I stared at him for a beat after his little speech.
“I’m sorry,” I said, cupping the bandage on my ear and cheek. “Did you say something? I can’t hear very well. Some virus named Victor Ordonez shot me a week ago.”
“You’re coming close to insubordination, Detective Stillwell,” Gray said. “We are here to do a routine interview. If you want us to swivel the focus of our investigation onto you, that can be arranged.”
“Swivel it off who?” I said. “My partner? Well, get ready to write this down. My partner saved my life. I was running between two parked trains, and I was shot. I climbed for safety into one of the cars. As Victor Ordonez was attempting to come into the car where I was hiding — to finish me off, no doubt — my partner arrived and took him down.”
“How many shots were fired?” Gray said. “Was it boom-boom-boom or just boom?”
I took a sip of my coffee and set it down on my boss’s desk. Some coffee spilled and I didn’t give a shit.
“It was a gunfight in a train yard,” I said. “I was shot. I was sucking floor. I wasn’t playing sound engineer for some episode of Law and Order.”
Gray finally slammed his book shut.
“Fine,” he said. “But for the record, will you answer me just one more question? Detective, you were the primary investigator in this case. You were on your way to apprehend two very dangerous suspects who you believed to be responsible for the death of Detective Thayer. Why didn’t you call for the tactical assistance of the Emergency Service Unit?”
I sat there for a couple of seconds. He had me on that one. It was standard operating procedure, and I hadn’t done it.
I opened my mouth to say . . . God only knew what.
Then my jaw dropped as my boss jumped in.
“I authorized her to go ahead.”
I looked over at Keane. He looked back with an expression that said, keep your mouth shut.
“I determined that there wasn’t enough time to wait, so I gave the go-ahead,” Keane went on. Then he rose from his seat. He walked across the length of the room and opened the door for Navy and Gray.
“Now, my detective has to get back to work,” he said.
“Thanks for the save there, boss man,” I said after the IAB creeps left and Keane had shut the door again.
“Yeah, well, you and your partner are heroes as far as I and every self-respecting cop in this department are concerned,” Keane said, taking his seat back.
“And oh, yeah,” he said. “Fuck the IAB.”
Chapter 61
I WAS COMING OUT of Keane’s office when my partner called me on my cell phone.
“Have the rodents left the building?” Mike wanted to know.
“The two-footed ones at least,” I said.
“Come meet me for an early lunch at the Piper’s,” Mike said. “My treat.”
It took me twenty minutes or so to drive to the Piper’s Kilt on 231st Street in Kingsbridge. The Bronx cop and district attorney hangout was much more bar than grill, but the burgers were outrageous. Ten thirty being on the early side, the restaurant part of the establishment was empty — except for my partner tucked away in the farthest corner booth.
After I sat, I clicked my waiting Diet Coke to my partner’s Heineken.
“How’s the face?” Mike said.
“Flesh wound, like you said, amigo,” I said with a shrug. “No hearing loss either. And as a bonus, I get to wear this attractive bandage.”
Mike smiled.
“What do you think IAB will say on their report?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I was too busy screwing with them to get any kind of realistic gauge. Worst case, I’ll probably get a reprimand for not following proper procedure with the ESU. I can’t see the commissioner coming down too hard on us, considering how expedient we were in clearing this mess up for him.”
“That’s true,” Mike said. “I forgot about that.”
The waitress delivered our cheeseburgers, the buns soaked with grease.
“Bacon, too?” I said, smiling at my plate. “Mike, you shouldn’t have.”
“Hey, for you, partner,” Mike said, lifting his bottle, “I go that extra mile.”
“I want to thank you, Mike,” I said after a few chomps of burger heaven. I don’t know if it was my pregnancy or what, but I was suddenly famished. I hadn’t tasted food this intensely since I’d quit smoking eight months ago.
“I don’t remember if I did or not,” I said as I popped an escaping morsel of bacon into my mouth. “Thanks for saving me out there.”
