The Hostage: BookShots (Hotel Series) by James Patterson Read Free Book Online Page A

main kitchen entrance and quickly made her way over to him.
    ‘Hello,’ Jessie called to him. The door was open, and he was standing just inside. ‘I was hoping you might be able to give me a hand. At my age I can still manage to do the baking but my days of carrying in the boxes are long gone. There’s a muffin in it for you if you can help me,’ she smiled at him.
    There was no response, so Jessie guessed the man hadn’t heard her.
    ‘Hello,’ she called again. ‘Hello, I wondered if you might be able to help me?’
    She saw the figure step back inside the kitchen. Never one to be deterred, she followed. Entering the vast room, with row upon row of stainless steel preparation benches and tables, she saw the figure turn away from her and move to the back of the kitchen.
    Beginning to feel slightly irate at being ignored, she called out again in a voice designed to show her growing displeasure, ‘Excuse me, I wondered if you might be able to give me a hand. I’ve a number of boxes—’
    Jessie stopped.
    The figure turned and walked slowly towards her.
    For the first time she saw that the man was wearing a black ski mask to hide his face, but that almost didn’t register with her.
    The man was covered in blood.
    His arms hung by his sides and in one hand he was carrying a decapitated human head. The head was rotating from side to side as he gripped it by the hair on its scalp.
    Jessie stood open-mouthed, staring at the man, but refused to run away. The man stopped moving towards her.
    Standing in front of the open door, Jessie realised she was blocking his route of escape. She edged to one side. At any moment he might come at her. He could probably kill her with one blow yet at that moment she didn’t feel afraid.
    ‘I guess you won’t be helping me with my boxes, but perhaps I can help you?’ she said, surprising herself at her calm approach. ‘Why don’t I stand to the side? Or maybe I should walk away from you, out into the parking lot?’
    For a split second Jessie thought the man might respond, but before she could say any more he had dropped the head onto the spotlessly clean floor, leapt onto one of the benches and then jumped across the room from one bench to the next. At the back of the kitchen he vaulted off the final bench, ran towards the service elevator, and before Jessie knew it he was gone.
    Jessie looked at the kitchen. She could see the abandoned head lying on the floor, blood splattered around it. Towards the back of the room she could see a blood-soaked bench. There was a body lying on top of it. In the silence of the kitchen she could hear a steady drip of blood onto the polished floor.
    She turned to the kitchen exit and suddenly found herself screaming for Jon.

CHAPTER 15
    ROSCOE COULD STILL remember the very first time he tasted a home-baked cake, made with Jessie’s secret ingredients of love and kindness, in the tiny kitchen of her small apartment in the Brixton area of London. It was his third birthday and from that day forward he’d known nobody could bake cakes the way his aunt Jessie could.
    Jessie had lived in the apartment upstairs from the Roscoe family and it hadn’t taken her long to realise Jon’s dad was a bad lot. She’d been able to hear the shouting each evening when Colin Roscoe returned home and Jessie had increasingly feared for Jon and his mother. While never one to shy away from confrontation, she’d known the best thing she could do to help was not enrage Colin Roscoe any further. Jessie had started to call in each morning and afternoon to make sure Helen Roscoe was coping and she had everything she needed for her young son. She’d known not to insult Helen by offering her money, but she’d had a special skill at finding whatever it was Helen or Jon needed at any point in time, usually hidden away in her old wardrobe or tucked away at the back of her kitchen cupboard. She’d loved how Jon had begun to think of her wardrobe as a magical place, and had