The Hostage: BookShots (Hotel Series) by James Patterson Page A

probably by just one man, but from what you’re telling me that’s the third person he’s killed today.’ Roscoe paused. ‘I’ve got to ask you this – but where was the head?’ he said, not wanting to upset his aunt any further but knowing he needed to find the killer.
    ‘Jon, he was holding it!’ yelled Aunt Jessie, burying her head further into Jon’s chest. ‘And then he dropped it onto the floor.’
    Holding tightly on to his aunt, Roscoe realised she had come face to face with the killer. He couldn’t imagine the unspeakable horror she had seen in the kitchen. After a moment, he stepped slightly away to look into Aunt Jessie’s tear-filled eyes.
    ‘Did you see his face?’ he asked, still holding her hands but stepping backwards in the direction of the kitchen.
    ‘No, he was wearing a mask.’
    ‘And he’s still in there now?’ said Roscoe, letting go of her and starting to walk through the vaulted dining room to the kitchen.
    ‘He scrambled over the kitchen tables and I think he went into the elevator. But where are you going?’
    ‘Aunt Jessie, how did you get into the hotel?’
    ‘Through the kitchen door. I saw him in the doorway and followed him inside.’
    ‘Aunt Jessie,’ said Roscoe as he approached the kitchen door, his gun still drawn, ‘I want you to go straight through those doors at the front of the restaurant and down the hallway to the lobby. Find Anna. She’ll be somewhere there. She’ll look after you. The police are evacuating the hotel and you’ll be able to leave through the front with her.’
    ‘But what about you, Jon?’ asked Jessie, looking lovingly at him.
    ‘I know you don’t like it, Aunt Jessie, but it’s my job. Right now I have to try to catch a killer.’

CHAPTER 17
    IN FIFTEEN YEARS of working for London’s Metropolitan Police, Jon Roscoe had seen some horrific sights. He’d been witness to explosions, arrived first on scene after the discovery of decaying bodies hauled from London’s River Thames, and had had his emotions drained as the first responder to cases of domestic abuse. But nothing prepared him for the discovery he found in the new kitchens of the London Tribeca Luxury Hotel.
    He entered through the front of the kitchen and slowly worked his way past each kitchen bench. With his weapon drawn, he anticipated the killer appearing at any moment. Slowly making his way to the back wall, he discovered the desperate scene where the killer had carried out his work. Laid across the stainless steel kitchen work surface was the decapitated body of one of the hotel chefs, his white chef’s jacket turned red with his own blood.
    The killer had scythed through his victim’s neck.
    Blood still dripped from the corpse. As with Jackson Harlington and Michael Duncan, the killer had ripped through his victim’s chest and torn his heart from its cavity.
    Two benches to the right, discarded on the floor, was the victim’s head. The dead man’s startled eyes stared up at Roscoe and for a moment he had to turn away from a discovery he found genuinely shocking.
    Turning back, he stepped towards the mangled corpse. Breathing deeply, he leant over the body to see if there was any way of making an identification. Still pinned to the victim’s chest was his Tribeca Luxury Hotels name badge and pass. Richard Winn was a pastry chef in the kitchen but not someone Roscoe had ever met. He would ask Anna to pull his employment records.
    The kitchen at the London Tribeca Luxury Hotel is designed to give direct access to all of the guest floors. Each of the suites has their own luxury kitchen and chef, but the main kitchen is designed to service all areas of the hotel, twenty-four hours a day. Roscoe looked at the service elevator, intended to deliver the finest cuisine to any guest at a moment’s notice. It was still making its deathly climb through the hotel. Where was the killer heading next in this seemingly endless brutal game of chase around the building? And what