“You want to know how I felt when Veronica made me that offer at the Sheraton? For the first time, I felt like a man! I got a chance to step away from this namby-pamby investment firm, law degree, 401(k) bullshit I’ve been wasting my whole life on.”
Paul took a deep breath, then released it. The gun stayed at my temple.
“I did it, Lauren,” he whispered fiercely. “I took what I wanted, and then I went and got my prize. Let me tell you something. I remember every second of it. And Lauren, it was good. Veronica licked the blood off my knuckles. I knocked her up like a stud bull.”
“Anything you say, psychopath,” I said.
“And you’re right. I killed that prick Scott. He thought he could just keep messing with me. You should have seen the look on his face when he turned around. He was outmanned, and he knew it. I gave your boyfriend exactly what was coming to him. I could give two shits about his wife and kids.”
In the distance, sirens sounded. Somebody must have called the police about the scene Paul and I were making. Thank God for cell phones!
“You hear that?” I said. “Sirens? That’s the sound of truth and consequences catching up with you, Paul.”
“Nothing is catching up with me, cupcake,” Paul said, opening the door and shoving me out. “Time for a trial separation.”
The Jag’s tires smoked as he peeled out onto Riggs.
I stood between the skid marks, disoriented. Could somebody please tell me what the hell had just happened? The past few hours seemed impossible, surreal. What was I thinking, hours. Try the past few minutes.
My hair flew back in the wake of two siren-wailing DC police cars that appeared in full-speed pursuit of Paul.
This was it? I thought. This was how it would end?
Half a block north across the street, I spotted my rental car.
Not if I could help it, I thought, taking out the keys as I ran.
Chapter 113
MINUTES LATER, I was pinning the gas, tailgating the rear DC cop car that was chasing Paul. I felt like giving him my brights. Gangway! NYPD coming through! Paul is mine. Get in line! That’s my cheating, lying, murdering husband trying to get away.
We careened through another ritzy neighborhood. Were we in Georgetown? Ivy-covered brick and Greek revivals blurred past my windshield. Where did Paul think he was going? Did he still believe he could get away with this?
I figured it all out when I spotted the tower of the bridge back to the airport. It loomed a half mile away, above some slate roofs on my left.
I whipped a left at the next corner, ran a red light, and screeched a right onto M Street, speeding toward the bridge to cut him off if I could.
I honked as I skidded to a stop — dead center at the entrance to the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
Then I jumped out of the car and stood in the open doorway.
“Get your crazy ass out of the street!” an angry bus driver screamed at me as he leaned on his horn. “What in the green world of God do you think you’re doing?”
You think I know? I felt like telling him. But I didn’t have the energy or the time.
A block to the north, Paul was approaching with the DC cops close behind. When he reached the traffic I’d just backed up, he drove the Jaguar up on the sidewalk. No hesitation. A hot dog cart and newspaper box sailed off the Jaguar’s grill before Paul bulleted into the intersection.
I jumped to the left of my Taurus, filling the only space that might fit Paul’s car. The bus driver screamed as the Jag sped toward me. I was the only thing standing between Paul and the bridge.
I stood there transfixed.
Paul would stop.
He wouldn’t run me down.
He couldn’t kill me.
The car kept coming, though. Really fast.
At the last second, I dove to the right.
The Jag blew past me like a hunter green guided missile. Twisting around on my back, I watched Paul slalom around my car and back onto the bridge road. Son of a bitch was going to make it. He would have run me down — no problem at all.
But then his right back wheel caught the curb with a savage pop, and the car went airborne.
An amazing sight.
There was a deafening crunch, a sound like a giant plastic bottle being fed into a recycling machine, as the Jaguar collided with a concrete bridge abutment.
Glass hung in the air like dust motes as the Jag accordioned. Then the ruined car flipped end over end, snapping through riverside trees before exploding into the muddy green water of the Potomac.
Chapter 114
THE JAGUAR HAD DISAPPEARED — and Paul with it.
I tripped on a partially buried shopping cart as I half ran, half fell down the embankment. Now what? Well, I did an awkward triple lutz before I belly flopped painfully into the river. Then I kicked my way straight down, scanning the murky water for the Jag and Paul.
I don’t know why I was being so brave, foolish — whatever this ought to be called. Maybe because it was the right thing to do.
I was about to go back up for more air when I spotted a shard of twisted metal. I swam toward it.
No!
It was the Jag. Paul was still belted into his seat behind the deployed air bag.
