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

I stood for a second, getting my bearings.

Opposite the elevator doors was the hotel’s laundry room, dryers churning with full loads. There were sixteen guest rooms on this level, eight on each side of the corridor. An emergency exit was at the far end. Between the last of the guest rooms and the emergency exit was a vending machine alcove to the left and the subterranean kitchen to the right, workers calling out orders and sending food up to the buffet. Dance music vibrated against the ceiling and walls.

Alvarez whispered, “You think that girl would really come here with him willingly?”

“He dumped a lot of chips into her bag.”

The room marked B16 was adjacent to the exit. We sidestepped a room service cart and approached Burke’s door.

I trusted Alvarez and we knew the drill.

She took a position to the left. I knocked and stepped to the opposite side.

I called out, “Front desk, Mr. Marsh. Smoke was reported in the room next door. Need to check on yours, real quick.”

I was expecting him to either ignore me or shout out “Get lost.” Instead, a girl’s high-pitched scream raised goose bumps along the backs of my arms.

“Hellllllllp!” she screamed. “Help meeeeeee!”

CHAPTER 95

I TOOK A BREATH and kicked the door open.

It only took one kick, and along with the door, half the doorframe separated from the wall. The only light in the room came from the hallway. I felt along the wall and found the bathroom on our right, just inside the wrecked entrance.

I touched the light switch and flipped on the one dull forty-watt bulb over the sink. Gunshots cracked and a bullet ripped into the open door.

Alvarez hit the floor and I used the bathroom wall as a shield.

I called out, “Evan Burke, this is the SFPD. Toss your gun toward me. Do it now or SWAT is going to take you out on my command!”

Alvarez was on her phone.

“The Eagle. Basement level. Shots fired at police officers. Be advised, two female plainclothes detectives on the scene.”

The girl was crying out, “Help me, please. He’s crazy. Help meeeee.” And then her voice was muffled. He’d put a hand over her mouth.

I wanted to help her, but the darkness cloaked everything and the weak bathroom and hallway light backlit me. The girl’s situation was putting the good guys in the line of fire. Alvarez and I weren’t wearing vests. My options were limited and more shooting was imminent.

Burke yelled in pain. “Damn you, bitch.”

I figured the girl had bitten him and had gotten free of Burke’s hand over her mouth. But he still had her in his grip. She screamed loud and long.

Burke shouted, “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

He sounded like he was reaching the end of the line.

“Burke. Let her go. Toss the gun toward me and stand up. Hands in the air. Do that and we all walk out of here. You will not live through ‘Or else.’”

“That you, Sergeant Boxer? I almost didn’t recognize you.”

Where in this gloomy hole was he?

The room was a bear trap and I couldn’t shut out the distracting sounds; the screaming, the washers and dryers and clanking from the kitchen. Any minute now, hotel workers would venture innocently into harm’s way.

Finally, as my eyes began to adjust to the darkness, I saw him.

Burke was across the room, sitting on the floor, his back braced against the back wall, his knees folded up against the side of the mattress. The girl appeared to be topless, sitting between his legs.

He said, “Sergeant, you two ladies drop your guns or I’ll kill her.”

“We’ve done this before, Burke. You know I’m not going to put down my weapon.”

I heard chatter in the hallway and shouts in Spanish. As I’d feared, the hallway was filling with hotel workers.

Alvarez shouted to them, “Vamanos! Get away from the door!”

The tableau froze.

And then it all happened too fast.

The girl let loose with a long whooping scream of pure wordless fear.

Gunshots cracked and the girl’s voice stopped in mid breath. I couldn’t see blood spray, but the air smelled of it. The dim light put a glint on Burke’s gun that was aimed at me.

We’re trained to shoot to kill; a double tap to center mass. But I couldn’t get a bead on Burke’s chest, so my double tap hit the shoulder of his shooting arm.

Damn it. At the same time, the hallway was filling with civilians, screaming, running, until the first runner hit the exit door lock bar, setting off an alarm.

I could just make out Burke trying to grip his gun with both hands. But he couldn’t aim.

Alvarez and I moved in. She disarmed Burke while I pulled the girl off the floor and got her onto the bed. She was bleeding profusely from the back of her head. I begged her to hang on, please. Her eyelids fluttered in the gloom. I said, “Help is coming,” but I knew she wasn’t going to make it.

By then, Alvarez had Burke’s good hand on the wall and he was yelping when I called Chief Belinky.

“What’s happening, Sergeant?”

“Suspect fired on us, chief. He put a slug through his date’s head. We’ve disabled him. We need an ambulance and the ME. Also, patrolmen are needed on the basement level to tape off a perimeter. Alvarez and I are in plain clothes and are holding down the scene.”

CHAPTER 96

EVAN BURKE YOWLED as Inspector Sonia Alvarez wrenched his arms behind his back and cuffed him.

She arrested him for murder and read him his rights. He grunted, “Yes, I understand, damn you,” as I switched on the overhead lights.

The blond girl stared up, seeing nothing. Blood was everywhere; on her, on the bed, on Burke, who was pressed up against the wall, grimacing out of the side of his face that I could see.

I