Worst Case - James Patterson [19]
“Four.”
“The only age we don’t have in this house,” I said. “What are the odds?”
Mary Catherine came in with two plates and caught us laughing.
“Mary, that isn’t what I think it is, is it? Apple pie?” Emily said.
Mary Catherine dropped the plates loudly on the table.
“I left the stove on,” she said, quickly turning around. “Will that be all tonight, Mr. Bennett?”
“Sure . . . that’s fine, Mary,” I said, a little confused.
When the kitchen door closed, I lifted the picture of Olivia off the table.
“So, where’s Olivia’s dad?” I said. I put the picture down. Wow, did I just say that out loud? Real subtle there, Mike. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”
“No, it’s okay. Olivia’s dad is in, um, California. We’ve been divorced two years now. We met in the air force. John was a little rough around the edges, but he was loving and funny and a brilliant natural mechanic. I always thought of him as the impulsive yin to my everything-in-its-place yang.
“In the beginning, everything was fine. John ran the service department of the Bethesda Mercedes dealership as I got promoted up through the ranks of the Bureau. It was hectic, of course, juggling two jobs and then Olivia, but we were a team, a real family. Then, two days after Olivia’s second birthday, John announced he needed to redefine himself.
“First came the tats and the piercings, and then finally, without my knowledge, the purchase of a body shop in California with most of our joint savings.”
“Ouch,” I said.
“Yeah, ouch is the word. JonJon’s Rods does custom hot rods for all the stars now, GTOs, Shelby Cobras. California’s actually been really good for him.”
“And really, really shitty for you and your daughter,” I said.
Emily finished her wine and placed the glass carefully on the tablecloth in front of her.
“I should get going before you have to roll me out of here, Mike. I can’t tell you what a nice time I had. Your kids are even more incredible than that meal was. You’re a lucky man.”
“I’ll get you a taxi,” I said, standing.
The dining room table was cleared by the time I got back upstairs. I found Mary Catherine in the kitchen, banging dishes into the machine.
“Mary Catherine, you didn’t happen to see my slice of pie, did you?”
“Oh, sorry. I tossed it,” she said without turning around. “I thought you were done.”
She wiped her hands on a dish towel and opened the back door, heading to her room on our prewar’s top floor.
“Good night, now,” she said, slamming the door behind her.
Chrissy came into the kitchen then in her pajamas as I was wrapping my mind around what had just occurred.
“Daddy, Shawna says that Emily Parker is your new girlfriend. Is that true?” Chrissy said.
Oh, I thought, staring at the just-slammed door. Okay. Now I got it.
Like I said, men are dumb.
Part Two
FINAL EXAM
Chapter 19
CHELSEA SKINNER COULDN’T stop trembling. At first it was strictly because of fear, but after three hours of lying bound on a bone-numbingly cold stone floor, she felt like she was actually freezing to death.
The only other time she could remember being as cold was when she went skiing in Colorado for the first time, when she was six. Seeing her breath in the backyard of the house that her dad had just built, she’d made her mom crack up as she pretended to smoke an imaginary cigarette.
Chelsea began to cry through her chattering teeth. That was her problem right there, wasn’t it? Always wanting to be older, always having to push it. Why couldn’t she just be satisfied? It was as if there were a hole inside her, and no matter what she tried to fill it with—clothes, food, friends, drugs, boys—there was always just a little itty-bitty space left that kept her from feeling like a whole person. She practically deserved this. It was bound to happen. It was—
Stop! she commanded herself. You stop that right now!
She’d been abducted, and she was getting down on herself? Blaming herself? That had to stop yesterday. This wasn’t therapy. This wasn’t a confidence-building activity at Big Country, the wilderness rehab camp that