The Palm Beach Murders by James Patterson (best novels in english .txt) 📗

make sure I’m not coming after him. Believe me, I’m tempted. But my job now is to keep vigil over Paige, buried among these beer bottles and plastic cups. I sit down and stare at the ocean, trying to calm myself. I think about the cases we’ve handled as a team. Not one of them feels as heavy as this one does now.

Quinn and Jana arrive. They don’t bother to say hello; they see the lost look on my face. Jana peers down into the open grave, and genuine grief washes over her face. Quinn, as usual, keeps his emotions buried deep within a lockbox in his mind.

“Paolo split a few minutes ago,” I tell him. “We can still catch up with him. Pound the truth out of him.”

“No,” Quinn says. “Let him go.”

“Why?”

“Because he didn’t kill Paige.”

Chapter 25

JANA (THE ACTOR)

My dear Matthew, do you remember the first time I told you I’d performed autopsies and you didn’t believe me?

We were out for a nightcap, and I dropped that little bit of trivia on you. You said it wasn’t true. I insisted it was. This was followed by a frenzied cab ride to Boston University School of Medicine, where you generously tipped our way into the cadaver lab and then offered an extraordinarily large tip (some might even call it a minor grant) for a fresh cadaver. You simply had to see me in action for yourself. It was put up or shut up time for me.

So I grabbed the nearest scalpel and put up.

At the time, you didn’t know that I was once cast in a pilot for a TV show called Flesh and Blood, where I portrayed a plucky yet brilliant medical examiner (aren’t they all). That show was never picked up, but I threw myself into the role with great élan. I took classes. I pored over texts. And soon I talked my way into rooms with real medical examiners who showed me the ropes. Or the intestines, as it were. The examiners allowed me to do a little cutting, too. It was glorious.

I’ll never forget the look on your face as I glided the scalpel down the front of that anonymous corpse and proceeded to give you a tour of the dead man’s internal organs.

In this bleak room now, however, the mood is much more somber.

“It’s her, isn’t it?” Theo asks. “I mean, there’s the ring, and the watch.”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” I tell him. “There are five stages of decomposition, and this body is in the second stage—bloat.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“You don’t have to be in here, you know.”

“No,” Theo says. “I really do.”

This is what we both love about Theo. Beneath that swaggering, devil-may-care exterior is a human being with a good heart, who cares until it hurts.

I begin my work.

Fortunately, my dear Matthew, you’ve secured us an emergency trauma center, the one erected to serve the population if  a natural disaster occurs here on the island. It has the official seal of CDEMA, the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, and all the tools I need for a speedy autopsy. You were very thoughtful to procure a set of Paige’s most recent medical records so that I might make some comparisons to confirm her identity.

“How do you know Paolo didn’t do it?” Theo asks.

Quinn says, “A guilty man would have long fled by now. Instead, Mr. Salese stayed around to profit from his knowledge of the crime.”

“Which means he knows who did it—which is just as bad.”

“Not necessarily. Just because you hear about a certain crime doesn’t mean you’re an accomplice. Besides, he’s not going anywhere with those fake diamonds you gave him. I presume he’s going to learn the truth very soon, and he’ll come looking for you.”

I interrupt the boys. “And when he does, I’d like a word with him.”

“Why’s that?” Theo asks.

“For a man whose alleged profession is lifeguard, he seems to have run into more than his fair share of dead people.”

“What do you mean?” Matthew asks.

“This woman is definitely not Paige Ryerson.”

Chapter 26

KATE (THE SOLDIER)

Okay, Quinn—here’s the lowdown.

We arrested the trust fund kid and his captain a little after midnight, just as the Hostile Wake-Over was preparing to leave port.

Of course I knew Jamie Halsey and Jacob Kurtz would try to bolt. Once we allowed word to spread that Paige Ryerson’s body had been unearthed, it would only be a matter of time before the rich little snot and his captain either lawyered up or decided to split. An interception of port communications revealed the pair had chosen the latter.

“Hands in the air!” I shouted the minute I set foot on deck, flashing my forged badge. “You’re under arrest!”

Otto played the role of my partner this time around. His MO was to say next to nothing but maintain a steady, hyperalert expression that said, If you try to run, not only will I catch you—I will destroy you.

Kurtz knew better. Clearly, he had been on the other side of a Miranda warning before. He put lifted hands, palms out, to indicate he wouldn’t be reaching for a weapon (to shoot his way out) or a wallet (to buy his way out).

His young boss, however, was clearly a law enforcement virgin. Jamie Halsey’s face burned bright red, as if he’d been caught in the act of something naughty, and he began to stammer a weird blend of explanation and threat.

“W-wait wait! We weren’t d-doing anything! We were due to leave tonight because I have a meeting in the morning. Ask Captain Kurtz—I swear it’s the truth. You can’t stop us! I don’t even think you have jurisdiction here. My father will make you both sorry you ever set foot on this boat!”

Kurtz shook his head and muttered, “Jamie, quit it.”

I nodded at Otto, who pulled a pair of handcuffs from a case strapped to his belt and approached Kurtz. Otto cuffed Kurtz in front, an indication that we could be civilized about this whole thing.

“What’s the charge, Officer? Or