Worst Case - James Patterson [31]
“But,” Emily said, raising a barbecue-sauce-coated finger across the table, “you’ve spoken to this guy, Mike. He seems educated and very articulate. He doesn’t strike me as inadequate.”
I shrugged.
“Then he must be deformed or something, because no way is that staging and Q-and-A stuff a setup. Our cultured friend is getting his rocks off.”
“You have a point there,” Emily said.
I was shocked when the waitress came back around and Emily ordered a Jack Daniel’s.
“What happened to the full-sugar Coke? You hear that rumbling sound? That’s the sound of J. Edgar rolling over in his grave.”
“What can I say, Mike? You’ve completely corrupted me,” Emily said with a wink. “They warned me about you New York cops. Stupid me. I should have listened.”
When the check came, I tucked my credit card over the bill.
“Hold on. What are you doing?” Emily said, going into her purse. “We’re splitting this. You’re acting like this is a date.”
“Am I?” I said, staring into her eyes as I handed the bill to the waitress.
She stared back for a couple of long, very pleasant moments. She blushed. No, actually that was me.
What the hell I was doing, I didn’t know. My wife had been dead two years, and usually I felt unsettled when it came to new lady friends. Special Agent Emily Parker was different, I guess.
Or maybe I was just going crazy. That was probably it.
Chapter 33
IT WAS ALMOST nine p.m. when the end-of-day task force meeting ended, and an exhausted Emily Parker arrived back at her hotel. Six minutes after that, the top of her head hit the surface of the hotel’s indoor lap pool with a satisfying smack.
There was nothing like that first, magical moment for her. Like she did in every new pool she was in, she plunged down into the cold serenity of the water until her hand passed across the pool’s gritty bottom.
She sat Indian-style and closed her eyes. There were no worries down here. No aggravated bosses. No stresses. Certainly no dead children.
When she was growing up, her family had a pool in Virginia, and she’d spent practically every moment of every summer, from the time she was six until she turned ten, at the bottom of it pretending she was a mermaid. She’d close her eyes and put out her hand, waiting for it to be enveloped by her beloved mer-prince, who’d take her away to her lost kingdom.
When her lungs began to burn almost a minute later, Emily remembered that Chelsea Skinner had been a lifeguard.
She broke the surface and started her workout. Usually laps were enough to clear her head, but even after five, she couldn’t help thinking about the case. Swimming the English Channel probably wouldn’t have been enough to get her mind off this one.
The PD’s lab had still been working on the body by the time the task force meeting wrapped up. Mike had told her they’d had to cut off the top of the freezer with a Sawzall in order to get Chelsea out.
There was something so disturbing about this killer. Most serials went out of their way to avoid attention, Emily knew. This one seemed to relish it. It was as if he wanted to rub their noses in what he was doing.
What had he said? “Tell Mom I said hi.” Even for a sociopath predator, the callousness and arrogance of it was mind-blowing. This guy wasn’t just confident, he was cocky. With the exception of letting the one drug dealer spot him, he hadn’t made a single mistake.
Twenty laps later, Emily Parker carded back into her room and called home.
“How is she?” she asked her brother, Tom.
“You’re going to love this, Em. Today, one of Olivia’s knucklehead boy classmates overheard the teacher call her Olivia Jacqueline and then proceeded to call her OJ Parker for the rest of the morning.”
“That little bum,” Emily said.
“No, wait,” her brother said, laughing. “The kid’s name is Brian Kevin Sullivan, so the Olive dubbed him BK Sullivan. Now everybody calls him Burger King Sullivan. How do you like that? I think Burger King is going to think twice next time he wants to mess with the Olive.”
Emily couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Where is she now?”
“She’s in bed.