3 Days to Live

by James Patterson

Genres: Crime Fiction

Synopsis

The people closest to you can be your most dangerous enemies in this heart-pounding collection of three thrillers from master of suspense and New York Times bestselling author James Patterson.

3 Days to Live: A CIA-agent bride is on her European honeymoon when she and her husband are poisoned—leaving her seventy-two hours to take revenge (with Duane Swierczynski). 
 
Women and Children First: When a deal goes bad on a tech executive in Washington, DC, he turns an order to kill his family into a chance to relive his military glory days (with Bill Schweigart).  
 
The Housekeepers: A Los Angeles doctor trusts her two housekeepers, but when she’s murdered in a botched attempt to steal drugs, the pair of grifters vie to control their former employer’s estate—facing off against the Russian mob (with Julie Margaret Hogben).

Release date: February 14, 2023

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 336

Sample

MY LIFE FELT like a dream. I guess that happens when you elope, hop on a plane, drift off to sleep, and wake up in a foreign country.

Adding to the dreamlike effect: my watch had decided to stop working somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, and not knowing the exact time was driving me a little crazy. My body was telling me it was the middle of the night, but the midday winter sun blazed bright over the historic center of Berlin.

“Do you see a clock anywhere?”

Kevin Drexel, my loving husband of eighteen hours, smiled and squeezed my hand. “You may have forgotten, but we’re on our honeymoon. No schedules, no cell phones, no plans, just us—remember?”

“True. But if I knew it was… say, four o’clock, then we could check into the room. And I could take my shoes off already.”

“The Adlon said the suite would be ready in a couple of hours. Let’s get the lay of land.”

“Interesting choice of words,” I replied, raising my eyebrows. I slipped my arms around Kevin from behind and squeezed him tight. He turned to face me. As a woman who has always been on the freakishly tall side, it felt pretty amazing to have found a partner who a) was just as freakishly tall, and b) didn’t mind seeing eye-to-eye. Literally.

“You know there’s something seriously wrong with you,” he said, bringing me in for a kiss.

“Yet, you married me anyway.”

“I sure did.”

We’d left everything—our bags, jackets, my useless watch—to take a stroll down the Unter den Linden while we waited for our room to be ready. Interesting, the things you learn about your spouse on the first day of your marriage. I knew Kevin was a very chill guy, and I was sure by now he’d picked up on my obsessive need to plan everything down to the microsecond. But had I known Kevin Allan Drexel would be this chill… okay, don’t get me wrong. I still would have married him. But I would have also packed an extra watch battery.

“Isn’t this amazing? I never get tired of this city,” Kevin exclaimed. “Where we’re walking right now used to be nothing but a field of rubble, just after the war. Now look at it!”

“It’s not exactly Paris,” I teased.

“That’s exactly the point!” Kevin said. “Paris is always the same old Paris. But Berlin is never the same city twice.”

I’d never been to Germany, let alone Berlin. But Kevin had spent a lot of time here because his best friend and former business partner, Bill Devander, lived here. The whole flight over, he’d been gushing about how excited he was to show me the city.

“Looks like that church over there has been here quite a while.”

I gestured at a huge and elaborate Gothic pile situated next to the city’s iconic TV tower.

“That’s the Berliner Dom,” Kevin said, “and it’s kind of a miracle the old cathedral is still standing. During World War II, a wave of Allied bombs blew out the windows, and another explosion destroyed the roof. We’re now in what used to be East Berlin, by the way, so the communist government wasn’t all that worried about restoring it. They’re still trying to raise funds to restore it to some of its prewar glory.”

“You think maybe there’s a clock somewhere inside that cathedral? One the Allies didn’t destroy?”

“I don’t know. But ooh… you have to see the organ!”

“Now that’s what a bride wants to hear on her wedding night.”

Kevin laughed—one of his trademark, unrestrained boyish giggles that made me fall for him. “You’re impossibly naughty.”

“Is it our wedding night?” I continued. “Or is it the day after? See, without my watch or a phone, I have no idea…”

Kevin touched my hand. “You know what this is, Samantha? It’s the beginning of the rest of our lives.”

If I could go back in time and live in a particular moment, it would be this one. Kevin holding my hand. The sound of his laugh still hanging in the air. The endless possibilities.

THERE WERE NO clocks inside the cathedral, but otherwise the hulking place of worship was kind of fascinating. (Not that I’d ever admit it out loud to Kevin.) We gawked at the grand organ, with its intricately carved wood encasing the metal pipes reaching up to the heavens. Which I suppose is the idea with church organs.

“Wilhelm Sauer’s masterpiece,” Kevin was saying. “He designed over a thousand organs during the so-called Romantic period, but this one was considered his best.”

