The Quickie - James Patterson [68]
Bonnie looked out the window onto crowded Mott Street. There was pain in her eyes.
“I don’t know. How could I, Lauren? Maybe he just borrowed the blanket off a friend, but it definitely throws some doubt out there, doesn’t it?” she said. “The kind of doubt a defense lawyer would have a field day with. Not to mention the press jackals.”
I looked at the neon Chinese characters in the restaurant window. A black eel in the aquarium beside our booth batted his head against the glass as if trying to get my attention and say something. Hey, Lauren. Why don’t you just run screaming out of the restaurant? Don’t stop till you get to Bellevue.
Bonnie straightened the papers against the tabletop, pushed them back into the envelope, and stuffed the whole thing down into my bag.
“But I decided it’s the kind of doubt this city, this department, Scott’s wife, and most especially you, Lauren, don’t need thrown out there.”
She gestured toward my handbag.
“That’s why I’m giving it to you, honey. This case was screwed for everyone involved from the word go. This is my retirement present to you. The DC detective’s name and contact info are somewhere in those sheets, if you ever want to pursue it on your own. Or you can chuck it off the Brooklyn Bridge. Your choice.”
Bonnie planted a big kiss on my forehead as she stood up at our table.
“One thing I’ve learned as a cop is that you do what you can. It’s not our fault that sometimes that’s not enough. Lauren, you’re my friend, and I love you, and it’s up to you. See you around.”
Chapter 97
IT WAS A FEW HOURS LATER, and dark, when I found myself standing in Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan.
Manhattan, my father used to say before we’d start his thrice-weekly walks from this very park. The greatest treadmill in the world.
His postretirement exercise routine consisted of riding the subway here to the last stop, walking over to Broadway, and seeing how many of Manhattan’s thirteen concrete miles he could cover before he got tired and hopped on an uptown subway headed back home. All through law school, I’d go with him if I had the chance. Listen to him talk about the crimes and arrests that occurred at the countless intersections. It was on one of those walks with Dad that I decided I wanted to be a cop rather than a lawyer. Wanted to be just like my father.
And it was right here, at the beginning of one of those walks, all alone, that he died of a heart attack. As if he’d have it no other way than to pass on the streets of the city he served and loved.
I rested the FBI report against the rusted railing before me as I listened to the dark waves slap against the concrete pier.
Just when I’d completed the toughest puzzle ever, Dad, I thought.
I’d been handed an extra piece.
Story of my life recently.
“What do I do, Pop?” I whispered as tears fell down my cheeks. “I don’t know what to do.”
There were exactly two options, I knew.
I could toss away Bonnie’s gift, like I had the rest of the evidence, and head to my new life in Connecticut, a blissful soccer-mom-to-be.
Or I could slap myself out of my denial and figure out what the hell was going on with my life, and with my mysterious husband.
I held the envelope over the railing.
This was an easy one, right?
All I had to do was release my fingers and it would be over.
I would go to the train and head north, where safety, my husband, and my new life waited.
A gust of wind picked up off the water, flapping the envelope in my hand.
Let it go, I thought. Let it go, let it go.
But, finally, I dug my nails into the envelope and clutched it to my chest.
I couldn’t. I needed to get to the bottom of this, no matter how hard, how ugly, it got. Even after everything I had pulled, all the craziness, all the hurting my friends and covering things up, I guess there was still some scrap of detective left in me. Maybe more than a scrap.
I closed my eyes tightly. Somewhere in the darkness of the park behind me, I sensed an old man stretching his legs, limbering up for