James Patterson - The Quickie

I hastily looked through the laptop, BlackBerry, and cell phones but, thankfully, didn't find my name or number anywhere.

After I was done, I noticed a file cabinet and an armoire-size metal locker standing in the left-hand corner of the room.

I listened for Brooke's footsteps on the stairs as I stepped toward them.

Both, of course, were locked.

I tossed Scott's desk before I found a tiny key ring among the contents of the pencil holder. The key opened the cabinet but not the locker.

My sweaty fingers nearly slipped off the handle as I rolled open the first heavy drawer.

I was partially relieved when I saw that the files looked like typical home office stuff. Folders marked "Income Tax," "Credit Cards," "Car Repairs," "Dentist."

"Lauren?" I heard Brooke call down from the top of the stairs. "Are you all right?"

I hope so, I thought.

"Just a minute," I called, riffling through more files. "I'm almost finished, Brooke."

I turned to leave after closing the last file drawer. But then I had to stick my hand under the top drawer of the desk, a nasty Homicide cop habit.

And found a DVD carefully taped to its underside.

MY HEART RICOCHETED off my chest as I peeled the DVD away from the double-sided tape.

"INSURANCE" was written across it in blue marker.

Turning it in the fluorescent light, I found Scott's ever-increasing mysterious side really intriguing. Well, maybe terrifying was a more accurate description.

What kind of insurance comes in DVD form? The kind a man who keeps his 401K under his shoe might need, I answered myself.

Take it or leave it? I thought.

I slid it into my bag.

I guess I was taking it.

A white minivan was pulling to a stop outside the café curtained kitchen window when I got to the top of the stairs.

"Oh, they're back already," Brooke said with disappointment. " Taylor 's a real bear about transition. And to tell you the truth, I don't know how Scott's mom will react to seeing you. She's more devastated than me, if that's possible. Can we take a rain check on the coffee? Maybe it would be best if you left by the front door so she doesn't see you."

"Of course, Brooke," I said. She seemed to have pulled herself together enough to throw me out on my ear politely. That was some progress, I guess. Though, in truth, she didn't have to tell me twice to get the hell out of there.

"And don't forget," I called back as I hit the front door, "find out about group therapy. Okay, Brooke?"

Wow, I thought, as I turned over the Chevy's engine. Group therapy. If that wasn't the most clichéd nonsense to bleat at somebody in real distress, I didn't know what was. Why didn't I recommend past-life regression therapy while I was at it?

The words that I could make come out of my mouth were just incredible lately. I glanced down at the pilfered DVD in my bag. Not to mention the actions I was capable of.

The squad car's tires made the asphalt bark as I dropped the transmission.

I was really getting this cold-hearted bitch thing down pat.

And I hated every second of it.

IT WAS LESS THAN AN HOUR LATER when I pulled off the Van Cortlandt Park South exit off the Major Deegan in the Bronx.

I swung a quick U-turn onto the service road for the Van Cortlandt Park Golf Course, reputed to be the oldest public golf course in the United States. I wasn't looking to improve my short game, just to get some privacy in the course's parking lot, one of the oldest NYPD patrol car hiding spots in the United States.

The CD/DVD slot on my laptop rang like a spent Glock clip as I fumbled with Scott's "Insurance" DVD. I managed not to break it in my haste to get it started.

Maybe Scott had gotten the spelling wrong, I thought after a minute of watching the screen intently.

This wasn't insurance.

It was surveillance.

Vintage surveillance identified by the helpful 10:30 AM, July 22 prominently displayed in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.

The star of the film was a soft-looking, middle-aged Hispanic man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and strolling along a city street, seemingly without a care in the world.

I deduced the setting was New York City when the Latino gentleman stopped to eat lunch by himself at an outdoor restaurant across from Union Square Park.

And that the subject had some expendable income as the film quickly cut to him getting out of a taxi and entering the Ralph Lauren flagship store on the corner of 72nd and Madison.

Was this guy a drug dealer? Considering the tape's source, and the fact that the camera seemed to be rolling from the side porthole window of a van, I sure didn't think he was a Telemundo weatherman.

Next, the tape showed the man leaving the upscale clothing store, brimming with expensive-looking bags, and entering another taxi. The time in the corner flipped forward half an hour to show the subject exiting the cab and entering the grand front entrance of the Four Seasons hotel on East 57th Street. Everything was coming up first class.

Then the camera's vantage point suddenly changed from street level to the dizzying ledge of a thirty- or forty-story high-rise. The camera panned forward and then down and the time in the corner read 6:10 PM, July 22 .

It skimmed past the roof of the Four Seasons until one of the balconies on the 58th Street side of the hotel came sharply into focus.

After a few minutes more of silent surveillance, the camera panned down, down, down, to the street, until it zeroed in on a homeless woman on the corner of Park.

"… the wages of sin, my Jesus. Oh, my Jehovah, forgive them, for they know not what they do," came in clearly, as well as the rattle of her change-filled coffee cup.

Somebody must have turned on the shotgun microphone, I figured.

As the camera panned back up and stayed on the penthouse balcony, the ambient sounds of the city could be heard. The dull roar of traffic. A far-off siren. New York, New York.

Twenty long minutes of that riveting documentary coverage later, there was another cut. At first, I thought maybe the DVD had blanked out, but then I noticed that the time in the corner had jumped forward seven hours to 1:28 AM, July 23 .

The DVD hadn't gone blank, I realized. It had just gone from day to night.

There still wasn't much to see. For two minutes, other than the faint sheen from the streetlight on the metal railing of the balcony being observed, it was pitch-black.

Then, suddenly, there was a bright flash, and the entire balcony was flooded with a strange, greenish light.

The surveillance team had started filming in infrared, I realized. Those guys sure had access to some really neat toys.

Did Scott's task force think the pudgy Hispanic man was going to do a big drug deal out on his hotel balcony? Maybe they were hoping he would crack the sliding glass door, and they'd be able to overhear something?

I actually never got the chance to find out.

Because after fifteen more minutes of empty balcony in infrared, there was a very intrusive banging sound, and the camera panned upward about ten feet until it showed the hotel's roof.

A portly man in a tuxedo and a young woman hanging more out than in a gold-sequined party dress emerged from a service door next to the elevator housing. The camera closed in on them as they started kissing and groping passionately against an air-conditioning unit.

You could see the woman's mouth moving, and then there was a shriek as the shotgun mike was adjusted and she could be heard up close and personal.

"Wait a second," she said.

Then she pulled her shimmering party dress over her head. She must have been really smashed, because it would have been easier to let it fall. Underneath, she was wearing just a G-string.