CHAPTER 2
LIZZIE CONNOLLY FELT LIGHT-HEADED and she wondered if her quirky blood sugar
was acting up again.
She made a mental note to pick up Trudie Styler’s cookbook, she kind of admired Trudie,
who was cofounder of the Rainforest Foundation as well as Sting’s wife. She seriously
doubted she would get through this day with her head still screwed on straight, not twisted
around like the poor little girl in The Exorcist. Linda Blair, wasn’t that the actress’s name?
Lizzie was pretty sure it was. Oh, who cared? What difference did trivia make?
What a merry-go-round today was going to be. First, it was Gwynne’s birthday, and the party
for twenty-one of her closest school buddies, eleven girls, ten boys, was scheduled for one
o’clock at the house. Lizzie had rented a bouncy house, and she had already prepared lunch
for the children, not to mention for their moms or nannies. Lizzie had even rented a Mister
Softee ice-cream truck for three hours. But you never knew
what to expect at these birthday gigs other than laughter, tears, thrills, and spills.
After the birthday bash, Brigid had swimming lessons, and Merry had a trip to the dentist
scheduled. Brendan, her husband of fourteen years, had left her a “short list” of his current
needs. Of course everything was needed A.S.A.P.S. which meant as soon as possible,
sweetheart.
After she picked up a T-shirt with rhinestones for Gwynnie at Gapkids, all she had left to buy
was Brendan’s replacement dop kit. Oh, yeah, and her hair appointment. And ten minutes
with her savior at Parisian, Gina Sabellico.
She kept her cool through the final stages, never let them see you sweat, then she hurried to
her new Mercedes 320 station wagon, which was safely tucked in a corner on the P3 level of
the underground garage at Phipps. No time for her favorite rooibos tea at Teavana.
Hardly anybody was in the garage on a Monday morning, but she nearly bumped into a man
with long dark hair. Lizzie smiled automatically at him, revealing perfect, recently whitened
and brightened teeth, warmth, and sexiness even when she didn’t want to show it.
She wasn’t really paying attention to anyone, thinking ahead to the fast-approaching
birthday party, when a woman she passed suddenly grabbed her around the chest as if Lizzie
were a running back for the Atlanta Falcons football team trying to pass through the “line of
spinach,” as her daughter Gwynne had once called it. The woman’s grip was like a vise she
was strong as hell.
“What are you doing? Are you crazy?” Lizzie finally screamed her loudest, squirmed her
hardest, dropped her shopping bags, heard something break. “Hey! Somebody, help! Get off
of me!”
Then a second assailant, the BMW sweatshirt guy, grabbed her legs and held on tight, hurt
her, actually, as he brought her down onto the filthy, greasy parking-lot concrete along with
the woman. “Don’t kick me, bitch!” he yelled in her face. “Don’t you f*cking dare kick me.”
But Lizzie didn’t stop kicking
or screaming either. “Help me. Somebody, help! Somebody, please!”
Then both of them lifted her up in the air as if she weighed next to nothing. The man
mumbled something to the woman. Not English. Middle European, maybe. Lizzie had a
housekeeper from Slovakia. Was there a connection?
The woman attacker gripped her around the chest with one arm and used her free hand to
push aside tennis and golf stuff, hurriedly clearing a space in the back of the station wagon.
Then Lizzie was roughly shoved inside her own car. A gauzy, foul-smelling cloth was pushed
hard against her nose and mouth, and held there so tightly it hurt her teeth. She tasted blood.
First blood, she thought. My blood. Adrenaline surged through her body, and she began
fighting back again with all her strength. Punching and kicking. She felt like a captured
animal striking out for its freedom.
“Easy,” the man said.” Easy-peasy-Japanesy … Elizabeth Connolly.”
Elizabeth Connolly? They know me? How? Why? What is going on here?
“You’re a very sexy mom,” said the man. “I see why the Wolf likes you.”
Wolf? Who’s the Wolf? What was happening to her? Who did she know named Wolf?
Then the thick, acrid fumes from the cloth overpowered Lizzie and she went lights out. She
was driven away in the back of her station wagon.
But only across the street to the Lenox Square Mall
where Lizzie Connolly was transferred into a blue Dodge van that then sped away.
Purchase complete.
The Big Bad Wolf
James Patterson's books
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- The Hurricane
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- James Potter and the Vault of Destinies
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