Honeymoon - James Patterson [81]
Susan turned around. She was a tough cookie and almost always unflappable, though you’d never know it to see her face at that moment. The concern and disappointment were unmistakable.
“You made me look bad, John.”
“I know,” I said quickly. A little too quickly.
“No, I mean, really bad.”
I gave a good, long stare down at my feet. “I’m sorry,” I said softly.
“Hell, you knew that working this through my department was bending the rules to begin with.”
I said nothing. To know Susan as I did was to know she was trying to get it out of her system. The anger, the frustration, the letdown. I figured she probably had one more good primal scream left in her before she could move on.
“Damn it, John, how could you be so fucking stupid!”
And there it was.
When the foundation of the building stopped shaking, she resumed her calm, stoic demeanor. There was still the matter of a serial killer on the loose and the need to catch her. Unfortunately, the reports from the field continued to offer little cause for optimism. Even the media coverage yielded nothing. Nora seemed to have completely disappeared.
“What about our people in the Caymans?” I asked.
“Nothing,” said Susan. “The Caribbean, the entire town of Briarcliff Manor, her apartment here in the city, and all points in between; she hasn’t been spotted anywhere.”
“Christ, where is she?”
“That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.” Susan glanced down at a piece of paper on her desk—scribbled on it was the amount of money frozen in Nora’s account. “Or should I say, the eighteen-million, four-hundred-and-twenty-six-thousand-dollar question?”
It was a staggering number.
“That reminds me,” I said. “What about the tax attorney, Keppler?”
“The one you strong-armed?”
“I prefer the term cajoled.”
“Either way, Nora hasn’t contacted his office.”
“Maybe I could pay another visit to the guy and—”
She stopped me. “You’re chained to your desk, remember? And who knows what’s going to happen after.” She managed a slight smile. “On the bright side, if you are suspended, perhaps you’ll have more time to spend with your boys.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “That all depends if their mother will let me.”
Susan turned around again and gazed out the window. “You know, if you were as good a husband as you are a father, we never would’ve split up.”
Chapter 107
I WAS ALWAYS lousy at sitting still. Now I was supposed to be doing it for an indefinite period. After two days of being chained to my desk, I was already stir-crazy. There was paperwork to be done, but I wasn’t doing it. All I could do was stare out the office window at the gray gloom of downtown New York. And wonder.
Where the hell is she?
The reports coming back from the field were short but hardly sweet. No sign of Nora anywhere. No trace of her. How the hell could she disappear?
The routine was maddening. The phone would ring in my office, I’d listen to the update, and then I’d slam the phone back down. I was being consumed by frustration. The sign on my back was clear for everyone: WARNING! CONTENTS UNDER EXTREME PRESSURE.
The phone rang again. I picked up and braced for more of the same. “O’Hara,” I said.
I heard nothing back.
“Hello?”
Still nothing.
“Is anyone there?”
“I’ve missed you,” she said softly.
I shot up in my chair.
“Well, aren’t you going to say something?” Nora asked. “Did you miss me? Not even the sex? Not even that?”
I was about to answer—I’d opened my mouth, prepared to unleash a venomous rant, but then I stopped myself. I needed to keep Nora on the line.
I hit the RECORD button on my phone, followed by the button next to it, which triggered a trace. Deep breath. “How are you, Nora?”
She laughed. “Oh, c’mon, at least yell at me. The man I knew wasn’t the type to hold back.”
“You mean Craig Reynolds?”
“You’re not going to hide behind the Insurance Man, are you?”
“He wasn’t real. None of it was real, Nora.”
“You wish that were true. Right now the only truth is, you can’t make up your mind. You don’t know if you want to fuck me or kill me.”
“I’m pretty clear on that,” I said.