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

try. I do remember that she was really strange. Flirty one minute, then next, cold fish. You know?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Come on, man, don’t be that way. You know how these girls can be. They’re total teases. They come down here to party and get out of control, right up until the minute they decide they want to be good girls and go home.”

“Is that what made you angry? That Paige wanted to go home?”

“No, I’m just saying…”

“Is that why you trapped her on your boat? So that you could party?”

“Trapped? No, man, it wasn’t like that…wait, I remember now! Those crazy loud girls—they pulled Paige away from Jake. He held on to her hands, trying to convince her to stay, but her friends wouldn’t let her. They practically dragged her away.”

“And that’s the last time you saw her.”

Halsey glances behind Quinn. “Yeah, I swear.”

A short while later, Captain Jacob Kurtz is placed in the same seat while the others guard Halsey in another room. Kurtz doesn’t look behind Quinn. Not even once. No matter how many times Quinn says her name.

“The last time anyone saw Paige Ryerson alive,” Quinn says, “was when she was dancing with you. Why did you kill her?”

“That’s not true,” Kurtz says, “and you know it. Those Clee girls dragged her away. And anyway, I heard she was making out with some islander cop later that night. So why don’t you go talk to him and let us be on our way?”

“Nobody saw you on that yacht after your dance with Paige. You followed her down the beach. You couldn’t get over her turning you down, even though you’re old enough to be her father. You followed her and saw her kissing that cop and it drove you insane.…”

“Come on, man. You know that’s not right.”

“And it drove you insane,” Quinn repeats, “that she would be with someone else instead of you. So after she broke things off with the cop you followed her. You strangled her. You buried her body. That”—Quinn pauses to jerk a thumb at the corpse behind him—“body right there. And then you just…sailed away.”

“This is all crazy. If you’ve got proof, then show it to me. Otherwise, you need to let me go.”

Quinn calls for Otto to take the suspect away. All of that suppressed emotion comes bubbling out of Kurtz now. He yells about how this farce of an interrogation will never stand up in court, how Halsey’s lawyers will crucify Quinn for this, and so on and so on.

But Quinn is barely listening. After a moment, Jana enters the room, touches Quinn’s shoulder. “What are you thinking, my dear?”

“I’m thinking we let them both go. They didn’t do it.”

Chapter 29

QUINN (continued)

“I’m resisting,” Theo says.

“Resisting what, exactly?” Jana asks.

“Resisting the urge to dance around and do this.…”—at which point Theo starts to do an exaggerated Broadway dance number, all to the nonexistent tune of “I Told You So.”

“Come on, get into character,” Quinn snaps. “Here he comes.”

Indeed he comes. And Paolo Salese the playboy lifeguard is furious. He scans the crowd outside the casino, searching for the face that did him wrong. And then he finds it. Theo Selznick, standing on the corner, giving him a shy little wave. Which seems to infuriate Paolo even more.

Quinn and Jana, meanwhile, stroll down the sidewalk, arms locked, taking in the laid-back decadence of a Caribbean-style resort.

Paolo crosses the street, finger pointing at Theo. “You gave me a bag full of fake rocks!”

“What are you talking about? You had your guy there. He authenticated them.”

“Whatever, man. You fooled him, but you didn’t fool the guys who mattered—the guys who almost killed me for trying to pawn off fake diamonds! Look, I don’t know what kind of scam you’re pulling, but you’re going to give me my money right now.”

“I know you’re upset, but hey…so am I. You led me to the wrong dead girl.”

This statement acts like a bucket of ice water on Paolo’s growing rage.

“W-what? What do you mean, wrong girl?”

At this very moment, Quinn and Jana pass by, and Jana heaves a punch into Paolo’s midsection that certainly would have made him double over—if Theo hadn’t been there to grab his shoulder and the waist of his pants to keep him upright.

“Come on,” Theo says, “let’s talk this whole thing out.”

Talking this whole thing out, in this instance, means hustling Paolo into the back of an idling SUV. Quinn knows this is technically kidnapping, but he doesn’t care. Jana takes the wheel, and Quinn and Theo sit on either side of the lifeguard, who is struggling to catch his breath.

Quinn says, “We know the girl wasn’t Paige Ryerson. Who was she?”

“I’m telling you…it’s the girl.…”

“No, it’s not, Paolo,” Theo says. “You stole Paige’s ring and watch and put them on a fresh corpse. So who was she?”

“You can’t do this to me.…”

Quinn places two fingers on Paolo’s chin and moves his head to the right so they’re looking directly into each other’s eyes. “You have no idea what we’re capable of, Mr. Salese.”

The head tilt is a distraction so that Theo can inject the lifeguard with a knockout cocktail. Paolo feels the pinch, but two seconds later, the lights go out.

“Take us to the beach, Jana,” Quinn says.

By the time the lights come back on for Paolo Salese, he’s lying on his back in a grave in the same bottle-littered stretch of beach where the corpse with Paige’s ring and watch was buried. He’s three feet down, with enough sand shoveled onto his body to immobilize him while keeping his head uncovered.

It’s four o’clock in the morning, so when Paolo starts screaming, there’s nobody awake to hear him.

“Shhh,” Quinn says, crouching down. “Calm down. If we wanted to kill you, you wouldn’t have woken up at all.”

This seems to calm the lifeguard down a little, as he realizes there might be a way out of this. Theo and Jana are standing on either side of Quinn, looking down into the