20th Victim (Women's Murder Club #20) - James Patterson Page 0,4

to me and our baby girl when he finally reached home. Joe Molinari, intelligence agency consultant and Mr. Mom.

He asked now, “Where are you, Lindsay?”

“I’m right here.”

I leaned over, gave him a kiss, and said, “I was remembering. Where are you, Joe?”

He put his hand on my thigh.

“I’m here, Blondie, thinking about what a good mom you are, and how much I love you.”

I told him, “I sure do love you, too.”

This weekend Julie was staying at the beach with her aunt Cat, two cousins, and Martha, our best doggy in the world, while Joe and I got to be two fortysomething kids in love.

Joe turned on the radio and found the perfect station.

We were cruising. The weather was sunny with a side of sailboats, and we were singing along with the oldies: “Free to do what I want any old time.”

When we reached our first destination, Joe and I were in a honeymoon state of mind.

CHAPTER 7

JOE SLOWED THE car and parked us in front of a modest-looking two-story building made of river stones and timbers, surrounded by greenery.

I recognized it from photos of where to go in Napa Valley. This was reportedly one of the best restaurants in the world, as it had been for the last twenty years.

Yes, best in the world.

I shouted, “The French Laundry? Seriously?”

I’d read about how hard it was to get into this place, revered by foodies all over and winner of Michelin’s top ranking, three stars. A two-month waiting period for a lunch reservation was typical.

“You didn’t pull this off overnight.”

“I have a connection,” Joe said, giving me a twinkly grin.

Wow. After the burger-and-coffee diet that went with being on the Job, I wondered if I could even appreciate fine dining. But now I knew why Joe had said to wear a dress—and surprise, surprise, I had one on. It was a navy-blue-and-white print, and I’d matched it with a blue cashmere cardigan. I pulled the band from my sandy-blond ponytail, flipped down the visor, and looked at myself in the mirror.

I fluffed up my hair a little and pinched my cheeks.

I looked nice.

The restaurant’s farm garden was across the street, and it was open to visitors, a lovely place for a Friday stroll. I told Joe I was going to need my phone after all so I could take pictures. He got out of the car, and the trunk lid went up.

That’s when a panel van pulled up to the rear of the car and buzzed down its passenger-side window. I couldn’t see the driver, but I heard him yell, “Joeeey.”

Joe called back, “Dave, you crazy SOB.”

I watched him go over to the van, open the door, lean in, and hug the driver. Then he came back to me and said, “You’re finally going to meet Dave.”

When Joe spoke of David Channing, it was always with love and sadness. Dave had been Joe’s college roommate at Fordham back east in the Bronx. I’d seen pictures of them on the field. Dave was a quarterback and Joe played flanker. He’d shown me pictures of the team, whooping, high on victory, both Joe and Dave tall, brawny, handsome, and so young.

Joe had told me that after a day like that, a win against Holy Cross, there’d been a sudden cold snap and a snowstorm had blown in from the west. Dave had been driving his girlfriend, Rebecca, home to Croton-on-Hudson, about forty-five minutes up the Taconic, a lovely twisting road with a parklike median strip and beautiful views.

But, as Joe had told me, on that late afternoon the snow had melted into a coating of black ice on the road. Dave had taken a turn where a rocky outcropping blocked his view of a vehicle that had spun out of control and stopped across both lanes. Dave had braked, skidding into the disabled car, while another, fast-moving car had rear-ended him.

Before it was over, thirty-two cars had crashed in a horrific pileup. Rebecca had been killed. Dave’s spine had been crushed, and the young man who was being scouted by NFL teams had been paralyzed from the waist down.

His parents, Ray and Nancy, had brought Dave home to their little winery just outside Napa, and there’d been years of painful rehab. During those years, Joe had said, Dave had walled himself off from his friends and pretty much the whole world. Lately, he kept the company books, ran a support group for paraplegics, and mourned his mother’s death from lymphoma. That was all