Read Online Hide and Seek by James Patterson - Free Book Online Page A

myself, brother. If you won't help me, then who will?
    “A bloody nursemaid, Will?” Palmer shook his head and laughed.
    Will shrugged. “If that's what you want to call it. Will you do it? The pay is awfully good.”
    Palmer swallowed his brandy and stood up. “Not a chance, big brother.”
    “Why? What are you doing now that's so important?”
    “As a matter of fact, I've got a good job in the marketing department of Cadbury's. But even if I were out of work, I wouldn't do it.”
    Will smiled. “Because you hate me?”
    Palmer shook his head. His hair was blond, like his brother's, but cut, short. “No. Because I hate living in your shadow. I don't hate you, Will. No one can hate you.”
    “You won't help then? Even if I told you that I'm desperately unhappy? That I'm running on empty? That night after night I think of killing myself?”
    Palmer couldn't take his eyes off his fabulously handsome and successful brother. He sat down again. “Are you bloody serious, Will? Or are you play-acting again? Is this another of your mind
games
?”
    “
Completely
fucking serious. I want to kill myself right now. Even as we speak. Do I sound like I'm playing a mind game?”
    “My God,” Palmer said. “I think you are serious. Or mad. Or quite possibly, both.”
    “I'm no good,” Will said. “No damn good. Never have been. You're the only one who can help me, Palmer. We have to stick together.”
    Palmer stood, a strange, sad half smile on his face. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I can't help you, Will. You'll have to find somebody else.”
    Will watched his brother leave. He refilled his snifter with brandy and drank it in a gulp. “But who is there to find?” he whispered. “Who could there possibly be to really love me?”

CHAPTER 22
    F ACE THE MUSIC, Maggie. It's time to get to Will, to really talk about Will, to get it out once and for all. This is what everybody came to hear.
    People ask, especially reporters, how I could have fallen in love with Will? I always want to say—
you would have too, in a millisecond. Don't kid yourself
. That wasn't the way it happened though—not for me.
    But Will could be extremely charming. You have no idea! And I was
extremely
needy. I wanted to be loved more than anything else. I'd always wanted that. Doesn't everybody? Don't you?
    It happened like this, more or less anyway. This is the truth, and nothing but, so help me.
    I began my first European tour in London. It was tense, wild, but quite wonderful. The best of times. Jennie and I stayed at Claridge's. We went to the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, and saw
The Mousetrap
, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben. We were fantastic tourists together, and best friends. The two of us never shut up.
    I was to give two concerts in London. And I was the honored guest at a costume ball in Mayfair, admission £1000, all receipts given to the fight against children's cancer.
    The night of the charity party, I made a “grand entrance” into the living room of our hotel suite.
    “Mom, no! You're
not
going out in public like that!” Jennie said, and made a face as though she'd just had a sip of warm stout.
    I held a gold lamé vizard, a costume ball mask, up to my eyes. I peered into the mirror and then doubled over with laughter. Jennie was right on. I was straining the seams of my stiff antique ball gown, and my breasts were exposed farther than I'd imagined.
Sheesh
.
    “Of course I'm going out like this. I think it's perfect. So would Barbara Cartland.”
    “Who's Barbara Cartland? Your fancy dressmaker? The costume designer for
Dracula
?”
    “You don't know who Barbara Cartland is? Well, that proves you don't know anything about masquerades. You don't get a vote on this.”
    Jennie rolled her eyes. She buried both hands in her long hair. “But who are you supposed to
be
? Don't,leave me in such
terrible suspense
.”
    “A queen in the court of Louis the Fourteenth. Who else?”
    Jennie giggled. She dropped down to the