His eyes were closed, his face stitched with bleeding cuts. How long had he been in the water? When did brain damage start? I thought, yanking open the car door.
I leaned across Paul, struggling desperately against the air bag to undo his shoulder belt. The damn thing wouldn’t open.
Then I felt his hands bite into my neck.
What was he doing?
My throat was already burning. I couldn’t believe this. I guess I was the one with the brain damage! Here I was, trying to save him — and he wanted to kill me at the bottom of the Potomac. Paul really was crazy.
River water burned my nasal cavity as I struggled. Very soon I would be out of strength and oxygen. Then what? That was simple — I would drown.
I kept fighting against him, but that wasn’t working. Paul was too big, too strong. I had to go another way. And fast!
I pushed hard against the windshield. Then I shot my elbow back, catching Paul in the throat. Then I did it again!
The pressure on my neck let up as an air bubble the size of Rhode Island blobbed out of Paul’s mouth. I ducked from beneath his arms. I felt myself starting to pass out, though.
Paul grabbed my foot as I struggled to turn away from him. He was still stuck in the car, his open eyes bulging. He was going to take me with him, if it was the last thing he did, which it would be.
I kicked forward against the water, then straight back into his nose. I broke it for sure. Blood blossomed around his face. Then his grip let free, and I kicked myself away from the car, up toward the light.
I looked back and could see Paul’s face below. He was bleeding, and he seemed to be screaming. Then he was gone.
I broke the surface and gorged myself on blessed air as the strong river current pulled me along. Up on a bridge I floated under, there were spinning police lights and dozens of staring faces. The riverside trees swayed in a police helicopter’s rotor wash.
A fireman shouted and tossed me a life preserver. I grabbed it and held on for dear life.
Chapter 115
THE DC COPS TOOK real good care of me after that. They had checked our flight list, assumed Paul and I were on vacation and that he had simply snapped.
I didn’t say anything to change their mind. In fact, after I ID’d the body, I didn’t say anything at all.
An hour later, my buddy Detective Zampella himself arrived at the scene and managed to squash the story with the local media. Then Zampella got me the hell out of there.
I needed to chill somewhere. But not in DC.
I didn’t want to fly, so I got in my rental and drove all the way to Baltimore before the urge to rest came over me again.
I remembered staying at a nice Sheraton near the inner harbor one time, and I found the hotel on C
harles Street.
The Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel. Never has any hotel looked better to me.
I got a room with a water view, instead of one overlooking Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Not that I really cared right now.
The room was all blues and creams and it was definitely what I needed, because I was the ultimate frazzled traveler.
The bed was sweet, just terrific, and I spent the rest of the evening motionless, almost comatose, staring up at the ceiling. As the numbness started to wear off, I felt sad, angry, anxious, ashamed, and helpless all at once. Finally, I slept.
The next time I looked up, it was still dark. I stared at the walls of the strange room, not remembering where I was at first. It all came back to me as I glanced out the window and saw the lit-up harbor. A big boat called The Chesapeake. Baltimore — the Sheraton Inner Harbor.
Then other images came.
Paul. Veronica. Little blonde Caroline.
The Jaguar in the Potomac.
I lay in the dark and thought it all through from the beginning. What I had done. How I felt about it now. How I felt about myself. I pinched my eyes shut. Vivid sensations and memories flashed through me periodically. The smell of Scott’s cologne. The taste of rain in his kiss. The feel of the rain on my shins as I stared at his battered body. Paul in the Jaguar at the end.
My breath caught at what I remembered next.
I saw silver-white light streaming through the windows of the church where Paul and I were married. My left hand twitched as I felt the slide of a gold ring.
The despair that overtook me then was like a seizure. I felt like it was something that had always been in me. Some dark blossom that had been waiting to bloom since the day I was married.
For the next two hours I did nothing but cry.
Eventually I found a phone and ordered a sandwich and beer from the Orioles Grille in the hotel. I turned on the TV. On the eleven o’clock news there was a lurid shot of the bridge in DC where the accident occurred, and of Paul’s car being lifted from the river.
I was about to cry again, but I stopped myself with deep, hard breaths. Enough of that for now. I shook my head at the screen as the news anchor called it a tragic accident.
“You don’t know the half of it,” I said. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, mister. No idea.”
Epilogue
Chapter 116
THE LAST FEW MINUTES of my hour-long run were always the bear. I kept my eyes focused on the silver lap of water on sand, the slight give of the wet dirt under the balls of my feet.