Kevin’s business was engineering, so anything well-built and ridiculously complex seized his attention. (I like to think these qualities are what attracted him to me, too.)

“I hope you never grow bored of me,” I said.

“Impossible.”

“I can be pretty boring.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

We had given up our lives for each other, in one way or the other. After eight years of my high-pressure job, I was ready to try something… normal (if that was even the right word). Kevin, too, was looking for a change. He’d just dissolved a fifteen-year business partnership developing aerosol technology that had had him chained to a desk, in favor of a new venture that would allow him to see the world. We’d first met on vacation, both on the same Mexican beach while considering what to do with the next chapter of our lives.

The solution we came up with, after a series of salt-rimmed margaritas? We’d stay on vacation. What started as a boozy, flirty joke turned into something real when we planned to meet up again a week later, this time in Key West. And then again two weeks later, on Ibiza, and so on, for the next six months until we finally decided to elope. After which Kevin Drexel whisked away the former Samantha Bell to honeymoon here in Berlin, his favorite city.

“You want to see the crypt?” Kevin asked. “They have caskets down there dating back to the sixteenth century.”

“Why, Mr. Drexel, are you trying to get me alone in a dark, confined space?”

“That was sort of the idea, Mrs. Drexel.”

“That’s Ms. Bell-Drexel, if you please. And if we’re going to do that, I’d rather not be surrounded by dead Germans.”

“In that case, shall we make our way back to the Adlon and see if our room is ready, Ms. Bell-Drexel?”

I threaded my arm through his, and leaned in close. “You know what I like best about you, Mr. Drexel?”

“My rakish good looks? My devil-may-care attitude?”

“No. You’re a quick study.”

We left the cathedral and made our way west down the Unter den Linden with a little more urgency this time. Kevin made a big deal of pointing out the former communist parade grounds, now a proper garden called—wait for it—the Lustgarten. I told my husband he was making this far, far too easy.

Finally, we checked into the hotel. The Hotel Adlon was every bit as gorgeous as Kevin had promised. Kevin told me that the Adlon, like the Berliner Dom, had been pretty much destroyed by the Allies during World War II; and since it was on the East German side, a stone’s throw from the Berlin Wall and directly across from the Brandenburg Gate, almost nothing had been left of the hotel except a grassy field until after the Wall fell. They eventually rebuilt in the 1990s, with a similar design to the original.

So, in short, we were apparently honeymooning in what used to be Enemy Territory. But Kevin was right; Berlin was in a forever state of birth, death, and rebirth.

“Okay, so we’re in Berlin for seven days,” I said. “Let’s stay in this room the entire time.”

Kevin smiled. “Well, at some point I’m going to have to meet up for a quick drink with Bill. He lives nearby in Simon-Dach-Kiez, just a neighborhood or two away.”

I pulled him close, whispering in his ear, “You’re not going anywhere,” then giving him a long, searching kiss.

FIRST ORDER OF business: washing the air travel and Unter den Linden off my body. The tastefully ornate bathroom was bigger than most studio apartments; Kevin and I could practically take up residence here. And as the warm water cascaded over my body from multiple directions, I was beginning to seriously entertain the idea. So I barely heard him when Kevin stuck his head in to say something.

“What was that?”

“I said I’ll be right back,” Kevin replied. I couldn’t quite see him through the steam, but I could imagine him grinning.

“Where are you going?”

“Just a quick errand. Something I forgot.”

“Please, Mr. Bell-Drexel. You don’t forget anything.”

“Okay, guilty as charged. I want to pick up some flowers and an outrageously expensive bottle of wine. What’s a honeymoon suite without them?”

“Flowers and wine are nothing compared to this shower. You should take off your clothes and join me.”

“I will. Just as soon as I return.”

“Promise?”

Either he didn’t answer, or the water muffled his reply, but the next thing I knew he was gone. I thought about washing my hair a second time, just for the excuse of lingering in this shower another twenty minutes, but I didn’t want my groom to return to a shriveled-up prune.

I toweled off and pulled on a robe, then glanced out the window at the street below. We were on the third floor, kinda lousy for city views, but fairly excellent for people-watching. Directly beneath our windows was the red awning of the hotel entrance. From habit, I found myself picking out random passersby and trying to ascertain everything I could about them from physical details: their clothes, how they walked, their body tics. Examples: The middle-aged guy hate-chewing a piece of gum and wearing an ill-advised “trendy” jacket? Recent divorcée trying to kick a nicotine habit because younger women in the dating pool tended to avoid smokers. Oh, and the attractive slender woman wearing the designer dress and zip-up stiletto boots, keeping her face visible to the passing crowd? Most likely a prostitute. Her face is her billboard, and she’s hoping to attract the attention of a wealthy tourist staying in the nearby five-star hotel (the boots are sexier than flats and less work than strappy high heels).