“Please,” Mike said, tipping his bottle in my direction. “I watch your back, you watch mine. As far as I’m concerned, the police department consists of me and you. We’re like that commercial for Vegas. What happens here stays here. Which reminds me.”
Mike put down his beer and lifted up some papers from the seat beside him.
Even in the dim bar light, I could see they were print-outs. The burger I was chewing seemed to transform itself instantly into ketchup-flavored matchsticks as I spotted the rows and columns of numbers.
“I found this in the fax machine yesterday,” Mike said. “Phone company sent over a second copy of Scott’s Local Usage Details for some reason. How do you like that? It looks just like the one that you put on my desk, except this copy has your phone number all over it.”
Across the scarred table, Mike drank in his beer, and my complete astonishment.
“It’s time to talk to me, partner,” he said. “It’s time to unburden your soul to Father Mike.”
Chapter 62
“LAUREN, C’MON,” Mike whispered to me as I sat there numb and speechless. “You didn’t think you could get one over on me, did you? I mean, you’re good, better than good, at what we do, but we’re talking about me here.”
I held my Diet Coke up to my suddenly hot forehead. My God, what was I going to do now? I was busted. Busted lying to my partner. How could I have done that to him? Mike had a heart bigger than most continents. And he was my partner, my lifeline, my guardian angel on the street.
I looked down at the surface of the table, then at the dark-paneled walls of the bar, anywhere but my partner’s face.
He was right, though. I had to confess. If there was anyone who I could — and should — spill my guts to, it was him. I had lied by omission and every other way, and he had killed a man because of it. Full disclosure was the least I could do for Mike.
But wait a second, I thought. No! I couldn’t. If Mike got jammed up with IAB, he’d roll on me. He’d have to. He couldn’t lose his job. He was divorced, but he had two kids in college. He would have to tell what he knew, and the rest of the truth would come out, too. We’d be back to square one. Paul going to prison and Brooke without any means of support. No, I thought. It would actually be even worse now. I’d probably be going to jail along with Paul!
The last thing I wanted to do to my partner was be cruel — but I didn’t see any alternative as I tried to think things through.
Finally, I pulled my eyes down from the gin mill’s tin ceiling and smacked them into Mike’s head-on.
“Leave it alone, partner,” I said.
Mike made a face like I’d just shot him with a Taser. I thought the trembling, green bottle in his big hand was going to explode. For a few moments, his mouth worked silently, like a clubbed fish’s.
“L-L-Leave it alone?” he stammered finally. “You were sleeping with him, weren’t you, Lauren? You were cheating with Scott Thayer, was that it? Why didn’t you just tell me? I’m your partner, your friend.”
“Mike,” I begged him with tears forming in my eyes, “please leave it alone.”
“I killed a man, Lauren!” Mike’s whisper screamed at me. “There’s blood on my hands.”
I stood, lifted my bag.
I didn’t want to threaten my partner, but I was backed into a corner. There was no other way.
“Yes, there is, Mike,” I said, dropping a twenty on my unea
ten fries. “You did kill a man. I was the only witness, remember? That’s why you of all people have to leave it alone.”
Chapter 63
ON MY WAY HOME, I called Keane and told him I felt dizzy and that I was taking a sick day. As I hung up, I realized it was one of the first times in a while I’d actually told him the truth.
I felt like I was stepping into a crypt when I opened the front door of my empty house. I decided to go for a jog and suited up. I drove to Tibbetts Brook Park five minutes away and did my usual two laps around the lake with its art-deco pool house. Jeez, it was a beautiful afternoon. Bright, yet cool. Perfect for a run. I even spotted a crane standing among the shoreline cattails as I was doing my stretches.
But by the time I sat down afterward, sweating, behind the wheel of my Mini in the parking lot, I felt like crap all over again.
Back home, I checked my empty answering machine, then poured myself a glass of wine to calm my shot nerves. Then I remembered the baby on board. The glass slipped from my shaking hand as I was pouring it back into the bottle and shattered into a thousand pieces.
