The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Copyright © 2021 by Guillaume Musso Translation copyright © 2021 by Sam Taylor Cover design by Lauren Harms Cover photograph by PeskyMonkey / Getty Images Cover © 2021 Hachette Book Group, Inc. Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights. Back Bay Books / Little, Brown and Company Hachette Book Group 1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104 littlebrown.com facebook.com/littlebrownandcompany twitter.com/littlebrown First North American edition: March 2021 Originally published in France as Central Park by Guillaume Musso © XO Editions, 2014 Back Bay Books is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Back Bay Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher. The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591. ISBN: 978-0-316-59094-5 LCCN 2020950107 E3-20210121-DA-PC-ORI Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Epigraph Part One: Handcuffed 1: Alice 2: Gabriel 3: Central Park West 4: Handcuffed 5: Red Hook 6: Chinatown I remember… 7: Biting the Dust Part Two: Memory of Pain 8: Memory of Pain I remember… 9: Riverside 10: Fingerprints 11: Little Egypt I remember… 12: Free Jazz 13: Hookah Bar 14: Two People 15: Prepare for War I remember… Part Three: Blood and Fury 16: Tracking the Killer 17: The Devil’s Tricks 18: Sucker Punch 19: In the Land of the Living 20: Inside the House 21: The Veil I remember… 22: Vaughn Part Four: Come Undone 23: Do or Die I remember… 24: Chapter Zero 25: Just Before 26: The Mirrors 27: White Shadows 28: With One Heart There Will Be… Acknowledgments Discover More About the Author Also by Guillaume Musso Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more. Tap here to learn more. Things that escape you are more important than the things you own. —W. Somerset Maugham Part OneHandcuffed 1Alice FIRST, A GUST of wind stings her face. The light rustling of leaves. The distant murmur of a stream. The quiet trill of birdsong. The first rays of sunlight illuminating the tiny blood vessels in her still-closed eyelids. Then the creak of swaying branches. The smell of moist earth, rotting leaves. The strong, woody odor of gray lichen. And farther off, an indistinct buzzing, dreamlike and discordant. Alice Schafer opened her eyes with difficulty. She was blinded by the early-morning sun, her clothes sticky with dew. The frozen sweat on her skin made her shiver. Her throat was dry and her mouth filled with the harsh taste of ashes. Her joints were bruised, her limbs stiff, her mind numb. When she tried to sit up, she became aware that she was lying on a rough wooden bench. Suddenly, she realized that a large, sturdy man was curled up next to her, his body leaning heavily on hers. Alice stifled a cry and her pulse raced. Trying to free herself, she toppled over onto the ground and stood up in the same movement. That was when she realized that her right wrist was handcuffed to the left wrist of this stranger. She took a step back, but the man remained motionless. Shit! Her heart was pounding in her chest. A glance at her watch—the face of her old Patek was scratched, but the mechanism still worked. According to the watch, it was eight a.m. on Tuesday, October 8. Jesus Christ! Where the hell am I? she wondered, using a sleeve to wipe the sweat from her face. She looked around in an attempt to assess the situation. She was in the middle of a forest, the leaves on the trees autumn gold, the undergrowth fresh and dense. A wild, silent clearing surrounded by oaks, thick bushes, and jutting rocks. There was no one else here, which was probably a good thing, considering the circumstances. Alice looked up. The light was soft, beautiful, almost unreal. Shards of brightness sparkled through the foliage of a huge flame-colored elm tree. Its roots disappeared into a carpet of damp leaves. Where was she? She hazarded a few guesses: The forest of Rambouillet? Fontainebleau? The bois de Vincennes? It was like an Impressionist painting on a postcard, the serenity of the image clashing with the surreal weirdness of waking up next to a total stranger. Cautiously, she leaned forward to get a better view of his face. He was in his late thirties, she thought. Disheveled chestnut hair and the beginnings of a beard. A corpse? She knelt down and placed two fingers on his neck, to the right of his Adam’s apple. When she pressed down on the carotid artery, she felt a pulse. Relief. The guy was sleeping but alive. She took a moment to look at him more closely. Did she know him? Some thug she was taking to jail? A childhood friend whose face she’d forgotten? No, his features were completely unfamiliar to her. Alice pushed back a few stray blond locks that had fallen over her eyes, then examined the pair of metal handcuffs that connected her to the man. It was a standard double-locking model, a type used by police departments and private security firms all over the world. Most likely, this was her own pair. Alice rummaged in her jeans pocket, hoping to find the key. It wasn’t there. She did, however, find a gun in the inside pocket of her leather jacket. Thinking it must be her service pistol, she sighed with relief as she gripped the butt. But this was not the SIG Sauer used by cops in the Paris Criminal Division. It was a polymer Glock .22, and she had no idea where it had come from. She wanted to check the magazine, but it was difficult
