James Patterson - The Quickie

"It's actually personal," I told the detective. "A friend of mine, a jeweler, was pistol-whipped and robbed in a Midtown Manhattan hotel last month. I remembered seeing the abstract on your case when I looked into it. You wouldn't happen to have a copy of the hotel register, would you?"

"I did put one in the file," Zampella said, checking his watch. "But it's been – what? Five years? God knows where they buried it."

"I know I'm being a pain in the neck," I said. "But do you think you could make a couple of calls and track it down for me? After I take you out for lunch, of course. DC has a Morton's, doesn't it?"

Zampella glanced at his scrawny apple. Then he reached for his pin-striped suit jacket on the back of his chair.

"As a matter of fact," he said, standing up. "There's one right here in Arlington."

TWO HOURS AND TWO FILET MIGNONS with home fries later, we were back in Zampella's office, and I was going over the very hotel register I needed to see so urgently.

Zampella thought he had heart trouble? When I glanced at the top of the second page, I could have used a defibrillator and a shot of epinephrine.

There it was in black and white – Paul Stillwell .

Something inside me swayed dangerously. Even after all the evidence, I was hoping for some eleventh-hour reprieve. Yet here was the opposite. More and more proof of Paul's – what? Lunacy? Secret life?

I couldn't believe it. Paul had actually robbed a sports ticket broker of half a million dollars?

And I'd thought finding out secret stuff about Scott Thayer was devastating. What the hell was wrong with men? Were they all legally insane?

No, I answered myself. Not all of them. Just the ones who had the misfortune to make my acquaintance. Or the other way around.

I thought about the Range Rover and the Tiffany bag and the fact that Paul didn't wear glasses down here in DC.

I turned to Zampella, half snoozing behind his desk. He'd had a martini with his steak.

"You think you could do me just one more favor, Roger? Just one, and I'm gone."

"Shoot," he said.

"I'm looking for an owner's list of 2007 Range Rovers. DC plates starting with ninety-nine."

"More Unsolved Mysteries material, huh? All right, you got it. But fraternal order of police cooperation aside, this has to be the last one. My lieutenant is due back from a department conference any second. There's a bookstore right down the block. Why don't you catch up on some reading, and I'll see you in about an hour."

It was more like half an hour. I was sitting in front of the magazine rack, paging through a Vanity Fair , when Zampella tapped me on the shoulder.

"I think you dropped something, miss," he said, handing me an envelope with a wink before heading off toward the exit.

I ripped the sheet of paper out of the envelope. The list was twenty-one vehicles long. I traced my finger down the owner's column, looking for Stillwell.

No dice. I did it again more slowly. Again nothing.

I rubbed my overcaffeinated, tired eyes. What the hell? It was worth a shot.

I went into the bookstore's café, sat down, and pulled out the hotel guest list. One by one, I cross-referenced each Range Rover owner with the hotel list. It was maybe fifteen minutes later, pins and needles tingling my butt, when I found a match.

Veronica Boyd. 221 Riggs Place.

Veronica? I thought, seething. I knew it! A woman! Paul, you goddamned bastard!

I jumped out of my seat and bolted for the front door. I needed to rent a car. And maybe do some surveillance work.

It was time to find out exactly what – oh, and most especially who – Paul had done.

THE HOUSE WAS A QUAINT attached brick residence on a low-key, but definitely upscale street in a neighborhood north of Dupont Circle. The rainbow flags outside the coffee bars and the restaurants housed in its old stately buildings reminded me a lot of Greenwich Village, the more yuppified parts, anyway.

From my rented Ford Taurus parked at the corner, I kept my eyes locked on the gleaming black door of 221 Riggs Place.

A quick scan of the block didn't reveal any black Range Rovers among the several other brands of luxury vehicles parked along both sides of the narrow, tree-lined street.

Well, what do you know? I thought, squinting at the shutter-lined upper windows of the house. In his secret life Paul seemed to be doing darn well for himself.

But was it his house? I truly didn't want it to be. If I ever wanted to be completely wrong about something, it was this.

Let there be some explanation, Paul. Something I can stomach.

I was about to take a spin for a restroom break an hour later, when the front door finally opened. None other than Paul came down the brick stoop of the town house, carrying the blue Tiffany bag.

He pressed the key fob in his hand, and the headlights of a hunter green convertible Jaguar on the far corner glowed with a double bloop .

That really wasn't fair, I thought, sublimating the urge to plow the rented car broadside into the Jaguar. Why couldn't we have the Jag in our dimension?

Next up, I tailed Paul through the afternoon traffic. We made a turn onto 14th Street and passed a bunch of lettered side streets, S Street, R. I followed Paul left onto Q Street, then right onto 13th Street and around the rotary to O Street. I watched as he pulled into the parking lot of an ivy-covered brick building.

The Chamblis School, said a brass sign on its wall. This couldn't be good. Not a chance in hell that this was the happy ending I was looking for.

I parked at a hydrant, feeling like I was in a trance as I watched Paul get out of the Jag, carrying the Tiffany bag.

So, Veronica Boyd was a teacher? I could just about picture her. Preppy and little and blonde. Not to mention young. And very attractive, of course.

Was that what this was all about? I thought, starting to fume in the car. Out with the old, in with the new?

I watched Paul return to the Jag three minutes later.

What in the world?

She was young, all right.

A three- or four-year-old girl wearing a plaid jumper threw her arms around Paul's neck. He closed his eyes as he hugged her and then opened the bag. The little girl removed a white teddy bear wearing a silver necklace and kissed it.

Paul lifted her up under her arms and carefully put her and the teddy bear into the car.

I was still sitting, immobilized, when Paul maneuvered the purring Jag around the wagons, SUVs, and Hummers of the other parents picking up their kids. When he stopped at the corner, I got a good look at the girl through the back window.

My lungs quit. No inhaling. No exhaling.

I recognized that pin-straight nose, those blue eyes, that sandy hair. The girl was as beautiful as Paul was handsome. She'd gotten all of his looks.

I couldn't believe it, absolutely couldn't. The pain was unreal, impossible to imagine without actually experiencing it, open-heart surgery without anesthesia.

Things were a thousand times worse than I'd ever thought they could be. Paul had pulled off the cruelest trick possible.

A baby, I thought.

Paul had had a baby.

Without me.

I ARRIVED BACK at 221 Riggs Place just in time to see Paul coming back out of the house with his little girl, and a Dora the Explorer bike complete with training wheels. I nodded ironically as he popped the smiling child onto it and headed the bicycle south down the sidewalk.

Off to the playground, no doubt. I always knew Paul would make an excellent father.

When they were out of sight, I emerged from the Taurus and headed for the stoop. Just one more thing to do here, I thought as I climbed the stairs mechanically and rang the doorbell. One final detail to take care of.