The Hostage: BookShots (Hotel Series) by James Patterson

direction of first Jocasta and then Roscoe. ‘Or you!’ he screamed at Roscoe, pointing the weapon directly at him.
    ‘Joseph, this has to stop now,’ said Roscoe.
    ‘Winn was there every day, abusing us,’ Joseph continued. ‘Every single day. Keeping us chained up. Taunting us. Beating us. Telling me every day my father never wanted me.’
    ‘That isn’t true!’ cried Jocasta.
    ‘But he let them take me. I know he did. They told me. Over and over. He let them take me!’
    ‘No, Joseph,’ sobbed Jocasta. ‘He wasn’t even your father.’
    As Joseph turned back to her, Jocasta ran desperately down the side of the pool towards her son.

CHAPTER 25
    ‘STOP!’ SHOUTED ROSCOE across the pool, but it was too late.
    ‘He wasn’t even your father!’ Jocasta was screaming. ‘He was an evil, evil man and I’m glad he’s dead. He’s not part of you and he never was.’
    She was standing in front of her son, placing herself at his mercy, as Joseph raised his gun. He pointed it directly at her.
    ‘He wasn’t my father?’ he asked. ‘So that’s why he wanted me gone. That’s why he let them rape me over and over. That’s why he hated me.’
    ‘But he’s gone now, Joseph. And I can look after you.’
    ‘It was you who did all this to me. If he had been my father he would have loved me. It’s all your fault.’
    As Roscoe saw Joseph’s finger start to squeeze on the trigger, he hurled himself across the side of the pool, landing on Joseph and knocking him to the ground.
    As they fell, the gun fired into the air and flew free.
    In a split second Joseph was on his feet and scrambling across the ground to reach the weapon. Roscoe rolled over and up but Joseph already had the gun in his hand. Pointing it at Roscoe and then at his mother, he climbed onto the wall surrounding the infinity pool.
    ‘Joseph, no!’ cried Jocasta Harlington, stepping towards her son. ‘None of this is your fault. None of it!’
    ‘Stay back. Both of you, stay back or I’ll kill you.’
    ‘Let me help you!’ screamed Jocasta.
    ‘It’s too late, Mum,’ he said, stepping to the edge of the wall.
    Roscoe charged forward to grab hold of him but, as he did, Joseph opened his arms and fell backwards off the wall of the fortieth floor.

CHAPTER 26
    AT THE FRONT of the new Tribeca Luxury Hotel in the Mayfair district of London, a crowd had remained outside throughout the day. The growing numbers of news reporters were joined by members of the public anxious to witness events unfolding. When Joseph Harlington climbed onto the wall surrounding the hotel’s infinity pool, cameras and phones were once again pointed skywards. Within minutes, images of him falling through the air and landing on the immaculate lawns of the new hotel were posted online and viewed worldwide. The crowd watched with a mixture of horror and ghoulish delight as Joseph’s body hit the ground, close to that of the hotel’s owner, Jackson Harlington. Almost immediately, speculation raced around the world that the second body was that of Harlington’s missing son, Joseph.
    Stepping round the edge of the pool, Roscoe moved towards Jocasta Harlington. Neither of them spoke a word as he put his arms around his employer’s widow and she began to sob. As the pair slowly walked away from the poolside, Roscoe turned back and looked one last time at the body of Peter Savage floating in the pool’s red water.
    Jocasta’s daughter, Jacqueline, was standing at the crossing to the glass footbridge.
    ‘It’s all over,’ Roscoe said to her.
    She stepped forward, taking her mother into her arms.
    Jocasta Harlington sobbed on to her daughter’s shoulder as Roscoe led the pair across the bridge and back to the elevator bank. Standing inside the elevator, he helped Jacqueline support her mother, noticing she had yet to shed a single tear.
    When the doors opened to the hotel lobby, almost everyone had been evacuated and the police had taken control. Oscar Miller walked over