James Patterson - 10th Anniversary

“I know.”

LaVan pressed down the intercom button.

“Denise, bring my calendar. And call the clerk. I want to see the jurors again.”

I TRACKED YUKI DOWN and found her in her office, just where I’d seen her this morning, but she seemed smaller and paler now, like the air had been sucked out of her.

“Did you get my message?” I asked her.

“I just got out of the judge’s chambers,” she said. “I’m waiting for Red Dog to get back from lunch. How do I look?”

“You need some lipstick,” I said.

She rummaged in her handbag.

“I went to see Ellen Lafferty,” I said, and I waited for the explosion of anger that didn’t come. Yuki found a tube of lip gloss and a mirror in her purse. I ventured on.

“Ellen Lafferty said she went to see Guzman. That’s her in the picture. She admitted it. And we also matched the picture to her photo at the DMV.”

“She bleached her hair?” Yuki asked. Her hand was shaking as she applied the gloss.

“Candace Martin had a wig from when she was undergoing chemotherapy. Hey, Yuki, are you okay?”

“Go ahead,” she said. She ran a brush through her hair. Sparks crackled.

“Dennis sent Ellen disguised as Candace to meet with the hit man and set it up so his private eye took pictures of her. He was probably going to use those pictures to force his wife’s hand in the divorce — or maybe he was really going to set up a hit. We may never know. Look, I know you’re mad at me, so just say it, okay? I can take it,” I said.

Yuki said, “Caitlin Martin confessed to killing her father, and now either we take our chances with this jury or LaVan is calling a mistrial.”

“Caitlin? Caitlin said she did it?”

Len Parisi came down the hallway and stuck his large head into Yuki’s office.

“Hi, Lindsay. Yuki, I’ve got five minutes. Right now.”

“Be right there,” Yuki said.

She got to her feet and straightened her jacket. When she turned her eyes back on me, I saw that the fierce Yuki was back.

“Candace Martin killed her husband,” she said to me. “Not Ellen Lafferty. Not Caitlin Martin. I know you don’t think Candace did it, but I do, and I’m never going to have an opportunity to prove it. She’s going to get away with it.”

Was Yuki right?

Had I been chasing a flipping red herring?

I opened my mouth, but no words came out, and then Yuki was gone.

AFTER WHAT WAS undeniably one of the worst days she had ever had as a prosecutor, Yuki left the Hall to go home. She had nearly reached the sidewalk when she heard Brady call out to her.

God. Not Brady. Not now .

Yuki turned and saw him coming down the steps toward her, his hair flying loose from that ponytail of his.

Very attractive man .

Yuki thought of what Lindsay had told her, that Brady was married, and dammit, she didn’t want to go through another doomed relationship with another unavailable guy. She wanted stability, a home life …

“Yuki, I’m glad I caught you,” Brady said, pulling up alongside her. “Have dinner with me?”

“Okay,” she said.

Now they were at Town Hall in SoMa, the former Marine Electric Building, one of the best places around for casual dining with a sophisticated twist.

The interior was dark, with exposed brick, hardwood floors, and subdued lighting. Jackson Brady’s hair seemed to draw light from the overhead starburst fixtures that had once hung in the ceiling of a theater in Spanish Harlem.

Yuki was having a margarita, a drink that she loved and that took her out of her misery — and, if she had more than one, out of her mind as well. If she’d ever earned a margarita, today was the day.

“A suspension of the case isn’t the worst thing,” Brady was saying. He was working on the Cajun shrimp appetizer along with his beer.

“No, it’s not the worst thing,” Yuki agreed, “but it’s still a disaster . You know how many hours I put into that case?”

“Seven thousand?”

Yuki laughed. “Not seven thousand, but a whole hell of a lot, and now it looks like that bitch is going to go free.”

“Unless you find more evidence.”

“Yeah. If we find more evidence, we can still try her with a new jury, but you know, the world turns, the files stack up, some other heinous piece of crap is caught, and we mount another case.”

“I’ll keep the Candace Martin file on my desk.”

“Thanks, Jackson. Even if you don’t mean it.”

“I mean it.”

“Now, tell me you don’t lie, why don’t you?”

“I lie sometimes.”

Yuki laughed again. “Well, don’t lie to me.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious. I’ve been told that you’re married. What’s the story?”

“I’m still married.”

“Fuck,” Yuki said. “Waiter.”

Brady took her arm out of the air. “I’m still married. But I hope not for long.”

Yuki took a slug of her margarita, set the glass down, and as the waiter came by, said to him, “Could you take this drink away? Thanks.” Then she said to Brady, “Tell me the whole story. I’m listening.”

“You remember that shooting incident I told you about?” Brady asked her.

Yuki said, “You shot the guy who came up out of the crack between the bed and the wall holding a semiautomatic.”

“Yeah. So Liz and I were already heading our separate ways, and that deal that went down — almost getting whacked, killing the guy, the IAB, the media on our lawn — all that tore it. Whatever thin connection we had left.”

“Because you’re a cop?”

“Yep. Because I’m a cop,” he said. “She wouldn’t be the first woman who said, ‘I didn’t sign up for this.’ So after a year, we separated and I moved to San Fran. Alone. Divorce is pending. Pending on how much she can make me beg for it.”

“You have kids?”

“Nope.”

“Want any?”

“Maybe. I’m forty. But I’m not there yet. How about you?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“We don’t have to decide tonight,” Brady said.

“Okay,” Yuki said, laughing. This guy was funny. She liked him. A lot.

The waiter brought the buttermilk-fried chicken, a side of sautéed greens, and creamy-looking yams, and Yuki felt herself on the verge of coming back to life. She hadn’t eaten all day.

Brady picked up his fork, paused with it in the air, and said, “I was going to tell you about Liz.”

“I know.”

“I was. And I want to ask you something.”

Yuki had a forkful of chicken in her mouth. She was getting high from the chicken. She turned her eyes on Brady.

“Mmm-hmm?”

“Will you come home with me tonight?” Brady said.

RAIN WAS IN THE FORECAST, but it came down only when Cindy was leaving her office for the day. She stood at the curb under her red umbrella, cold rain blowing up the skirt of her raincoat and soaking her new shoes.

She pulled a wad of tissues out of her pocket and caught the long, high-pitched, trumpeting ahh-chooooooooo-ahh , a sneeze that just about took off the top of her head.

It looked like every damn cab in the city was taken or off duty. Cindy phoned All-City, the cab company she used regularly, and after listening to background music and ads, she was told, “Sorry, please call back later.”

Cindy sneezed again, damm it. Not only was she fighting a cold, she was also half starving and now late for dinner at Susie’s. She visualized the back room at Susie’s, that haven of warmth — and the name Quick Express leapt into her mind.

She pictured the cab company she’d visited earlier in the week when she was working on the drug-and-rape story. Since then, there had been no reports of the serial rapist, and the story had taken a dive off the front page.