After a while, I shook myself out of it—if I was going to settle down to a “normal” life, I was going to have to learn how to unplug this part of my brain.

To distract myself, I unpacked our luggage. We both traveled light; I’m sure we’d both read the same articles on how to live for a month out of a suitcase that fits in the overhead bin. At one point, I’d reached the master level of packing for a week in the Middle East in a single oversized purse.

So unpacking took me all of three minutes.

A half hour passed. At least I think it did—my watch was still DOA. I turned on the flat-screen TV, then flicked it off again. Kevin was surely taking his time with those wine and flowers. Unless… he was surprising me with something else, which would very much be a Kevin Drexel thing to do. Months ago, I’d made myself turn off my internal lie detector around Kevin, so the poor guy could actually surprise me from time to time.

While I waited for Kevin to return, I figured I’d go do something practical. Like find a new battery for my watch or a charger for my phone, so I could finally feel grounded in this city. I quickly dressed, pulled my hair back, slipped on flats, and headed out the door.

Kevin’s body was sprawled out in the hallway.

EVERYONE EXPERIENCES SHOCK differently. For some, it’s crippling. For others, galvanizing. I like to think of myself as belonging to the latter category.

Right now, I was all about saving my husband’s life.

“Kevin! Can you hear me, baby!?”

I dropped to my knees and felt Kevin’s neck for a pulse. There was none. Checked his mouth and airway; no visible obstructions. His skin was cold and clammy. I pushed away the fear and told myself this didn’t mean anything. I can still bring him back.

But as I prepared to give him CPR, a strange array of sensations overcame me. My head spun. It felt like my heart was trying to jackhammer its way out of my chest. My arms and legs tingled as if they’d fallen asleep, yet my fingers felt completely numb. What was going on? If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were classic symptoms of shock.

“Come on, Kevin, please…” I begged, then shouted, “Help! Please, call an ambulance!” hoping someone in the adjoining suites would hear me. Then I repeated it again, this time digging deep in my memory for the German words: “Hilfe! Einen krankenwagen, bitte!”

But as I glanced down the hall, I realized our next-door neighbors were in no position to phone for help either. Sprawled out just inside the open doorway leading to the next suite were two other people: a gray-bearded man and a young woman, maybe in her twenties. Their limbs were akimbo, like puppets whose strings had been quickly clipped, leaving their bodies to fall to the carpet in awkward heaps.

As I fought a wave of nausea, I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. Was this some sort of outbreak? An electric shock running through the corridor? A gas leak?

Once I knew the source of the problem, I’d know how to save Kevin.

But I couldn’t focus. My brain felt fogged over. Even my vision was starting to blur. The numbness in my fingers spread throughout my hands. This wasn’t shock. This was something else.

Only then did I realize that whatever happened to the three of them… was now happening to me.

THIS CAN’T BE it, I remember thinking. This cannot be how our lives end—just at the very moment they were truly beginning.

The animal part of my brain screamed at me to crawl backward, away from Kevin, away from all traces of this invisible killer. There was a strange scent in the air, one that cut through all of my other symptoms and stirred up a violent nausea. Was this what had taken my husband and the strangers next door?

But I hesitated. I had to take a mental snapshot of the hallway, as awful as it was. If this was the last time I was ever going to see my husband, I wanted every detail burned into my retinas.

Something here just wasn’t right—well, aside from the obvious. Something not right about Kevin’s body… what was it? What was I missing?

There was one detail that gave me hope: I was still conscious. Whatever mysterious agent had killed Kevin (and was working on me) hadn’t finished the job. But my only chance at survival was getting out of this hotel hallway as quickly as possible.

In the end, the animal inside of me, the part that wanted very badly to survive, took control of my limbs. I crawled backward, out of the hallway and into our suite.

Going back out into the hallway was not an option. And as much as I’d loved the shower, hiding in there would likely do nothing to protect me. I’d just be dying in a place that was slightly easier to clean.

No, there was only one way out.

I was suddenly grateful that Kevin had chosen a suite on the third floor.

I staggered to my feet, fighting the pounding waves of dizziness and nausea that washed over me like foamy surf. There was nothing in the room I could use to break the window.

Except me.

There was no guarantee I was going to survive this, anyway. If I wasn’t able to control my fall onto the hotel awning below, I could break my neck or any assortment of limbs. Or maybe whatever that airborne toxin was I’d ingested would kill me within seconds, no matter how much fresh air I managed to belatedly suck into my lungs.

So I figured I might as well take the odds.