Nice move, Detective, I thought as I gripped the cold edge of the sink. I was really on top of things lately, wasn’t I? Really holding things together nicely.
Looking down at the glass slivers, I wondered exactly how I could have been so horrible to my partner. Flat-out threatening Mike? Who was that cold-hearted bitch at the Piper’s Kilt? It sure wasn’t me.
And how could I keep on doing this? I’d gone from omitting the truth, to outright lying, to threatening my friends. I didn’t even want to think about what could happen next.
To top it all off, I was completely alone in all this. It was insane. I couldn’t even share with Paul the stress of trying to save Paul.
This was it, I realized. Everyone has a breaking point, and I’d just arrived at mine. I couldn’t keep up the 24/7 deception anymore. Lincoln was right: you couldn’t fool all of the people all of the time. Not if you were Catholic, anyway.
I needed to rejoin the human race. I’d been a secret agent in my own life for long enough. This spy had to come in from the cold.
Step one was confessing my sins and unburdening myself. But not to my partner.
I had to tell Paul.
Admitting I had cheated would be excruciating, but in order to have a shot at getting ourselves and our marriage to the other side of this, Paul and I needed to be on the same page. I had to tell him that I knew what he did at the St. Regis, and that I forgave him for it. And that I needed his help to make sure our dangerous secret stayed a secret.
Chapter 64
I WAS PULLING MY FAMOUS lime-cumin chicken out of the oven when Paul came in that night. With the possibility that this might be our last meal together, the least I could do was make it Paul’s favorite.
My breath caught as he rushed across the kitchen and hugged me right off my feet again.
Now or never, Lauren, I thought. Time to own up.
“Paul,” I said. “We have to talk.”
“Wait,” he said, taking a glossy folder out of his briefcase and slapping it onto the countertop. “Me first.”
On its cover was a photograph of some very pretty rolling hills covered with bright autumn trees. Inside were the floor plans of a variety of rather large houses. It was the sales folder for a luxury housing development somewhere in Connecticut.
What the . . . ? Was he drinking again? I didn’t smell any scotch on him.
“What’s this?” I said.
Paul spread out five different plans on the kitchen island with the solemnity of a fortune-teller laying out Tarot cards.
“Take your pick, Lauren,” he said. “Pick out your dream house. Which one do you love? Personally, I love them all.”
“Paul, listen,” I said. “Now’s not the time to fantasy-shop, okay? We —”
Paul put his finger to my lips.
“I’m not kidding, Lauren,” he said. He rubbed his hands together briskly. “You don’t understand. It’s not a joke, not a fantasy. I stepped in it. You ready for this? Another firm, a hedge fund, wants to steal me away for more money. A lot more money.”
“What?” I said, looking at him, then glancing at the folder again.
And then it happened. My eyes caught the heading on one of the pieces of paper in the sales folder.
Astor Court, it said. And underneath it, St. Regis Hotel.
The St. Regis? Wasn’t that . . . ? That was where I had tailed Paul and his little blonde! What was this all about?
I pulled out the sheet of paper. Numbers were written on it in a neat feminine script.
“What’s this, Paul?” I asked. “This isn’t your handwriting, is it?” I expected Paul to suddenly turn nervous, but he glanced down at the paper nonchalantly.
“That’s the initial offer from the hedge fund, Brennan Brace. Vicky Swanson, their recruiting VP, made it to me over lunch at Astor Court at the St. Regis, like three, four weeks ago,” Paul said, smiling at me.
For a while, all I could do was blink.
Lunch at the St. Regis?
“Vicky Swanson?” I said, vividly remembering the woman I’d seen when I went down to surprise Paul. “What does she look like?”
“Blonde,” Paul said. “Late twenties, I guess. Kind of tall.”
Oh, God, I thought.
No! It couldn’t be.
Another twist to this unending nightmare.
Lunch at the St. Regis!
