James Patterson - Worst Case

“See, I keep telling you this department is one class act,” I said, taking Emily by the hand. I danced her around the room with its crystal chandeliers and hand-carved mirrors. When we weren’t dancing, we drank. Champagne, of course. By the time we sat down to dinner, we were laughing deliriously, too loudly probably, and not caring in the slightest.

The waiters were all over us in a way I’d never experienced before. French champagne glass after French champagne glass. Out of curiosity, I peeked at the menu and noticed that they were three- and four hundred dollars a bottle.

“What you did at the Exchange took guts, Emily,” I said, tossing back another thirty-dollar glass. “You really looked good in there.”

Veuve Clicquot suddenly sprayed from my nose as Parker found my thigh under the table.

“Isn’t that a coincidence?” she said, staring into my eyes as she knocked back her own glass. “You look good in here, Detective.”

Emily and I both sprinted through the dinner for some reason. Our spoons clacked on the tiramisu plates before most of the cops at our table had even started.

“Where are you guys going?” my boss asked as we said our quick good-byes. “You’re the stars of the party. Parrish and Mason haven’t even gotten here yet.”

“Uh,” I said, “Emily has to, uh…”

“Catch a flight,” she finished for me. “Got to get home tonight. Back down to DC. Boy, I can’t miss that plane.”

The taxi ride back to Emily’s hotel was hot and heavy and way too short. It consisted of what every perfect New York City evening is made-the swirling Times Square lights, silk, nylon, sharp red nails, a grinning, envious cabbie.

We almost knocked down a high school senior class from Missouri as we speed-walked to the hotel’s elevator. The elevator door was closing when I stuck out my arm at the last second. The door rolled back open.

“What the hell are you doing?” Emily said.

“I just remembered something,” I said tentatively.

“It’s the nanny, isn’t it?”

I didn’t say anything.

“It is, Mike. It’s definitely the nanny, whether you realize it or not. Oh, well.”

She kissed me for the last time then. She grabbed my lapel and slammed her lips into mine viciously. She seemed so warm this close. I wanted to get closer. I don’t think I can properly express how much I wanted to ride that elevator up.

Then Emily even more viciously shoved me away from her. She actually kicked me in the knee with a high heel to get me moving out of the elevator car.

“Your loss, cop,” she spat, extremely pissed and extremely hot with her blouse tails out, her flushed cheeks, and red hair mussed. “Your fucking loss, Bennett, you goddamn asshole.”

My breath went away as I watched the vision of Emily Parker erased by the elevator door.

My loss, I thought to myself.

“Damn fucking right,” I said to the doorman on my way out.

I was still feeling no pain as I got home. There were streamers and a hallway full of balloons. An extra-large Carvel sheet cake was defrosting in the fridge. Seamus, master of ceremonies for MC’s surprise bash, held court in the kitchen, directing the decorating and food prep.

“But, Grandpa, if this is a party, who’s going to DJ?” Shawna said.

“Who do you think?” Seamus said, offended. “Sister Sheilah doesn’t call me ‘Father Two Turntables and a Microphone’ for nothing, you know.”

“What about the clown, Grandpa?” Chrissy, our baby, wanted to know. “And I don’t see any balloon animals.”

“It’s on the list, child. Please, have ye no faith?” Seamus said, lifting his clipboard. “Now, Julia. How close are we with the pigs in a blanket?”

When everything was ready, I called upstairs to Mary Catherine’s cell phone.

“Mary, I just got a call into work, and Seamus is nowhere to be found. Could you come down for emergency babysitting?”

“Give me five minutes, Mike,” she said sadly.

She was there in three.

“Hello?” Mary Catherine said as she stepped slowly into the darkened apartment.

I hit the lights.

“Surprise!” we yelled.

Mary Catherine started crying as all the kids lined up and handed her their gifts with a hug. There were a lot of Starbucks cards and World’s Best Teacher mugs. When Hallmark starts its World’s Best Nanny line, we’ll be the first customers. I thought MC was going to need resuscitation when Chrissy handed over her present: a homemade salt-dough doll of Chrissy herself.

“How old are you now?” I said when I caught Mary alone in the kitchen.

“That’s a rude question to ask a lady,” Mary Catherine said.

“Nineteen?” I guessed. “No, wait. Twenty-two?”

“I’m thirty, Mike. So there. Are you happy?”

I was genuinely surprised. MC looked like a college kid. So that explained it, her nuttiness. Turning thirty. Women didn’t like that or something, right?

“Well, at least you’re calling me Mike again instead of Mr. Bennett. I must have done something right. Saints preserve us.”

I produced the gift I had gotten on the way home from Emily’s hotel. Striemer Jewelers on 47th was actually closed when I arrived, but the owner, Marvin, who was working late, owed me a favor.

“If this is about our, eh, collision, all is forgiven, Mike,” she said, staring at the small box. “I’ve already forgotten it.”

“Open it.”

She did. Inside was an amethyst pendant on a white gold chain, her birthstone.

“But,” she said. “This is… How can we…”

“You tell me,” I said into her ear as I put the necklace on her. “I don’t know a damn thing about anything.”

An aching expression of sadness was in Mary Catherine’s face as her eyes went from the sparkling pendant to me.

“We’ll talk after all that champagne wears off, Mike,” she said as she started to leave. I tried to grab her arm on the way out, but I missed, and she was gone. Second time tonight, I thought. Way to go, Mr. Smooth.

“Check me out!” Seamus yelled from the living room. I lifted my cake as the sound of an electric guitar started up. What now?

Seamus was standing in front of the TV. In his hands was the plastic guitar from the kids’ Guitar Hero game. His eyes were closed, and he was biting his lip as he wailed the “Welcome to the Jungle” solo. I don’t know what was louder, his Slash impression, the kids’ shrieks of laughter, or my own.

“Well, what do you know?” I said, gleefully atomic-dropping down onto the couch in the middle of my guys for a front-row seat. “The clown showed up to the party after all.”

I was still catching up on Detective Division reports from the Mooney case two weeks later. Unfortunately, having my paperwork done for me had lasted exactly until the task force was disbanded.

The last and most aggravating detail of the case continued to stare at me, usually from the cover of a newspaper, morning after morning. What the hell had happened to Dan Hastings, the abducted Columbia kid?

I was banging out my fourth backed-up incident report of the morning when Chief Fleming came rap-rap-rapping at my office door. In her hand was the only perk of working at One Police Plaza, authentic takeout from neighboring Chinatown.

We ate in her much larger office. Outside her window, a big yellow sun shone brightly off the honking, unmoving Brooklyn Bridge traffic.

I scanned the East River for bodies floating among the garbage beneath the bridge as I worked my chopsticks. I believe in a working lunch.

The chief pointed at the New York Post on the desk behind her as we cracked fortune cookies.

“Seen the latest?” she said.