The Quickie

Bo

"I don't know. How could I, Lauren? Maybe he just borrowed the blanket off a friend, but it definitely throws some doubt out there, doesn't it?" she said. "The kind of doubt a defense lawyer would have a field day with. Not to mention the press jackals."

I looked at the neon Chinese characters in the restaurant window. A black eel in the aquarium beside our booth batted his head against the glass as if trying to get my attention and say something. Hey, Lauren. Why don't you just run screaming out of the restaurant? Don't stop till you get to Bellevue.

Bo

"But I decided it's the kind of doubt this city, this department, Scott's wife, and most especially you, Lauren, don't need thrown out there."

She gestured toward my handbag.

"That's why I'm giving it to you, honey. This case was screwed for everyone involved from the word go. This is my retirement present to you. The DC detective's name and contact info are somewhere in those sheets, if you ever want to pursue it on your own. Or you can chuck it off the Brooklyn Bridge. Your choice."

Bo

"One thing I've learned as a cop is that you do what you can. It's not our fault that sometimes that's not enough. Lauren, you're my friend, and I love you, and it's up to you. See you around."

Chapter 97

IT WAS A FEW HOURS LATER, and dark, when I found myself standing in Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan.

Manhattan , my father used to say before we'd start his thrice-weekly walks from this very park. The greatest treadmill in the world.

His postretirement exercise routine consisted of riding the subway here to the last stop, walking over to Broadway, and seeing how many of Manhattan 's thirteen concrete miles he could cover before he got tired and hopped on an uptown subway headed back home. All through law school, I'd go with him if I had the chance. Listen to him talk about the crimes and arrests that occurred at the countless intersections. It was on one of those walks with Dad that I decided I wanted to be a cop rather than a lawyer. Wanted to be just like my father.

And it was right here, at the begi

I rested the FBI report against the rusted railing before me as I listened to the dark waves slap against the concrete pier.

Just when I'd completed the toughest puzzle ever, Dad, I thought.

I'd been handed an extra piece.

Story of my life recently.

"What do I do, Pop?" I whispered as tears fell down my cheeks. "I don't know what to do."

There were exactly two options, I knew.

I could toss away Bo

Or I could slap myself out of my denial and figure out what the hell was going on with my life, and with my mysterious husband.

I held the envelope over the railing.

This was an easy one, right?

All I had to do was release my fingers and it would be over.

I would go to the train and head north, where safety, my husband, and my new life waited.

A gust of wind picked up off the water, flapping the envelope in my hand.

Let it go, I thought. Let it go, let it go.

But, finally, I dug my nails into the envelope and clutched it to my chest.

I couldn't. I needed to get to the bottom of this, no matter how hard, how ugly, it got. Even after everything I had pulled, all the craziness, all the hurting my friends and covering things up, I guess there was still some scrap of detective left in me. Maybe more than a scrap.

I closed my eyes tightly. Somewhere in the darkness of the park behind me, I sensed an old man stretching his legs, limbering up for a walk. As I turned around quickly to find a taxi, out of the corner of my eye I felt a figure nodding in my direction, a smile on his face.

Chapter 98

IT WAS A LITTLE AFTER EIGHT the next morning when the barista at the Starbucks across from Paul's Pearl Street office building raised an eyebrow at me in surprise.

Jeez, I thought. You'd think she'd never seen a disheveled, emotionally demolished woman ask for the entire top shelf of the pastry case before.

After last night's Battery Park epiphany, I'd called Paul and told him that Bo

I'd made it all the way to The Midtown, just south of the Ed Sullivan Theater, when my legs quit on me.

I had just enough strength to toss the questionable orange-speckled bedspread into the corner of my three-hundred-dollar-a-night closet before I passed out. Pretty pricey, but Paul could afford it.

I woke up at 7 a.m., left the hotel without showering, and caught a taxi on Seventh Avenue, heading downtown to the financial district.

For the first time in a month, I had a game plan. I knew exactly what I had to do.

Interrogate Paul.

I didn't care what it took. I'd be both good cop and bad cop. I was tempted to bring the hotel phone book along in case I had to beat the truth out of him. One thing was certain. Paul was going to tell me what the hell was going on if it was the last thing he ever did.

And based on the way I was feeling as I stood in the Starbucks across from his office, that was a distinct possibility.

"Anything else?" the barista asked, pushing my five-figure-calorie breakfast across the counter.

"You don't have anything else," I told her.

In an oversize purple velvet wing chair positioned by the window, I read the FBI report, cover to cover.

I stared at the autoradiographs – the DNA vertical barcodes – for both crime scenes until my vision blurred.

There was no mistake, no denying what the pages said. I didn't have to know what variable number tandem repeat meant or what the heck an STR locus was to see that the two samples were one and the same.

I put the report down, and with one eye on the revolving doors of Paul's black-glass office building across the narrow street, I commenced a world-record round of compulsive eating. Hey, alcohol and nicotine were out. What's a very pissed-off, pregnant cop supposed to do?

I was licking chocolate icing off my fingers fifteen minutes later when, through the scrum of business suits and power ties, I spotted the sandy head of a man Paul's height turning into the office building. Good-looking guy, no denying it. That was one constant about my husband. Maybe the only one.

I knocked back the last of an espresso brownie, slowly brushed myself off, and grabbed the latte-stained FBI report.

Come out with your hands up, Paul, I thought as I crossed the still-shadowy canyon of Pearl Street. Your pissed-off, pregnant wife has a gun in her handbag.

But as I stood in line behind a FedEx guy at the security desk, I noticed something odd.

Paul was in the open door of one of the elevators.

Here we go again, I thought.

Unlike the rest of the invading, pin-striped financial army, he was making his way out, like a salmon swimming upstream, a lone salmon.

Whatever, I thought, taking a quick step toward him through the crowd. This saves me an elevator trip.

But as I got closer, I noticed the carry-on strapped across his chest. And the shopping bag in his hand.