Paul hadn’t cheated!
I gasped, struggling not to throw up.
Just me!
Chapter 65
I STOOD THERE in stunned silence.
Paul hadn’t ruined everything.
It was me. I had.
Just little old me. I was the one.
Talk about putting a hitch in my dinner plans. I’d been preparing to dredge up our affairs in order to get Paul and me past them.
Except I was the only one who’d had an affair!
I stayed standing, dazed, my face frozen like the screen of a computer in safe mode. Paul laughed as he squeezed my hand.
“It’s a bombshell, I know,” he said. “I just love you, okay? See, I actually thought Vicky was bullshitting me. ‘Hey, would you like to come work at twice your salary?’ she said. So what your brilliant husband did, as a lark really, was say that if they tripled it, they had themselves a deal.
“Vicky called me this morning with the good news. It’s all approved, pending the paperwork! The only problem is, we have to move. To Greenridge, Connecticut! As if moving out of Yonkers to blue-blood horse country is a problem. They’re even going to relocate us. Sell our place and give us a low-interest mortgage on our new one. This is it. Imagine! One person working, a baby, a new house with enough room for a nursery. The American Dream on steroids. This is the break we’ve been waiting for, Lauren.”
My head was spinning like a blender on ice crush. I couldn’t believe it. Not only was I the only one to have cheated . . .
But we’d just hit Lotto?
I sank onto my stool like a boxer after a very bad round.
“I love it, Lauren — I’ve actually robbed you of the power of speech,” Paul said with a laugh.
“Wait,” he said, taking a Sam Adams out of the fridge. “Didn’t you say you wanted to talk to me about something?”
I might have been on the verge of simultaneous heart and brain failure, but I wasn’t stupid.
I’d learn to live with the secret of my affair somehow, I decided. Especially since I’d just found out that I was the only one who had actually had one.
“Oh, right,” I managed to mumble. “Do you want rice or stuffing?”
Chapter 66
PAUL AND I MADE LOVE that night for the first time since I got pregnant. I’d clicked into deep-cleaning survival mode due to his latest revelations and was folding some laundry, when I spotted a black teddie that I’d tried to seduce Paul with one afternoon before everything crazy started.
; Before I knew what I was doing, I was taking off my jeans and slipping into the best of Victoria’s Secret. There wasn’t even any cringing mental debate when I saw the sexy version of myself in the bathroom mirror. My breasts were already larger — oh, goody!
From the suddenly stunned look on Paul’s face when I came into the bedroom, I gathered he thought so, too. The Wall Street Journal he was reading dropped from his fingers sheet by sheet until he was holding nothing but air.
“Well, well. Looks like you’re going to score twice in one day, cowboy,” I said as I ripped the top sheet off the bed, sending the financial pages flying. That was pretty much the extent of our foreplay.
I don’t know what had gotten into me. Could I blame my hormones? Why not? I was demanding and very specific in bed. At first, Paul looked a little shocked. Not that he didn’t comply with every command. Obedient and shocked.
I felt something primal take hold of me, and I let it. Isn’t that one of the big points of sex? We tear off our clothes, our inhibitions, the trappings that society demands. Thousands of years of civilization — what’s right, what’s wrong — are all tossed out the window and we’re back to square one. Sex is the truth under all the lies. We are alive, it screams!
Right before the grand culmination, and it was grand, I opened my eyes and stared at Paul’s handsome face above me. I looked into the steely blue of his shining eyes and suddenly I knew.
It was official.
We’d won each other back.
Chapter 67
“MY GOD, LAUREN,” Paul said, pulsing like a lightning bug beside me afterward. “What got into you? And your boobs?”
“I know,” I said, punching him playfully on the chest. “Now tell me that joke again about you tripling your salary.”
“The real joke of it is that it’s not a joke,” Paul said as he stared up at the ceiling. “How about that? One day, you’re hopelessly stuck in the rat race. And then the next, pow! Your ship has come in. Make that a couple of ships.”