As I finished my kick, I dropped to the beach, lungs burning, amazed at what I’d just accomplished. Five miles — on sand.
For the umpteenth morning in a row, the sun broke above the horizon, and I witnessed the miracle moment when the water and the seashore became gold.
I stared along the curving rim of beach I’d just run. It was like a gilded crescent moon laid on its side. Darn pretty.
I checked my watch. You’re gonna be late, Lauren.
I found my moped in the near-empty parking lot. I put on my flip-flops, then helmet. Safety first. I nodded at a couple of fishermen who looked familiar, swerved around wolf-whistling, sun-browned surfers in a canary-yellow convertible, and hit the winding beach road toward town.
Funny how things work out, I thought as I buzzed along the narrow ribbon of asphalt.
The FedEx package had arrived three months to the day after Paul’s death. Inside was a letter. It was typed on expensive stationery, the letterhead from an attorney of the Cayman Islands Trust Bank.
Paul had left the stolen money plus interest, $1,257,000.22 — in my name.
Didn’t matter, I still wasn’t ready to forgive him.
I was tempted to turn it in, maybe give it to some charity. But by then I was coming along, and there’s nothing like a baby’s kick to make you realize it isn’t about you anymore. I did send two hundred fifty thousand of the money to the Thayer family, but that was just me doing the right thing. Doing the best I could, anyway.
I pulled into the short drive of a glass house perched on a cliff above the beach. With its leaking roof and rusty sliders, it was more glass trailer than house, but you couldn’t beat the view, or the privacy.
I left my bike helmet on as I ran inside. I needed to check in on the man in my life.
My baby boy exploded into giggles as I knelt in front of his snuggly bouncer. How do you like that? I was still a sucker for younger men.
His name was Thomas. After my dad, who else?
A Spanish woman clucked at me from the kitchen doorway.
“What are you doing here, Miss Lauren?” she said. “You can’t miss your first day of work.”
“I just thought I’d give Tommy one more kiss and a hug,” I said.
She pointed at the front door.
“Basta,” she said. “You may come back for lunch. And to see Thomas. Now, vámonos.”
Chapter 117
MY OFFICE SPACE was only ten minutes away, just above a popular bar on a busy tourist street.
I climbed the stairs and undid my chin strap as I gaped at the new “Paradise Investigations” sign above the weathered door. This is good. Looks right, feels right.
I went back down the stairs and into the bar — wading my way through the jungle path of tikis and palms.
The bartender turned the page of last Sunday’s New York Daily News and looked up at me.
My old partner, Mike Ortiz, rolled his eyes before he smiled broadly — the only way Mike can smile.
“Hey, gumshoe,” he said. “Aren’t you supposed to be shadowing some nasty hombre, or something like that? And what did I tell you about my aunt Rosa? If you keep going back home, she’ll think you don’t trust her with little Thomas.”
We could have been sitting next to each other in our old squad car, except Mike was wearing a Hawaiian shirt that looked like it might require batteries. He seemed to have adjusted pretty well to life after The Job, anyway.
He’d told me to look him up, and that’s what I did. It wasn’t like I had anywhere else to go. Besides, Mike was just about the only honest man I knew. And actually kind of cute, I was starting to notice.
“I saw your new shingle upstairs,” Mike said. “Real nice. Except you do know this is a Spanish-speaking country, don’t you? How much business do you think you’re going to get with a sign in English?”
“As little as possible, dummy,” I said, stealing the Style section. “What does a girl have to do to get a cup of joe around here?”
“Let me think about it,” Mike said, “while I get you that coffee.”
Then Mike added, apropos of nothing really, “You’re doing real good, Lauren. You and Thomas.”
I blushed down to my toes. I guess I’m just not used to compliments yet.
About the Authors
JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best-known and best-selling writers of all time. He is the author of the two top-selling new detective series of the past decade: the Alex Cross novels, including Cross, Mary, Mary, London Bridges, Kiss the Girls, and Along Came a Spider; and the Women’s Murder Club series, including 1st to Die, 2nd Chance, 3rd Degree, 4th of July, The 5th Horseman, and The 6th Target. He has written many other #1 bestsellers, including Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas, Lifeguard, Honeymoon, Beach Road, and Judge & Jury. He lives in Florida.
MICHAEL LEDWIDGE is the author of The Narrowback, Bad Connection, and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.
James Patterson, The Quickie
(Series: # )
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