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

“Just last night you were convinced it was the lifeguard,” Quinn replies.

“Well, now I’m telling you it’s Nigel the cop. Maybe the lifeguard was involved. Maybe they’re partnered up on it. But the cop is definitely guilty. Not only was he the last person to see Paige alive, but he was staring at the sand like he expected her to come crawling up out of her own grave to point an accusing finger at him. He’s gonna crack, Quinn. And I want to be there when he does.”

“I’m glad you’re so certain.”

I listen for a few more seconds, waiting for something. Anything. Praise? A complaint? Something I missed, maybe? Quinn likes to watch you weave a beautiful tapestry and then yank it out from under your feet with a single question.

But then I hear something weird. Like an echo. Crashing surf behind me, but also crashing surf coming from over the cell phone connection.

“Quinn…uh, where are you?”

Chapter 17

QUINN

As Matthew Quinn raises his hand, a waiter, clad in shorts, approaches. Quinn wordlessly gestures down to a pair of empty glasses with moisture beaded on the sides. Then he makes a peace sign. The waiter nods and whisks away the empties.

“I’ll see you this evening, Theo,” Quinn says, then disconnects the call and turns to face Jana. “I presumed you wanted another cocktail?”

“As if you read my mind.”

“Good.”

“This is much better than New Hampshire,” she says with a slight purr in her voice. “Apology accepted.”

“I missed the part where I said I was sorry.”

“Don’t worry, Matthew, dear. It’s understood.”

They’re sprawled out on reclining chairs right on the beach, mere yards from the crashing surf. Quinn and Jana flew down to Turks and Caicos separately. They booked rooms in hotels a mile apart. They weren’t supposed to see each other, in fact, until this evening at six, when all of the Stingrays were gathering in person to discuss strategy.

But then Jana texted: Meet me for a quick drink?

Ordinarily, Quinn prefers to spend his time in a dimly lit climate-controlled room with white noise or classical music playing in the background as he considers the clues, eyewitness accounts, and narrative elements of the case at hand.

But then Quinn read those six words again and thought about Jana’s playful smile as she thumbed them into her cell. So he replied: Cocktails on the beach? Because why not combine some relaxed case meditation with a little daytime drinking?

Drinking for Jana, that is. Quinn never imbibes when he’s in the middle of a case. She doesn’t know that Quinn pulled the bartender aside when they first arrived at the beachfront cafe and instructed him to mix proper cocktails for the lady, virgins for himself. She was the type who could only relax when she thought everyone else around her was relaxing, too.

“Let’s go for a swim,” she says suddenly, gently nudging him in the ribs.

“But we have drinks on the way.”

“You mean you’d rather sit around and sip juice than jump waves with me? I know you never drink on a case. Which is why I asked the bartender to serve us both virgins.”

“Hmmm. So we’re paying full price for fruit juice.”

“Appears that way. I knew that if you thought I was relaxing you’d take it easy, too, for a change. So come on, my love. Last one to the beach pays for the wildly expensive fruit juice!”

Naturally, Jana beats him to the crashing waves. Quinn dives in after her, but she’s a fraction of a second ahead of him. He sucks down foaming surf as he falls, then comes up laughing, despite himself. She leaps over a wave. The same wave smashes into Quinn, nearly knocking him off his feet. She laughs. Only she can do this to him. Take him back to the giddiness of being twelve years old. Even though twelve was a particularly rough year for Quinn.

In carefree moments like these, Quinn can be fooled into thinking that he and Jana could have a life together. What more do you need than sand, water, laughter, and expensive fruit juice? She soothes the turmoil in his soul like no one else alive.

But the effect is temporary. Jana is a brilliant actor, but she can only keep up the facade for so long. They tried it once. Living together. It was destined for failure, because whenever Quinn’s obsessed with a case, he has one default setting: brood. At first Jana played the role of the supportive partner, letting Quinn have his space. But she quickly tired of it, because it turned out that Quinn needed his space almost all of the time. Actors, like most people, need someone else in the scene.

Dripping wet, Quinn and Jana make their way across the hot sand to their chairs. Part of Quinn wishes he could remain in the playful state, but it never lasts longer than a few minutes. Something always taps him on the shoulder and reminds him of the people who need him. Like the schoolgirl who may be somewhere along this beach, buried under the sand.

Crying out to him.

“Look at this, our fruit juice is waiting for us,” Jana says.

“We’d better drink up,” Quinn says. “We have a lot of work to do this evening.”

Jana reaches over, takes his hand. “Not quite yet. We have some time.”

At first Quinn tenses at her touch, but then he remembers her sweet laughter in the water. She’s right. There’s some time. He squeezes her fingers gently.

Chapter 18

THE STINGRAYS

“Let’s get to work.”

There’s no omelet bar this time, even though Quinn has rented a penthouse suite with a well-stocked kitchen. He believes in feeding his operatives at the beginning of a case, then celebrating with them at the closing. But now, in the thick of things, it’s all about take-out food (jerk pork tenderloin and curried shrimp from Coco Bistro), along with coffee and adrenaline.

“Theo, you’re up,” Quinn continues. “Tell us what you’ve got.”

Theo Selznick stirs his heaping bowl of shrimp and rice. “I’m thinking Paolo