The Partner by John Grisham Read Free Book Online Page B

nameless song, and looked damned good doing it. Tight yellow spandex. Tight blond ponytail. Not an ounce of fat anywhere. Cutter could’ve watched for hours. Even her sweat was cute.
    She did this two hours a day. At thirty-five, Trudy still looked like everybody’s high school sweetheart.
    Lance hit a switch and the video stopped. She twirled, saw Cutter, and gave him a look that would melt cheese. “Do you mind?” she snapped at Lance. Evidently, this workout was not to be disturbed.
    “I’m Special Agent Cutter, FBI,” he said, whippingout his badge and walking to her. “We met once before, a few years back.”
    She dabbed her face with a towel, a yellow one that matched the spandex. She was hardly breathing.
    She flashed perfect teeth, and everything was okay. “What can I do for you?” Lance stood beside her. Matching ponytails.
    “I have some wonderful news for you,” Cutter said with a broad smile.
    “What?”
    “We’ve found your husband, Mrs. Lanigan, and he’s alive.”
    A slight pause as it registered. “Patrick?” she said.
    “He would be the one.”
    “You’re lying,” Lance sneered.
    “Afraid not. He’s in custody in Puerto Rico. Should make it back here in a week or so. Just thought you should hear the good news before we release it to the press.”
    Stunned and staggering, she backed away and sat on a workout bench next to a weight machine. Her glistening bronze flesh was growing pale. Her pliant body was crumbling. Lance scurried to help her. “Oh my God,” she kept mumbling.
    Cutter threw a card in front of them. “Call me if I can be of any help.” They said nothing as he left.
    It was obvious to him that she held no anger at having been duped by a man who faked his death. Nor was there the smallest hint of joy at his return. No relief whatsoever at the end of an ordeal.
    There was nothing but fear; the horror of losing the money. The life insurance company would sue immediately.

    While Cutter was in Mobile, another agent from the Biloxi office went to the home of Patrick’s mother in New Orleans, and delivered the same news. Mrs. Lanigan was overcome with emotion, and begged the agent to sit for a while and answer questions. He stayed for an hour but had few answers for her. She cried for joy, and after he left she spent the rest of the day calling friends with the wonderful news that her only child was alive after all.

Six
    Jack Stephano was arrested by the FBI in his D.C. office. He spent thirty minutes in jail, then was rushed to a small courtroom in the federal courthouse where he faced a U.S. Magistrate in a closed hearing. He was informed that he would be released immediately on his own recognizance, that he couldn’t leave the area, and that he would be watched by the FBI around the clock. While he was in court, a small army of agents entered his office, seized virtually every file, and sent the employees home.
    After being dismissed by the Magistrate, Stephano was driven to the Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue where Hamilton Jaynes was waiting. When the two were alone in Jaynes’ office, the Deputy Director offered a lukewarm apology for the arrest. But he had no choice. You can’t snatch a federal fugitive, drug him, torture him, and damned near kill him without being charged with something.
    The issue was the money. The arrest was the leverage. Stephano swore Patrick had told them nothing.
    As they spoke, the doors to Stephano’s office were being chained shut and ominous federal bulletins were being taped to the windows. His home phones were being bugged while Mrs. Stephano played bridge.
    After the brief and fruitless meeting with Jaynes, he was dropped off near the Supreme Court. Since he’d been ordered to stay away from his office, he flagged a cab and told the driver to go to the Hay-Adams Hotel, corner of H and Sixteenth. He sat in traffic, calmly reading a newspaper, occasionally rubbing the tracking device they’d sewn in the hem of his jacket