Second Honeymoon Part 7

"MAY I PLEASE have my pills?" Ned asked calmly.

Ace's puffed-out chest deflated like a bounce house after a church carnival. After all his goading, his baiting, his outright cruelty, he couldn't believe this was the best Ned could do. Nothing. The supposed hotshot professor had no fight in him.

"Do you know what? I think you're a p.u.s.s.y," scoffed Ace, reaching for the pill cup on his drug cart.

The night before, though, Ace wasn't thinking at all. He'd been asked to cover for Eduardo, who usually delivered the dinner meals to all the patients. Eduardo had called in sick. Ironically, the reason was food poisoning, perhaps caused by sampling one of the hospital's entrees.

So Ace made the rounds the previous evening, mindlessly dropping off trays to every room on each floor. Including the seventh floor. That's when he forgot that the PAINs were supposed to get a different dessert from the rest of the patients. It was a simple mistake.

Then again, sometimes the difference between life and death is as simple as the difference between an ice cream sandwich and a cherry Bomb Pop...

On a stick.

"Here you go, take it," Ace said, pill cup in his hand.

Ned reached out, but it wasn't the cup he grabbed. With a viselike grip, he latched on to Ace's wrist.

He yanked him toward the bed as if he were starting a lawn mower. In a way he was. Let the cutting begin.

Ned raised his other hand, viciously stabbing away with the popsicle stick, which he'd honed to razor sharpness against his cinder-block wall. He stabbed Ace's chest, his shoulder, his cheek, and his ear, then went back to his chest, stabbing over and over and over again, the blood spraying high in the air like fireworks.

Then, for the finale, Ned plunged the stick deep into the incompetent aide's bloated neck-bull's-eye!-slicing his carotid artery as if it were a piece of red licorice.

How're you holding up there, Ace?

He wasn't. Falling to the floor, Ace tried to scream for help, but all that came out was more blood. The guy who couldn't shut up suddenly couldn't say a word.

Ned stood up from the bed and watched Ace bleed out on the floor, counting how long it took for the aide to die. It was just like counting ceiling tiles, he thought. Almost soothing.

Now it was time to go.

Ned gathered his personal items, the few things the hospital allowed him to have in his possession. He was checking out. He would slip past the skeleton crew as quietly as a mouse.

Or a little boy with his daddy's gun.

But before leaving, Ned took one last look back at Ace, lying dead on the floor. The guy would never know the real reason why Ned had killed him-he would have no clue whatsoever. It didn't matter that he was a mean son of a b.i.t.c.h. Ned couldn't have cared less.

Instead, it was something Ace did his very first day on the job that set in motion something terrible deep inside Ned's brain.

Just awful, hideous...

Ace had told Ned his real name.

Chapter 11

A RUSH OF hot air-whoos.h.!.+-hit me as I stepped off Warner Breslow's private jet at Providenciales International Airport in Turks and Caicos, where the temperature was ninety-six and climbing.

Immediately, my jeans and polo s.h.i.+rt felt as if they were Velcroed to my skin.

Breslow's jet, a Bombardier Global Express XRS, had a maximum occupancy of nineteen pa.s.sengers plus a crew, but this flight barely carried the minimum. There was only a pilot, one flight attendant, and me. Talk about extra legroom...

I no sooner had one foot on the tarmac than I was approached by a young man, thirtyish, wearing white linen shorts and a white linen short-sleeved s.h.i.+rt.

"Welcome to Turks and Caicos, Mr. O'Hara. My name's Kevin. How was your flight?"

"It was Al Gore's worst nightmare," I said, shaking the guy's hand. "Otherwise, the flight was pretty amazing." He smiled, but I was pretty sure he didn't get the joke. Carbon-footprint humor is pretty hit-or-miss.

I didn't yet know who Kevin was, but everything else up to that point had been made crystal clear. I'd already spoken with Frank Walsh at the Bureau, who confirmed that he had indeed approved my working for Breslow.

As for the nature of his and Breslow's relations.h.i.+p, he declined to elaborate. To know Frank was to know not to press the issue. So I didn't.

Meanwhile, Breslow had dispatched one of his expensive attorneys, who arrived the following morning at my house to give me a signed contract. It was only two pages long, and was clearly more for my benefit than his. I hadn't asked to have our agreement in writing, but Breslow insisted.

"Trust me when I say you should never take anyone at his word," he said in a tone pregnant with meaning.

In addition to the contract, I was also given a sealed envelope. "What's in it?" I asked.

"You'll see," said the attorney, smiling. "It might just come in handy."

He was right.

My only regret of the morning, however, was not being able to join Marshall and Judy on the drive up to the Berks.h.i.+res to drop Max and John Jr. off at camp. After giving the boys huge hugs before they left, I promised I'd see them in a couple of weeks for the camp's Family Day.

Max, eager to make sure I wouldn't break my vow, made me "super quadruple promise" I'd be there. "No crossies, either," he warned me as John Jr. rolled his eyes.

I already missed them both like crazy.

"Shall we get going?" asked Kevin, motioning over his shoulder to a silver limousine parked nearby. When I hesitated for a second, it dawned on him.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I a.s.sumed you knew. I'm with the Gansevoort resort," he explained. "Mr. Breslow has arranged for you to stay with us while you're here."

I nodded. The Mystery of Kevin had been solved. Happily, too. I'd seen the Gansevoort featured in the New York Times travel section, and it was absolutely beautiful-top-notch. Not that I was down here to enjoy it. After I dropped off my bag and grabbed a quick shower, I was heading straight over to the Governor's Club to begin my investigation.

Breslow had initially a.s.sumed I'd want to stay there-the "scene of the crime"-but I told him I'd be more comfortable somewhere nearby. By "comfortable," of course, I didn't mean the thread count of the sheets.

It would've been different if I were flas.h.i.+ng a badge, but I wasn't Agent O'Hara down here, I was just John O'Hara. And for the time being, I didn't want the Governor's Club to know even that.

Same for the local police. Soon enough, I'd pay them a polite visit and compare notes with the detectives on the case, if they were willing. With any luck, they would be. Until then, though, I'd travel as incognito as possible.

But before I could take a step toward the limo, I saw a flas.h.i.+ng light out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see a white sedan speeding toward us. I mean, really speeding. If it had wings, it would've taken off.