The Palm Beach Murders by James Patterson (the read aloud family .TXT) 📕

chance is right and he didn’t do it—I’ll bet anything he knows who did.

I caught up with Halsey’s Squadron 60 yacht (named Hostile Wake-Over) at the El Conquistador Marina in Puerto Rico. Halsey thought he was being clever by altering his itinerary at the last minute, slipping down to PR instead of following the reservations his corporation had filed with various marinas in the Bahamas.

But I don’t track marina reservations. I track boats directly by GPS transponder. Easy enough to do when you pick up the right piece of software on the dark web.

As we discussed, my forged State Department credentials were enough to gain me complete access to the hotel and its marina. When I arrived, Halsey’s yacht was in the middle of the docking process, and his suite was still being prepared. So I headed in to the 35-slip marina to welcome him personally.

“Hey, I’m looking for Jamie,” I said, with the brightest smile I could muster. As if I was just a girl, looking for a cute boy I’d met. “I thought I’d surprise him.”

But the crew wasn’t having any of it. Clearly, they were used to “girls” stopping by for their boss.

“He in the Bahamas,” one of them mumbled.

I laughed. “Bahamas, huh? Well, then he’s going to miss one hell of a time in room 223, where I’ll be waiting for him. In bed.”

The crew glanced at each other, for a moment wondering if I was telling the truth. Room 223 was indeed where Halsey would be checking in—the front desk confirmed it for me five minutes ago. And the boss…well, this probably sounded like something the boss would do.

I was about to take advantage of the confusion and push my way past the crew to look for the little punk when I saw a blurry flutter out of the corner of my eye. Damnit! Fifty feet away, Jamie Halsey was leaping from the boat to the dock and running like hell. The pedigree of my credentials didn’t matter; somebody at the El Conquistador must have tipped him off.

A thick hand grabbed my upper arm at the same moment I started to bolt down the dock. I turned to look at the crew member who’d dared to touch me.

“You really don’t want to do that,” I said, by way of fair warning.

“You leave Mr. Halsey alone, he’s got enough lady trouble.”

Lady trouble, huh? I thought.

I’ll admit it, and I apologize in advance—but the crew really ticked me off.

So maybe I twisted their arms a little harder than I should have, hit those nerve bundles with a little more force than necessary. Once they saw that I was not some silly girl, they started attacking back with serious intent. Hands tried to crush my windpipe. Fists tried hard to shatter the bones in my face.

Within thirty seconds, however, all three of them were writhing around on the deck of the yacht and I was in full pursuit of Halsey.

The kid had hopped on one of the funiculars, which was carrying him up the side of the steep hill to the main hotel. There was a second funicular, but it was still crawling down the side of the hill and wouldn’t reach me for another two and a half years.

So I did the only thing I could—chased after the funicular on foot.

Hell, Matt, you and I have both hauled ass through more treacherous terrain in the army. So after a minute of huffing it I had caught up with the tram. You should have seen the look on the kid’s face when I pried open the door and leaped into the car with him.

But that was nothing compared to the way his features shifted when I slammed him to the floor, hard enough to make his teeth chatter.

“Hi, Jamie,” I said, catching my breath. “Got a minute to talk?”

Chapter 12

KATE (continued)

“I want a lawyer,” the kid said.

They always say that, don’t they, Matt?

“Good for you,” I told him. “But I’m not a cop. And a lawyer wouldn’t do anything other than burn through that fat trust fund one billable hour at a time.”

I think I used too many words for one sentence, because the brat looked up at me with big, blue, uncomprehending eyes. I’m sure his father told him from the time he was a little boy: If you’re ever in trouble, Daddy will send the best lawyers in the world to help you.

“You…you can’t do this!”

I had Halsey right where I wanted him, of course. Trapped, with no way out. Which was the right moment to throw him a little lifeline.

“Come on, get up,” I said. “I’m not here to arrest you. I’m just here with some information you might find useful.”

The brat relaxed a little, now that I was taking handcuffs and a perp walk off the table. “What kind of information?”

The funicular came to a stop. We disembarked and Halsey tottered along next to me like a reluctant puppy. We found two cushioned chairs in an empty cabana. I told him where to sit. He sat. I took the opposite chair and stared at him.

“So…what is it?”

I continued to stare at him.

“You said, uh, that you had some, uh, information for me.”

As you know, most people can’t stand a long silence. They are very eager to fill the void. And the brat did not disappoint.

“Look, I know you’re here about that girl.”

“What girl would that be?”

“What’s her name, Paige something. I’m telling you, I barely even talked to her. She came with a couple of chicks—and I didn’t know them, either. Somehow word spreads about a boat, and suddenly the whole friggin’ island shows up, you know? But anyway, I definitely saw her leave with her friends. So whatever happened to her didn’t happen on my boat. It’s not my problem.”

I asked Halsey, “Are you familiar with the term bouquet of death?”

He blinked. “What?”

“It refers to the chemical by-products of decomposition that only cadaver dogs can detect. Did you know that the nose of