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

grave as if they’re pallbearers at a secret funeral.

“But if you lie to us,” Theo says, “you’ll stay down there for good. You understand?”

“Yeah…I understand.”

“Who was the girl?” Jana asks.

“I don’t know,” Paolo says. “I swear to God, I don’t know.”

“Then how did you know where her body would be?” Theo asks.

“The day before you and I met, I got this call—the guy wouldn’t tell me his name. But he said that people would probably be asking me about the girl. And if that happened, I should play along, and he’d give me further instructions.”

“In exchange for what?” Theo asks.

“Money. Like you, he gave me a little down payment and promised me the rest when it was all over. That’s why I was trying to make a deal with you—I knew this guy was up to no good, and I didn’t want any part of it. I just wanted to get out of this damn place and put all of this behind me.”

“How did this man contact you?” Quinn asks.

“Through the hotel. He left me his number at the front desk and said I should call him back within an hour.”

“What did he sound like?”

“Uh…rich.”

Theo is not so quick to believe Paolo. “So we have no way of backing up your story. Isn’t that convenient for you.” Idly, he begins to kick sand into the grave, pelting Paolo’s face.

Paolo starts to scream again. Quinn motions for Theo to knock it off.

“The hotel! Check the front desk phone records! I called him back using the lobby phone. Maybe you can trace him.”

“Anyone smart enough to run this kind of cover-up would use a burner phone,” Jana says. “Nobody calls from landlines anymore.”

“Is that my problem?!” Paolo shouts. “Come on, I told you everything I know. Let me out of here.”

“Let’s go,” Quinn says, already strolling toward their SUV. “The others are meeting us in a couple of hours.” When Jana and Theo shake their heads and begin to follow, Paolo freaks out all over again, screaming with all of his lung capacity. Quinn suggests that Theo give the man a hand, and he does, reluctantly: clearing the sand away from Paolo’s left arm.

“Dig yourself out.”

Chapter 30

THE STINGRAYS

Up in the penthouse suite Quinn has ordered a full breakfast for the team, but no one feels like eating. Aside from Otto, of course, who never turns down a hot meal. He tucks into an egg-and-sausage scramble bowl as if a guard is about to knock on his door at any moment and lead him down to the executioner’s block.

“Okay, Quinn,” Theo says, “so to recap, the lifeguard didn’t do it, the rich kid didn’t do it, and his yacht captain didn’t do it.”

“That’s correct,” Quinn replies.

“Which leaves us with Nigel James, the islander cop. I’ve liked him for this crime since the moment I met him. So what are we waiting for? Let’s nail him.”

“Hold on,” Jana says. “Just a few hours ago you were about to bury the lifeguard alive because you were convinced he did it.”

“No, I said he knew about it. I didn’t think he actually did it.”

Kate interrupts. “Are we really discounting Jamie Halsey and Jacob Kurtz? Quinn, you said you thought this was a conspiracy—that we most likely have two suspects working in tandem. I can think of no better pair.”

“Sure,” Otto says through a mouth full of scrambled egg, “but everybody agrees that Nigel James was the last person to see her alive. I’m with Theo on this. Let’s put this cop in our crosshairs and see what he does.”

“No,” Quinn says. “We’ve pushed Officer James as far as we can. If we try a full-court press on him now, he’ll have the entire police force looking for any flimsy excuse to boot us off the island.”

“So then…we go into stealth mode and lay an extremely clever trap?” Jana asks with a hopeful smile on her face.

“No,” Quinn says. “Right now, I suggest you all finish your breakfast and go for a swim. Loosen up your muscles a bit.”

“Wait—what?” Kate asks.

“I’ll be flying back to the US,” Quinn tells them. “I’ve got a noon flight up to Boston.”

A sour look washes over Theo’s face as he throws up his hands. “Well, that’s just awesome. Some killer got the best of us? Are we seriously giving up?”

“Matthew, dear,” Jana says, “is there something we’re missing?”

“Look, I’m not leaving until we find Paige,” Kate says. “Or her body.”

Otto grunts his agreement.

Quinn, perhaps sensing the minor mutiny brewing in the penthouse, shows them his palms. “I didn’t say anything about any of you leaving. I suggested you take a leisurely swim, because you’re going to have a long night ahead of you. By the time you return, I’ll have made a phone call, and your assignments will be waiting for you.”

Theo smiles and shakes his head. “Can you imagine what it was like to be this guy’s roommate in college?”

Chapter 31

THE TWINS

Even though they have papers due the next morning, Hannah and Brooke Clee head back to Turks and Caicos for the night.

Brooke laughs and says they’ll have plenty of time to write them on the Gulfstream—or download them from the internet, whichever’s easier. But Hannah doesn’t find this amusing in the least.

“I can’t believe you’re joking at a time like this. Do you even realize why we’re headed back down to the island?”

“Because maybe, oh, I don’t know, you’re hopelessly OCD?” Brooke asks. She means it to sound devastating, but there’s enough uncertainty in her voice to let Hannah know her sister’s not entirely sure what those three letters stand for.

“No, it’s because we need to know if they really found her or not,” Hannah says. “And there’s only one way to do that.”

Hannah, of course, was the one who arranged the impromptu trip. Ordinarily such a lavish expense would have to pass through her father’s office for approval—the jet is company owned, after all.

But Hannah has had eighteen years to practice her powers of persuasion and