against his cheek. Then he spun the big gun off his finger, caught it in the air, and stuffed it back into his fanny pack.
    “You are the witness to history,” the Teacher said, patting the sniveling fop on the head. “I envy you.”
    He opened the door enough to scan the streets again, then stepped out of the store and blended in with the passersby on 72nd — once again, just another anonymous guy in the crowd. But he headed straight for the westbound side of the street and hailed the first cab he saw. He instructed the turbaned driver to take him to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, then settled back in the seat and took out the Treo.
    “Ralph Lauren Clerk” was the first item that came up on the screen. He deleted it from the list and checked his watch. The operation had taken just two minutes from start to finish, plus he’d caught a cab right off the bat — all even smoother than he could have hoped.
    He wasn’t just the Teacher. He was the man.
     
    Chapter 12
     
    At nine that morning, I called my office to take a personal day. It was another no–brainer. If half a dozen sick kids wasn’t a personal crisis, what was? Then, after Mary Catherine and I made sure the troops were accounted for and tended to, I did something I hadn’t done in over a week. I pulled on my FULL–BLOODED IRISH T–shirt and a pair of sweats and went for a run.
    As usual, I huffed it up to Grant’s Tomb at 122nd and Riverside to pay my respects to the general. It would have taken magic to make me resemble the lean Manhattan College Jasper center fielder I’d once been, but I managed to keep a steady, strong pace the entire way.
    I studiously avoided newspaper stands that would have thrown last night’s debacle in my face, and not a single person started shooting at me. It was by far the nicest morning I’d had in recent memory.
    When I got back home, I started at the top of my priority list — substituting a dollar bill for the tooth that Fiona had lost and left under her pillow. In the confusion last night, I’d forgotten all about it. The tooth fairy’s job performance ratings, like a lot of other things around this place, had gone way downhill since we’d lost Maeve.
    With that taken care of, I brewed a pot of coffee and went on to less important tasks, like paying bills online. I took my time, letting my thoughts wander as I poked along. It felt great playing a little hooky for a change. Maybe I should have felt guilty about all those DD5 incident reports I needed to file, but they could write themselves as far as I was concerned. I was home with my own crew, feeling the love, and especially ecstatic to be taking care of people who weren’t trying to kill me for it.
    For about the billionth time, I found myself thinking about how I’d been burning myself at both ends lately — burning myself out, really. That, in turn, led me to contemplate some of the job offers I’d gotten in the past few months, since a major hostage incident at St. Patrick’s Cathedral had made me into a sort of celebrity cop.
    The best prospect was a corporate security management position at ABC. The job consisted of coordinating security at the local news studios they had over on Columbus Avenue in the Sixties. The commute was easy, the hours were human, and it paid about twice my current salary.
    But I still had five years to go until my twenty–year pension, and frankly I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to hand in my shield just yet. The main problem was that I loved being a cop, especially a homicide detective. It was who I was.
    Then again, I also loved my family, who needed me more now than ever. A job where I could count on being home every evening and weekend would be a godsend, and so would the extra money.