Private Oz by James Patterson Page A

ratty old suitcase on the bed. “We win the lottery?” she chuckled nervously.
    Bruce ignored her.
    “Babe?”
    He turned, face hard.
    She sank to the bed. Seemed to age a dozen years.
    Bruce tossed a singlet into the case. It landed on top of his footy DVD and Muscle Car mag. “I’m movin’ out,” he announced, hands on hips.
    “Moving out … why?” Julie’s face was twisted. “Someone else?”
    Bruce nodded. He made to sit next to Julie on the bed but decided against it.
    “Who? That slut from the video store?”
    Bruce looked down between his trainers at the worn red carpet. Shook his head.
    “Who then?” Julie’s voice was far too calm. Then she screamed …. “ WHO? ”
    Bruce was shocked for a second.
    She pulled up from the bed, rushed toward him. He was six inches taller than her, seventy-five pounds heavier, but he stepped back, thought she was about to cry. He’d never seen her cry and an odd thrill rattled through him. A strange moment of pride that even he was a little ashamed of. But she didn’t.
    “YOU SHIT!” Julie howled and went straight for his throat.
    Before the two-hundred-and-fifty-pound hulk of a man could pull her off, she’d drawn blood – deep nail drags acrosshis neck. He caught a glimpse of her expression. She looked like a wild beast.
    Then she smacked him across the face. It stung, but it also knocked him into reality. He hit back, made contact with something hard, Julie’s jaw. He almost lost his balance, but caught himself, straightened and really went for her.
    She stumbled, landing hard on her back. Her head hit the rough carpet. Bruce dived on her, swung his fist round and smacked her in the face.
    “Useless bitch!” he screamed. “Can’t even do the business … Well thank Christ! Who’d wanna have a kid with you?”
    He smashed his fist into her face again, pulled himself up. Looked down at the red mess, blood streaming from Julie’s nose, her lip split open.
    Bruce turned back to his suitcase and finished packing, listening to Julie’s rasping breath and the blood gurgling in her throat.

Chapter 48
    HE SLAMMED THE front door. Julie lay semiconscious, blood drying on her face.
    In her mind she saw her father. He would have sorted Bruce out. She’d always loved her father, Jim. Loved him as much as she’d loathed her mother, Sheila.
    Dad had been a cop. Julie’s favorite memory of him was the day he took her to work and showed her around the police station in Sandsville. She was ten and very proud of her dad.
    They’d gone to the forensics labs in the basement. A man in a white lab coat had shown her the glistening machines and racks of test tubes, told her about fingerprinting and a new thing – DNA profiling. She hadn’t really understood much of it. But the next day she took a book from the local library. It was called Forensic Investigation and she couldn’t put it down.
    Julie began to hate her mother when she realized her mother didn’t love her dad. There was another man. Julie wasn’t sure if Jim knew about him, but she overheard her mother talking to her lover on the phone when her dad was out. And once, she followed her and saw her kissing a heavily set man with a beard.
    Then had come the worst day of her life. A policeman came to the door of their house and told them her dad had been killed on duty – knifed trying to stop a burglar. He was only thirty-four.

Chapter 49
    JULIE BEGAN TO plot Bruce’s murder two days after he walked out on her. She planned everything meticulously. And, as she took one step after the other on the road to killing her ex, she started to enjoy herself.
    Bruce was a sex pig. All men thought with their dicks, but Bruce’s sex drive was more powerful than most. She knew she could use that.
    The first time Julie sent an anonymous email to Bruce’s phone she was sure he wouldn’t reply. She couldn’t afford a computer of her own of course, and besides, emails could be traced. Instead, she’d gone to an