21st Birthday by Patterson, James (ebook reader screen .TXT) 📕

story on her phone and was reading it aloud for Yuki’s enjoyment. I remarked that Cindy was late as always, which was her cue to blow in through the front door.

She swung her eyes around ninety degrees before spotting us waving to her. She was loaded down with bags: purse, laptop, police scanner, and a video camera. Took her a couple minutes to settle down.

Sydney MacBain brought Cindy a Sam Adams and refilled the bowl of chips.

“Yuki,” said Syd. “I just heard. Congrats.”

“Thanks. It’s just step one, but at least Burke’s locked up.”

We toasted Yuki, then my friends toasted me. We drank long and deep, and after putting down my mug, I said “Remember when life was normal?” I put air quotes around “normal,” but I was feeling it. “Weekends off. Actual time to read a book, take a run. Play the guitar.”

The girls looked at me like I was out of my mind.

“What’d I say?”

Claire said, “When was the last time you played the guitar, sweetie?”

“Well. I may be rusty, but I still know how.”

The girls laughed, but Claire laughed the loudest because she knows how long — years and years.

I think Yuki was laugh-coughing into her beer when a shadow fell across the table. I looked up and did a double take. It was my husband, Joe. He never comes to MacBain’s, and yet here he was.

“Is Julie okay?” I said, immediately concerned.

“She’s fine. She’s in the car with Mrs. Rose,” he said. He greeted my friends, then said, “Hon, I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“Joe. Our phones off rule.”

He seemed amused, but there was something else in his expression I couldn’t quite read. Like he had something big by the tail.

He said, “Got a second? I need to talk to you. Outside.”

“Uh-oh. Okay.” I looked around the table and said, “I guess I’ll be going.” I put ten bucks on the table and followed Joe out. He held the door open, and when we were on the sidewalk said, “I just heard from Berney.”

CHAPTER 61

JOE HAD PARKED his car at the far corner of the block.

He unlocked the doors with his remote and I saw Julie and Mrs. Rose in the back seat. Mrs. Mooey Milkington was lying across Julie’s knees, and she was wearing headphones, her attention fixed on her tablet and a game in progress. She looked up when I opened the door and reached for her.

“Mom. Don’t. I’m countin’ chick’ns.”

This video game had become an obsession, but, I thought, a harmless one. I said, “Okay, okay.”

I kissed my hand, tapped the top of Julie’s head, and waggled my fingers in greeting at Mrs. Rose.

“Thanks, Gloria.”

She winked at me and said, “Happy to do it.”

“Joe,” I said softly. “What did Berney say?”

“Quite a lot, Linds. Almost too much.”

“I’m braced. Now, talk.”

“Don’t rush me. I’m speaking from memory.”

“Sor-ry.”

“Okay. First thing. Berney said that Evan Burke changed his name to Jake Winslow about fifteen years ago, after his wife and daughter disappeared. The three of them had been living in Marin County. Lucas had already left home.”

“Gone to college, you mean.”

“And grad school.”

“So, after the wife and daughter go missing, presumed dead, Lucas’s father sells the four-bedroom house with an ocean view and moves to parts unknown. He’s just been located in the Mount Tam area where, Berney says, he’s created a life for himself off the grid. Damned few records of him using either name. He’s a cash-only kind of guy.”

I thought if Burke didn’t want to be found, living off the grid was the way to go. Mill Valley is upscale but if you keep driving north, you reach the smaller communities in the woods surrounding Mount Tamalpais. A lot of free thinkers from the sixties and seventies live there so as not to leave establishment footprints.

Joe said, “Google Earth has never recorded his place, but from drone shots on file, Berney ID’d Burke’s house in the woods. Look here,” he said, showing me his phone. “Cabin at the end of a deer track leading to the front door.”

“Hunh. Not much to it.”

“Right. There are several of these hunting-type cabins in the area. No addresses. If Burke gets mail, it goes to the Mill Valley PO. And get this: the former Evan Burke had some work done on his face.”

I said, “Why would he do that and move to a remote place like this? Sure sounds like he’s on the run to me. There a picture of Evan Burke’s new face?”

“I sent it to you, Blondie,” my husband said. “You’ll get it when you turn on your phone.”

“Thanks,” I said, punching him lightly in the shoulder. I took my phone out of my breast pocket.

“Hmmm,” I said, staring at a candid shot of a man crossing a street under slanting sunlight — somewhere. He was good-looking but unremarkable.

I said, “No distinguishing features that I can see. Around six feet. Full head of dark hair. He looks younger than — what? He’s got to be sixty.”

“That’s right. Might color his hair to go with his unlined new face.”

“What kind of vehicle does he have?”

“He had a cabin cruiser at one time,” Joe said. “The type you could live on. He might still have it.”

I said, “Gotta give the guy an ‘A’ for getting away from it all. What do you think, Joe? Is he escaping his grief, reinventing himself? Or is he a killer in hiding?”

Joe said, “But, here’s why this couldn’t wait, Lindsay. Berney says Burke usually makes a move after a kill. He could be getting ready to take off about now, or may already be gone. That’s all Berney’s got.”

I said, “So, a career killer in hiding and now on the move.”

“All we know or think we know is that he’s breathing free air. Right now you might get the jump on him. He won’t be expecting the SFPD.”

“Gotcha. I’ll share with the boss. Thanks for doing this, Joe.”

“Happy to