Worst Case

We almost knocked down a high school senior class from Missouri as we speed-walked to the hotel’s elevator. The elevator door was closing when I stuck out my arm at the last second. The door rolled back open.

“What the hell are you doing?” Emily said.

“I just remembered something,” I said tentatively.

“It’s the na

I didn’t say anything.

“It is, Mike. It’s definitely the na

She kissed me for the last time then. She grabbed my lapel and slammed her lips into mine viciously. She seemed so warm this close. I wanted to get closer. I don’t think I can properly express how much I wanted to ride that elevator up.

Then Emily even more viciously shoved me away from her. She actually kicked me in the knee with a high heel to get me moving out of the elevator car.

“Your loss, cop,” she spat, extremely pissed and extremely hot with her blouse tails out, her flushed cheeks, and red hair mussed. “Your fucking loss, Be

My breath went away as I watched the vision of Emily Parker erased by the elevator door.

My loss, I thought to myself.

“Damn fucking right,” I said to the doorman on my way out.

Chapter 99

I WAS STILL feeling no pain as I got home. There were streamers and a hallway full of balloons. An extra-large Carvel sheet cake was defrosting in the fridge. Seamus, master of ceremonies for MC’s surprise bash, held court in the kitchen, directing the decorating and food prep.

“But, Grandpa, if this is a party, who’s going to DJ?” Shawna said.

“Who do you think?” Seamus said, offended. “Sister Sheilah doesn’t call me ‘Father Two Turntables and a Microphone’ for nothing, you know.”

“What about the clown, Grandpa?” Chrissy, our baby, wanted to know. “And I don’t see any balloon animals.”

“It’s on the list, child. Please, have ye no faith?” Seamus said, lifting his clipboard. “Now, Julia. How close are we with the pigs in a blanket?”

When everything was ready, I called upstairs to Mary Catherine’s cell phone.

“Mary, I just got a call into work, and Seamus is nowhere to be found. Could you come down for emergency babysitting?”

“Give me five minutes, Mike,” she said sadly.

She was there in three.

“Hello?” Mary Catherine said as she stepped slowly into the darkened apartment.

I hit the lights.

“Surprise!” we yelled.

Mary Catherine started crying as all the kids lined up and handed her their gifts with a hug. There were a lot of Starbucks cards and World’s Best Teacher mugs. When Hallmark starts its World’s Best Na

“How old are you now?” I said when I caught Mary alone in the kitchen.

“That’s a rude question to ask a lady,” Mary Catherine said.

“Nineteen?” I guessed. “No, wait. Twenty-two?”

“I’m thirty, Mike. So there. Are you happy?”

I was genuinely surprised. MC looked like a college kid. So that explained it, her nuttiness. Turning thirty. Women didn’t like that or something, right?

“Well, at least you’re calling me Mike again instead of Mr. Be

I produced the gift I had gotten on the way home from Emily’s hotel. Striemer Jewelers on 47th was actually closed when I arrived, but the owner, Marvin, who was working late, owed me a favor.

“If this is about our, eh, collision, all is forgiven, Mike,” she said, staring at the small box. “I’ve already forgotten it.”

“Open it.”

She did. Inside was an amethyst pendant on a white gold chain, her birthstone.

“But,” she said. “This is… How can we…”

“You tell me,” I said into her ear as I put the necklace on her. “I don’t know a damn thing about anything.”

An aching expression of sadness was in Mary Catherine’s face as her eyes went from the sparkling pendant to me.

“We’ll talk after all that champagne wears off, Mike,” she said as she started to leave. I tried to grab her arm on the way out, but I missed, and she was gone. Second time tonight, I thought. Way to go, Mr. Smooth.

“Check me out!” Seamus yelled from the living room. I lifted my cake as the sound of an electric guitar started up. What now?

Seamus was standing in front of the TV. In his hands was the plastic guitar from the kids’ Guitar Hero game. His eyes were closed, and he was biting his lip as he wailed the “Welcome to the Jungle” solo. I don’t know what was louder, his Slash impression, the kids’ shrieks of laughter, or my own.

“Well, what do you know?” I said, gleefully atomic-dropping down onto the couch in the middle of my guys for a front-row seat. “The clown showed up to the party after all.”

Chapter 100

I WAS STILL catching up on Detective Division reports from the Mooney case two weeks later. Unfortunately, having my paperwork done for me had lasted exactly until the task force was disbanded.

The last and most aggravating detail of the case continued to stare at me, usually from the cover of a newspaper, morning after morning. What the hell had happened to Dan Hastings, the abducted Columbia kid?

I was banging out my fourth backed-up incident report of the morning when Chief Fleming came rap-rap-rapping at my office door. In her hand was the only perk of working at One Police Plaza, authentic takeout from neighboring Chinatown.

We ate in her much larger office. Outside her window, a big yellow sun shone brightly off the honking, unmoving Brooklyn Bridge traffic.

I sca

The chief pointed at the New York Post on the desk behind her as we cracked fortune cookies.

“Seen the latest?” she said.

“Let me guess. ‘Mike Be

“It’s not about you for a change. The first victim, Jacob Du

I managed to roll my eyes and shake my head at the same time.

“Wow. Exactly what Mooney wanted,” I said, chewing. “Exactly what Mooney was hoping for when he blew the poor kid’s head off.”

“I don’t know, Mike. Isn’t some good coming out of this thing better than the alternative?” she said. “What would you do with all that money?”

“I don’t know,” I said after a moment’s reflection. I lifted a napkin and wiped orange sauce off my cheek.

“With my luck, I’ll never have that kind of problem. But I’ll tell you one thing. I’d burn it before I’d do exactly what my kid’s murderer wanted me to do.”

“You’re cold, Mike, you know that?” Carol said as her phone rang. She smiled and nodded as she lifted the receiver. “I like that in a cop.

“No shit!” she suddenly said. “Okay, okay. I’ll send somebody by right away.”

She looked dumbstruck as she racked her phone.

“Your ship just came in. Troopers picked up Dan Hastings along the turnpike in South Jersey. They took him home to his father’s boat.”