I tightened my fists and pumped my legs. If I didn’t build up enough momentum to propel my body through the window, I’d either bounce off the glass or die while being cut to shreds.

I focused on this one task: crashing through this window. I tried not to think about Kevin, even though most of me wanted to stay here and spend my final moments holding his hand.

I remember very little about the next few seconds: the rush of breaking glass, a dozen slashes across my forearms, the sensation of the world tilted on its axis…

And then nothing.

THE DARK WAS an impossibly vast ocean, and I was completely lost in it.

Then, suddenly: sounds. Muffled at first, like hearing someone speak underwater. It was a voice in a language other than my own, but that I could sort of understand. German. I knew enough to understand that they were talking about me.

Where was I? It was not entirely clear. My mind felt disconnected from my body, tethered in the most tenuous of ways. One jolt, and I feared that tether could easily slip away, flinging me out into the dark ocean forever, with no hope of rescue.

I couldn’t feel my hands, so there was nothing to cling to. Nothing except the German words spoken around me, which my brain automatically translated for me: “I don’t know why we’re bothering to hurry. She’ll likely be dead before we reach the hospital.”

“You don’t know that.”

Hurry. This meant that my body was being transported in an ambulance. How could I not know that? Was my link to my physical self so weak that I couldn’t tell if I was badly hurt, or even feel the bumps in the road, or hear the sirens?

“This one is not like the others. She didn’t get as much gift. They found her outside, on the hotel’s awning!”

Good to know my desperate self-defenestration had gone according to plan. But what was this about a “gift”? Was I mistranslating that word?

“With a gift like this, I don’t think she stands much of a chance.”

Finally, I remembered that “gift” was German for poison.

“But she’s a large woman. Looks strong.”

Groß is the German word he used, which could mean large or heavy… or simply tall. I’m too terrified to be properly insulted.

“Doesn’t matter. I don’t think she can survive. Look what happened to the others at the Adlon. I hear the target was a politician from—”

“Why don’t you focus on your job and save the gossip for the media?”

No, no… conjecture away, my pessimistic friend! The more you speculate, the more I can try to understand what’s happening to me. And please, please, please say something about my husband! Is Kevin here in this same ambulance with me?

If not, then I was a widow, dying in a foreign country. The people who were conveying my body to medical treatment didn’t think I would likely survive.

“Look! She’s convulsing!”

I am?

“Quick! Give her some midazolam!”

No! Do not give me a sedative that will slow my brain activity! I have a tenuous connection to my body as it is, and I’m terrified that drugs will sever it completely. Please, stop!

But the medics must have given me the injection, because the ocean around me stirred itself, pushing me even deeper into the darkness. The voices faded to nothing. After another moment or two, so did I.

SEARING PAIN JARRED me into full consciousness, and I quickly realized that I had never felt so horrible before. Imagine your worst body-wracking flu… then dial it up to a thousand.

When I was last conscious, I’d felt like my mind was attached to my dying body by a few spindly threads. Now it felt like someone had taken my brain and brutally stapled it to my skull, with little care or attention to reattaching the neural pathways.

I couldn’t tell whether I could move at all, or if it just hurt too much.

What time was it? What day was it? Where was I? I had no idea. I was in some kind of hospital room, and I could hear the tick of a clock somewhere nearby, but a curtain blocked my view.

And what about Kevin? By some miracle, had the EMTs been able to save him as well?

As I lost myself in these frustrating thoughts, an entourage of doctors and nurses entered my room. They were all clad in disposable gowns and surgical masks and gloves. Why the precautions? Was I infectious?

I could predict what the next several minutes would entail: the team running down their checklist, asking stupid questions, trying to draw out my mental condition. I considered playing unconscious so that I could simply listen to them discuss my medical condition amongst themselves instead. It would be the fastest way to learn the truth.

“Miss Bell?” one of the doctors asked in English. “Are you awake?”

Instead, I went for the direct approach and opened my eyes.

“It’s Ms. Bell-Drexel.”

“I’m sorry?”

My voice was dry and weak; no wonder the doctor had a difficult time understanding. I gritted my teeth and swallowed, but it felt like razor blades were sliding down my throat.

“I haven’t updated my information yet. Where is my husband?”

The doctor hovering in front of my face hesitated for a moment, and his strained facial expression told me everything I needed to know. When good people have to tell someone bad news, they flinch a little, as if they’re about to deliver a punch.

“I am so, so sorry.”

The doctor’s voice was full of genuine sorrow, expressed like an American. He’d probably been elected to speak with me because he appeared to be fluent in English—possibly schooled at Johns Hopkins or Baylor. I realized that I was fixating on his accent because I didn’t want to focus on his words. Meanwhile, hi. . .