Chapter 110
NOW IT WAS MY TURN to put my head down between my knees.
"Blackmailing you?" I asked.
Paul nodded.
"A year ago, Veronica came up to New York. She has a friend who's a model or something who gets her work. Eleven o'clock in the morning, she finds herself in the middle of a drug raid, and I get this frantic call at work to go and try to help her out.
"I walk into this apartment down in SoHo, expecting a million cops, but there's only one. Scott Thayer. I'd gotten there too late, though, because Veronica got scared and told him we had money. He takes me into the kitchen and tells me he's a reasonable guy. He'll let everybody go free for ten grand cash."
I felt a sharp pain in my neck. My skin felt clammy.
"So I gave it to him," Paul said. "A month goes by. One day I'm coming back to my desk after lunch, and Thayer's sitting at it, holding a picture of you. He tells me that you two work out of the same precinct house, and for another twenty grand, not only will he not turn me in – nice guy that he is – he won't tell you about Veronica."
Paul looked at me. I stared back at him, my mouth gaping.
"So I give him that. It was when he came back the third time that I realized it would never end. He wanted fifty thousand. Instead of giving it to him, I decided I'd rather take a shot at wrapping things up my own way."
I listened to flute music from somewhere in the park. It sounded like a dirge at my own funeral.
I'd thought Paul had fought for me. That his killing Scott had been about me. But it was over money, blackmail.
"You understand that Thayer wasn't content to keep on blackmailing me," Paul continued. "He wanted all of it. He came after you to get another hook into me. That's all he wanted with you, Lauren."
"So you killed him, Paul?" I said bitterly. "You're a gangster now? Robbing people and shooting cops. Maybe you should cut a rap album."
Paul squinted down at the ground, then shrugged. "Things just kind of kept on happening. One thing led to another."
A scintilla of compassion rose inside me. The same thing had happened to me, hadn't it? I pushed the sympathy away as quickly as I could. The last thing I would do was feel sorry for Paul.
"Listen, Lauren," Paul said. "Why don't we call it the mother of all midlife crises? I'll do whatever you want now. Give the money back. Or we can just go. We'll drive to Reagan International straight from here. A million point-two dollars tax free is a lot of money. Why don't we just go and spend it? Raise our kid on a sailboat. You're mad now, but you betrayed me, too, remember? Let's just… go. C'mon, Lauren. We can do this together."
Chapter 111
I SAT THERE, staring at my incredible con man of a husband. What an amazing liar he was. Then I dropped my eyes to the pavement, my shoulders slumping. The world seemed to slow suddenly, the music in the air, the sound of traffic.
It was official. I had given Paul everything that I possibly could. My love, my work, my reputation. And now I had absolutely zero left.
I was still sitting there, agonizing, when Paul's daughter appeared again. The nanny Paul had spoken to stood waiting a few feet away with another toddler and Caroline's bike.
"Daddy!" she said. "Pictures! I want to show Imelda the pictures."
"Not now, love," Paul called to the girl. "Later, sweetheart."
"But they're my brothers," the girl said, pulling a black-and-white photograph out of Paul's jacket before he could stop her. It fell to the ground as he tried to snatch it back.
"You're mean, Daddy," the four-year-old said with a pout. "I want Imelda to see the picture of my new twin brothers."
My eyes strained in their sockets. What!
Paul stared down at the small, square photograph, his Adam's apple bobbing.
"Show her later, Caroline," Paul snapped. Imelda took one look at him before quickly grabbing Caroline's hand and pulling her away.
I bent and lifted the precious picture off the pavement. I nodded once, twice.
It showed a sonogram. Two fetuses. Twins. I pictured Veronica again. Of course she looked like she'd recently put on weight. She was pregnant!
I looked at Paul's face, almost with fascination. He'd lied so effortlessly to me. Again and again.
He would never stop, I realized. There was something deeply, incredibly wrong with Paul. He would say anything, do anything. How could anyone tell lies like this? How could anyone do the awful things he'd done? Even the way he'd just snarled at his little girl. I'd protected a monster.
"I know exactly what we're going to do now," I said, letting the black-and-white picture fall to the cobblestones. "What I should have done when this whole thing started."
I whisked out my cuffs and snapped them onto his wrists. "Paul, you're under arrest."
Chapter 112
NANNIES, CHESS PLAYERS, AND JOGGERS were outright gaping as I dragged a handcuffed Paul out of the park. Of course they looked at us. Good God, he was twice my size.
"You sure this is the right thing to do, Lauren?" he whined as I perp-walked him two long blocks back toward my Taurus.
"A million dollars? You still love me or you wouldn't have covered for me. Which isn't going to go well for you, either. You'll get charged as an accessory to murder. The baby will be born behind bars. You're not really thinking this through."
"Unfortunately for you, Paul, I'm tired of thinking," I said. "Thinking is what got me into this mess. I'm just doing what's right. Trying to, anyway."
I stopped suddenly as we passed Paul's parallel-parked Jaguar. "Where are the keys, Paul? Let's end it in style. Give me a taste of that million dollars. Maybe I'll change my mind and drive to the airport."
I jabbed Paul in the small of his back. "But don't bet on it."
I took the keys from his jacket pocket and then pushed Paul into the passenger seat. I went around to the other side. I was sliding the key into the ignition, when Paul popped open the glove compartment.
A second later, I felt something hard sticking under my right armpit.
"Time to cut all the bullshit, Lauren," Paul said, digging a small revolver into my ribs.
Idiot! I thought. Of course, he had a gun. The ticket broker hadn't lied about that. Paul had.
"Hey, I thought you said you didn't have a gun," I said.
"You still haven't picked up on the theme here, Lauren?" Paul said. "I tell you only what you need to hear. Now get the cuffs off me. Right now!"
"Then what? You're going to shoot me?" I said as I did what he asked. I didn't have a choice. "Might as well, Paul. You've done everything else to me."
"Hey, you're the one who started this game. Slapping cuffs on me," Paul said.
"That's what you think this is, don't you?" I said. "Some kind of game? News flash, Paul. You killed a man. You're a mur-der-er."
Paul's face scrunched in rage. He turned bright red, his eyes glittering with fury.
"News flash? Let me tell you something. You know what it's like to have a wife with bigger balls than you? While you were out kicking ass, I was busy downtown kissing asses, so you could have nice things. But that's JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU!!!"
Paul pistol-whipped the dashboard savagely, then pressed the gun barrel to my temple.
"You want to know how I felt when Veronica made me that offer at the Sheraton? For the first time, I felt like a man! I got a chance to step away from this namby-pamby investment firm, law degree, 401(k) bullshit I've been wasting my whole life on."
Paul took a deep breath, then released it. The gun stayed at my temple.
"I did it, Lauren," he whispered fiercely. "I took what I wanted, and then I went and got my prize. Let me tell you something. I remember every second of it. And Lauren, it was good. Veronica licked the blood off my knuckles. I knocked her up like a stud bull."