James Patterson - The Quickie

He looked at me quizzically. Now it was my turn to hurt him. Let's see how he liked getting his heart napalmed.

"You left something out. Something really important, Paul. The cop I watched you kill. I was there when you killed Scott, dumbass."

PAUL'S FACE SEEMED TO CRUMBLE in front of me. "You were where ?" he asked.

"At Scott's place in Riverdale," I told him. "You must have read our e-mails, but guess what? You were too late. He'd just been with me, Paul. Right before you cracked his skull open, we'd been in bed together. Turnabout is fair play, no? So how does it feel?"

Apparently not too good. Paul's mouth was gaping wider than The Scream 's. "So you were… How did…," he stammered.

"That's right, Paul," I said. "Surprise, surprise."

I grabbed his wrist, squeezed with all my might.

"Who the hell do you think has been keeping you out of jail all this time? Your fairy godmother? I covered things up for you, destroyed my career – everything I was – in order to keep you out of prison. I actually felt sorry for you. Can you imagine that?"

Paul put his hand out toward my face. I slapped it down.

Other strollers started making a wide berth around us.

"And come to think of it," I snarled. "How dare you kill Scott when you knew you were being unfaithful to me? Who the hell are you? Thief. Murderer. Bigamist. What am I missing?"

I slapped him again, and it felt so good.

"Scott had a wife and three kids!"

Paul broke my grip, then walked away. He stood along the other side of the path so that I wouldn't hit him again, I assumed. After a while, he did something astounding. He started laughing .

"You want to let me in on the joke?" I said, red-faced, walking toward him. "I could use a real rib-tickler right around now."

Paul turned to me.

"Sure," he said. "Here's the punch line: I didn't kill Scott because he was sleeping with you. I had no idea about that, Lauren."

He folded his arms across his chest and gave me another smile. I didn't get it, not a word he was saying.

"I killed him because he was blackmailing me," said Paul.

NOW IT WAS MY TURN to put my head down between my knees.

"Blackmailing you?" I asked.

Paul nodded.

"A year ago, Veronica came up to New York. She has a friend who's a model or something who gets her work. Eleven o'clock in the morning, she finds herself in the middle of a drug raid, and I get this frantic call at work to go and try to help her out.

"I walk into this apartment down in SoHo, expecting a million cops, but there's only one. Scott Thayer . I'd gotten there too late, though, because Veronica got scared and told him we had money. He takes me into the kitchen and tells me he's a reasonable guy. He'll let everybody go free for ten grand cash."

I felt a sharp pain in my neck. My skin felt clammy.

"So I gave it to him," Paul said. "A month goes by. One day I'm coming back to my desk after lunch, and Thayer's sitting at it, holding a picture of you. He tells me that you two work out of the same precinct house, and for another twenty grand, not only will he not turn me in – nice guy that he is – he won't tell you about Veronica."

Paul looked at me. I stared back at him, my mouth gaping.

"So I give him that. It was when he came back the third time that I realized it would never end. He wanted fifty thousand. Instead of giving it to him, I decided I'd rather take a shot at wrapping things up my own way."

I listened to flute music from somewhere in the park. It sounded like a dirge at my own funeral.

I'd thought Paul had fought for me. That his killing Scott had been about me. But it was over money, blackmail.

"You understand that Thayer wasn't content to keep on blackmailing me," Paul continued. "He wanted all of it. He came after you to get another hook into me. That's all he wanted with you, Lauren."

"So you killed him, Paul?" I said bitterly. "You're a gangster now? Robbing people and shooting cops. Maybe you should cut a rap album."

Paul squinted down at the ground, then shrugged. "Things just kind of kept on happening. One thing led to another."

A scintilla of compassion rose inside me. The same thing had happened to me, hadn't it? I pushed the sympathy away as quickly as I could. The last thing I would do was feel sorry for Paul.

"Listen, Lauren," Paul said. "Why don't we call it the mother of all midlife crises? I'll do whatever you want now. Give the money back. Or we can just go. We'll drive to Reagan International straight from here. A million point-two dollars tax free is a lot of money. Why don't we just go and spend it? Raise our kid on a sailboat. You're mad now, but you betrayed me, too, remember? Let's just… go. C'mon, Lauren. We can do this together."

I SAT THERE, staring at my incredible con man of a husband. What an amazing liar he was. Then I dropped my eyes to the pavement, my shoulders slumping. The world seemed to slow suddenly, the music in the air, the sound of traffic.

It was official. I had given Paul everything that I possibly could. My love, my work, my reputation. And now I had absolutely zero left.

I was still sitting there, agonizing, when Paul's daughter appeared again. The nanny Paul had spoken to stood waiting a few feet away with another toddler and Caroline's bike.

"Daddy!" she said. "Pictures! I want to show Imelda the pictures."

"Not now, love," Paul called to the girl. "Later, sweetheart."

"But they're my brothers," the girl said, pulling a black-and-white photograph out of Paul's jacket before he could stop her. It fell to the ground as he tried to snatch it back.

"You're mean, Daddy," the four-year-old said with a pout. "I want Imelda to see the picture of my new twin brothers."

My eyes strained in their sockets. What !

Paul stared down at the small, square photograph, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"Show her later, Caroline," Paul snapped. Imelda took one look at him before quickly grabbing Caroline's hand and pulling her away.

I bent and lifted the precious picture off the pavement. I nodded once, twice.

It showed a sonogram. Two fetuses. Twins. I pictured Veronica again. Of course she looked like she'd recently put on weight. She was pregnant!

I looked at Paul's face, almost with fascination. He'd lied so effortlessly to me. Again and again.

He would never stop, I realized. There was something deeply, incredibly wrong with Paul. He would say anything, do anything. How could anyone tell lies like this? How could anyone do the awful things he'd done? Even the way he'd just snarled at his little girl. I'd protected a monster.

"I know exactly what we're going to do now," I said, letting the black-and-white picture fall to the cobblestones. "What I should have done when this whole thing started."

I whisked out my cuffs and snapped them onto his wrists. "Paul, you're under arrest."

NANNIES, CHESS PLAYERS, AND JOGGERS were outright gaping as I dragged a handcuffed Paul out of the park. Of course they looked at us. Good God, he was twice my size.

"You sure this is the right thing to do, Lauren?" he whined as I perp-walked him two long blocks back toward my Taurus.

"A million dollars? You still love me or you wouldn't have covered for me. Which isn't going to go well for you, either. You'll get charged as an accessory to murder. The baby will be born behind bars. You're not really thinking this through."

"Unfortunately for you, Paul, I'm tired of thinking," I said. "Thinking is what got me into this mess. I'm just doing what's right. Trying to, anyway."