James Patterson - Second Honeymoon

I looked up at the large gold cross looming over the altar. It suddenly occurred to me. This wasn’t going to be a long, drawn-out hostage situation. In fact, it wasn’t a hostage situation at all.

My eyes shot back down to Cole. I stared at her again, from head to toe. She was drenched, all right, only it wasn’t sweat, was it?

Oh, Jesus, Jesus…

I could smell it now, the odor finally traveling the distance from the altar to our pew. Isopropanol. Rubbing alcohol.

“Good-bye,” she said.

I jumped up from the pew as Martha dropped the gun, revealing a small lighter in her other hand. So quick, so fast, she flicked a thumb.

“No!” I yelled. “You don’t have to do this! You don’t!”

That’s when Martha Cole spoke her last words—the two words there at the altar that she never got to say.

“I do.”

There was nothing we could do. Cole pushed Father Reese away and brought the lighter to her dress.

She went up in flames.

Chapter 105

WHY WOULD SOMEONE do what she’d done? That’s usually the first question in the wake of a person’s suicide. But Martha Cole had told us everything we wanted to know about her motives. Not only why she took her own life but also why she took the lives of people she’d never even met.

It was those lives, especially those of the three newlywed couples, that left us with the real unanswered question. How? How the hell did she do it? Slipping in and out of the grounds of the Governor’s Club in Turks and Caicos to trap and then poison Ethan and Abigail Breslow in their sauna? Evading security at Kennedy Airport to poison Scott and Annabelle Pierce before their flight to Italy?

And finally, as if bored with poisons, or looking to show the breadth of her expertise, rigging a bomb aboard the boat that Parker and Samantha Keller had docked in Bermuda?

The answers to all my questions came soon enough. Or at least I got the sort of information that makes you nod your head and go, “Well, that might explain it.”

Within an hour of Martha Cole’s death, her military file had made its way to Dan Driesen, who e-mailed the pertinent information along to us.

“Here,” said Sarah, handing her phone over to me once she’d read the message.

We’d just wrapped up our “official” statements to Detective Harris as well as to two detectives from the nearest Brooklyn precinct.

I’d even made a call to Warner Breslow, who was in London on business. I told him the news, bittersweet as it was. The murders of his son and new daughter-in-law were more senseless than he could’ve imagined. Would knowing who did it bring him any closure, any sense of justice? For a man like Breslow, I was afraid the answer was no.

“We’ll talk again when I get back,” he told me. “You did a fine job, John. Thank you.”

Reading Driesen’s e-mail, I couldn’t help thinking about all those naysayers and conspiracy buffs who could never quite fathom how Lee Harvey Oswald managed to fire three shots from a bolt-action rifle in roughly eight seconds. No way—that’s too fast! There had to be a second shooter! Of course, what the conspiracy theorists always seemed to forget is that Oswald wasn’t some self-taught dope who was practicing on tin cans in his backyard. Oswald had received the very best training in the world—on Uncle Sam’s dime, no less. In the U.S. Marine Corps.

Martha Cole had been a sergeant in the army, having received training in a wide range of disciplines, including weaponry, explosives, reconnaissance, and sabotage. She was smart, athletically gifted, and an adrenaline junkie. This was according to her psych evaluation.

A hundred times out of a hundred, such a profile makes for an excellent soldier. And during her tour in Afghanistan, that’s exactly what she was. The problem began when she returned home. The unofficial term is redlining . Like a Ferrari stuck in fifth gear, she was unable to downshift back into the mundanity of civilian life. New York may be the city that never sleeps, but it was no match for the 24-7 danger of Afghanistan and the Taliban forces.

Ultimately, her relationship with Robert Macintyre paid the price. After that, her entire life exploded into rage and revenge.

So now we had the why as well as the how. The only question left was, what? As in, What now?

Cole was gone, but somewhere out there Ned Sinclair was still plotting my death. Tomorrow I’d worry about him. Tonight, I was too tired, my brain too fried.

Sarah was shaking hands with Harris, saying thanks and good-bye. The second he walked off, I made my way over to her. She smiled. I smiled back. Then I leaned over and whispered in her ear.

She thought it over for a grand total of one split second.

“Absolutely,” she answered.

Chapter 106

JESUS, WHAT THE hell happened to you two?

The guy pouring us the shots of tequila never came right out and said it. Nor did any of the other patrons at the bar, who couldn’t help staring. Our clothes were ripped and singed, our faces and hands filthy. Basically we looked as if we’d been dragged through hell and back.

It’s a good thing we didn’t give a damn.

And after about a half dozen more tequila shots, we really didn’t give a damn.

Sarah and I had grabbed the last two stools at the end of the bar in what was basically the first place we could find near Saint Alexander’s that served alcohol. It was a small restaurant called Deuces and Eights, one of those “local joints” with dinner specials written on a blackboard and a bunch of softball-league trophies on display.

“Wow,” I said, watching Sarah throw back yet another shot with ease. “I had no idea.”

“About what?” she asked, smacking her lips, then wiping her mouth.

“That you could drink like that. You’re not even Irish.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I know, and I’m a girl, too.”

“Not like any I know.”

“Careful, O’Hara,” she said. “That sounded dangerously close to being a compliment.”

“Must be the tequila talking.”

“In that case, it’s time for another.”

She waved to the bartender, who was loading the fridge underneath the cash register with more beers, a brown-and-green assortment of Budweisers and Rolling Rocks.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

She folded her arms. “Did you or did you not whisper in my ear that we should both get drunk?”

I scratched my head. “Sounds vaguely familiar. I think I remember something like that.”

“Good. Then stop being such a pansy. Drink or give up your seat to someone who will.”

“Okay, now you’re asking for it.”

The bartender arrived, a bottle of Patrón already in hand. He’d seen this movie before. “Let me guess,” he said. “Another round?”

I shook my head no. “Make it two rounds,” I said. “We had a very, very tough couple of days at work.”

While the guy chuckled and poured, I reached into my wallet. I can’t say what happened next was the plan all along, but, as with the jack of diamonds in a game of hearts, I knew I had a pretty good card to play.

“What’s that?” she asked. “Are you paying the bill?”

“It’s not a credit card.”

“It sure looks like it,” she said, taking it from me. She stared at it—front and back. “There’s nothing on it.”

She was right: there wasn’t. It was black, polished to a blinding shine, and had the thickness of a poker chip. But, as Sarah said, there was nothing on it. Just inside it, I presumed.

“Okay, I give up. What’s it for?” she asked.

“It’s what it does.”

“Which is what? What does it do?”

I swiped it back from her. “Only one way to find out,” I said.