James Patterson - Now You See Her

I clicked on the back arrow and stared at the Enter button as if it meant “Self-destruct.” Then I put my coffee back down and clicked.

“Come on already,” I said, nervously flicking the coffee’s plastic lid with my thumb as I waited for the screen to change.

There was a hum, and then my stomach dropped as the black screen turned to white. The first thing that appeared as I began to scroll down to the article was a smudgy photograph.

I stopped scrolling, my whole hand trembling on the mouse.

It was Peter.

He was a few years younger, and he was wearing a Boston PD uniform.

As I looked into Peter’s eyes, it felt like my throat was slowly closing, garden hose to coin wrapper to bar straw.

I finally closed my eyes to make the picture and the rest of my rapidly disintegrating world disappear.

Unbelievable, I thought, keeping my eyes closed.

I assumed I’d calm down after a while, but it wasn’t happening. The office chair beneath me suddenly felt wobbly, as if all the screws had been removed.

I’d thought that I’d grown up on the day my father died, but I’d been wrong. Sitting there in front of the picture of my husband that proved he was a liar, I felt my heart concede and my head take over.

I shook my head at my wedding and engagement rings. I had to get it out of the sand. I needed to wake the hell up.

There was no more denying it. Pictures didn’t lie.

Fact: Peter was from Boston, not New York.

Fact: Peter had been married before to a woman who was killed.

Fact: Peter had been lying to me from day one.

Fact: I was in some deep shit.

It felt like time stopped as I glanced down and spotted the new headline beside Peter’s picture. My eyes ran over the five words, and it felt like the rapidly spinning world had stopped dead right there under the public library fluorescents.

I didn’t think that it could get worse.

God, was I so very wrong.

“Cop Questioned in Wife’s Death,” the headline said.

Boston, MA

COP QUESTIONED IN WIFE’S DEATH Authorities in the Boston Police Department have questioned the husband of the woman killed in a delicatessen holdup last month. Peter Fournier, who is a rookie patrolman on the Boston Police force, refused to answer reporters’ questions as he left headquarters with his lawyer late last night.Twenty-year-old Amanda Fournier was killed by multiple shotgun blasts during the midday holdup on September 21. A receptionist in a pediatrician’s office on Crescent Street, she entered Jake’s Deli next door a little before noon. Witnesses say a masked assailant entered behind her and that she was shot several times when she hesitated to give up her bag. No one else was injured.The autopsy report released from the Suffolk County coroner’s office confirmed that Mrs. Fournier was pregnant.Detectives would not reveal if the questioning was routine or not. But a source close to the investigation described the events surrounding the murder as “suspicious.”Neighbors of the couple described the Fourniers as close and were shocked to learn of the questioning of Mr. Fournier. As were Mr. Fournier’s fellow Boston PD officers, one of whom described the twenty-six-year-old rookie and former U.S. Army Ranger as extremely competent and “a cop’s cop.”

I stopped reading. The world turned gray, as if a dimmer switch had been hit. I blinked, unable to breathe, waiting for my heart to start beating again.

I noticed that there was another photograph at the bottom of the article. I shuddered as I looked at the picture of the young woman above the “Amanda Fournier” caption.

The young woman had a lot of high hair and some dark eye shadow. I realized two things about this photograph simultaneously. It looked like the girl’s high school picture, and she looked a hell of a lot like me!

I thought about what Peter had said when I confronted him about his double shift.

Then I… looked into your eyes, and I haven’t been inside a church since my Communion, Jeanine, but it felt holy… Like God sent an angel down from heaven.

I’ll bet! I thought as I sat there, unable to pry my eyes away from the photo of the deceased young woman on the screen.

I didn’t actually remember printing the article or leaving the library. Or starting my Vespa, for that matter. The first place I found myself after my shock subsided enough for me to form a thought was the main post office on Whitehead Street.

A Coppertone-colored bum making a straw hat on the curb glanced up as I swerved to a dust-raising stop. There was a pay phone inside the post office, I remembered. It was inside a dark, old-fashioned phone booth with a door that closed, like a confessional. I had actually called my college from this secluded booth to tell them I wasn’t coming back.

That was exactly what I needed now, I realized. Privacy, darkness, confession.

I thought of another headline as I entered the post office, like a movie zombie.

“Cop’s Wife Goes Nuts.”

AS IF IN A TRANCE, I pushed into the post office and fished out a bunch of quarters. I collapsed in the circa 1930s phone booth in the corner and closed its folding door behind me. Quarters rang off the dusty marble between my feet as I dropped several while dialing 411.

I needed to know what happened after Peter had spoken to the detectives. I needed to go to the primary source, get to the bottom of this.

If it had a bottom.

I got the Boston PD number from information, dialed, and began feeding the phone quarters.

One fact actually made me dry-heave as it kept repeating in my mind like a news crawl across the bottom of a TV screen.

Amanda Fournier was pregnant.

Just like me.

My sweat almost made me drop the receiver as the last quarter bonged home and the phone rang.

“Boston.”

“Hello. May I speak to Detective… Yorgenson?” I said, reading from the printed article in my hand.

“Hold on,” said the gruff Boston cop.

“Yorgenson,” said an even gruffer voice a moment later.

“My name’s Jeanine Baker,” I said with a convincing Southern twang. My current state of insanity apparently was a wonder for my acting chops. “I work for Tony’s Bail Bonds down here in Miami. We’re doing an employment check on a Peter Fournier. Rumor has it he was involved in some kind of homicide. I got your name from a Boston Globe article. Can you give me some clarity on Mr. Fournier?”

Even at that point, I was hoping for some good news. Even after the lies and strange behavior, I was hoping that there was some reasonable explanation. That it was all one big mistake.

“Miami?” Yorgenson said. “So that’s where that virus Fournier turned up. I’d be delighted to give you some clarity on Petey. The son of a bitch killed his wife and got away with it. He should be in a jail cell.”

I OPENED THE BOOTH DOOR at the dusty post office, unable to breathe. The air had a strange new pressure, a new weight, as if the room had been suddenly filled with water when I wasn’t paying attention, and now I was drowning.

“A shock, isn’t it?” the cop said. “I know. Pete doesn’t look like a psychopath, does he? He’s a real charmer, especially with the ladies.”

“How can you be so sure he did it?” I said.

“After his wife turned up dead, we went by the book, looked at Pete straight off the bat more to clear him than anything else,” Yorgenson said. “But we found out some very interesting things about Mr. Rookie of the Year.

“Like how he had dozens of brutality complaints. Like how he was rumored to love to party with nose candy. Like how he and Amanda had been separated. One of Amanda’s friends told us it was because of the baby. He wanted her to abort it. She filed for divorce instead. He’d been harassing her for months before the shooting. Stalking her at work. Following some of her male coworkers home. ‘If I can’t have you, nobody will,’ he told her on several occasions.”