Worst Case - James Patterson [61]
I wondered with a cold chill if it was in the killer’s mind to shoot people who had ashes today. That he was going to do something was a given. Every indication was that today was the day. The only questions left were where and how.
I rubbed my eyes before I lifted my coffee and took a large gulp. My blood caffeine level had hit record highs in the past couple of sleepless days, but it couldn’t be helped. After last night’s end-of-day task force meeting, I’d spent much of the night Googling everything I could on Ash Wednesday.
Ash Wednesday was one of the most solemn days in the Catholic liturgical year. It was a day for contemplating one’s transgressions.
But whose transgressions was the killer trying to point out with the slayings? The dead kids’? Society’s? His own?
I caught my ash-streaked, mournful reflection in the plate glass.
Well, I was certainly stewing in my own lapses this morning, I thought, looking away. For not already putting an end to this horrible case.
As Chrissy played peekaboo with a neighboring toddler in a stroller, I checked my cell phone for the millionth time to see if I had missed any messages. I winced when only my Yankees-logo wallpaper appeared again. Emily had put an incredible rush on the print, but there was still no word.
I spun my phone on the chessboard tabletop as I looked out the window down Broadway. I could feel the moments slipping away from me, and there was nothing I could do.
Where and how? I thought. Where and how?
Chapter 69
MY CASE-DISTRACTED MIND still hadn’t come a hundred percent back online as I stepped with Chrissy into my apartment ten minutes later. Otherwise, I would have checked my caller ID before I snapped open my phone.
“What’s the story?” I yelled into it.
“What story?” my grandfather Seamus said. “Actually, who cares? Did you tell her yet?”
“Tell who what?”
“Mary Catherine, ya eedjit! See, I knew you’d forget. And with MC in such a riled knot of late. Does the song ‘Happy Birthday’ ring a bell, Detective?”
“Holy sh— . . . ugar,” I said. “No. I forgot.”
Eedjit was right! I thought. I’d blown this one big-time. I could at least have brought her back a muffin or something. What would Mary Catherine throw out of mine next? I wondered. I needed to address the situation, and pronto. I heard the tea kettle start to boil in the kitchen. Maybe I still had a shot.
“I’m all over it, Father,” I said, hanging up.
Mary was taking a mug down from the cabinet just inside the kitchen door.
“Mary. There you are,” I said, surprising her with a hug.
“Happy birthday!” I said as merrily as I could and went to plant a kiss on her cheek.
But as it turned out, I was the one who got the surprise present.
Mary Catherine turned her head, and our lips locked. At first, I pulled back as if I’d been Tasered, but then, before I knew it, my hand found the back of her neck and we were, well, making out would be the exact expression.
Mary’s unheeded mug slid off the counter and shattered.
I guess you could call it pretty hot-and-heavy making out.
“Mary Catherine!” Chrissy called a second later just outside the kitchen door.
Mary almost broke my nose as she ripped herself away from me. Her face was at least twenty shades redder than her strawberry-blond hair. My face felt like it was on fire. I couldn’t seem to close my mouth.
“Goddamn you, Mike,” she said before she fled out the doorway. Was she crying? Why was she crying? I was having trouble enough breathing. I heard the hall bathroom door slam a second later.
I was still standing there, brain-locked and blinking, when Chrissy came in. “Where’s MC?” she said.
“I’m not sure. I broke a mug, Chrissy. Could you get me the dustpan?”
Chapter 70
I WAS DOWN on my hands and knees, dazed and sweeping up, when my cell rattled.
“Hey, Mike,” Agent Parker said. “Get down here. I have news. I’m right outside your building.”
“Thank God,” I said, dumping the last of the shards into the garbage. “I mean,