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

“Hey.”

“Hey, you.”

They linked arms and Yuki said, “It’s standing room only in there, Linds, but please find a place. I want you there when the verdict is read.”

Lindsay said, “Of course. I came looking for you. Dinner tonight, okay?”

“Okay. Either way.”

Yuki watched as Lindsay squeezed in next to Cindy in the back row. The courtroom settled down.

Judge Passarelli banged his gavel until the room quieted.

He said to the jury, “Have you arrived at a verdict?”

The forewoman stood, said “We have, Your Honor.” She handed a slip of paper to the bailiff, a bored-looking man who lumbered over to the forewoman, then back to the judge.

The judge took the slip, turned it around and read it without expression, then handed it back to the bailiff, who walked it back to the foreperson.

The judge said, “Madam Foreperson, will you please read the verdict?”

Nick pushed his tablet over to Yuki. He’d drawn a question mark with rays coming off it.

Yuki scanned the faces of the jurors.

How had they decided? She couldn’t read a one of them.

CHAPTER 109

CLAIRE, CINDY, AND I had picked up Yuki in the lobby of the Hall and bundled her into Cindy’s Hyundai sedan for a chauffeured ride to the Women’s Murder Club HQ.

Yuki sat in the front seat beside Cindy, turning to face me and Claire, lavishing us with her rapid-paced hardly stopping to breathe chatter that was both joyful and contagious.

I was elated for Yuki — hey, I was proud of the whole task force, especially Alvarez, still amazed we’d come back from the Las Vegas shoot-out without a scratch.

Yuki was saying that Red Dog had told her to relax while waiting for the verdict, but it had been impossible. “Every time I thought of floating on the calm sea, I pictured sharks swimming toward me and I just panicked. So, thanks so much, all of you guys, for, well, everything.”

At five o’clock we were comfortable in our cozy red banquette in Susie’s back room. Lorraine came over, her auburn hair in a pony, ballpoint pen tucked over her ear. She went straight to Yuki, and asked, “Did you win?”

Yuki nodded. “You know when I knew it?”

Four women asked, “When?” in unison.

Yuki said, “When the foreperson, that angel, read the verdict out loud. ‘We find the defendant, Lucas Burke, guilty on count one —’”

Cindy chimed in, “Gardner polled the jury, and it was unanimous. They’d all voted guilty, guilty, guilty.”

I couldn’t remember Lorraine having ever touched any of us, but now she swept Yuki up from her seat and squished her in a hug, then said, “A pitcher of Margaritas on me, Yuki. Coming right up.”

“Thank you, Lorraine. You know I need my tequila infusion.”

“Beer for meeee,” I shouted after her. “And chips.”

“And menus,” called Claire.

She looked rested, smiling and wearing pink, fully recovered from the surgery that had kept her out of work for months. Cindy had her laptop out on the table and had filed her story in the interlude between ordering and the arrival of food and drink.

Hours had passed since I’d shared a pizza with Joe and Julie at the airport. I was starving.

Margaritas, hot sauce, chips, and menus arrived along with a pitcher of beer alongside a frosted mug.

I filled my mug, lifted it, saying, “To Yuki, ace prosecutor.”

“To you, Lindsay,” she said, “and your task force for nailing Luke, that black-hearted killer. And to you, Claire, for standing your ground against Newt Gardner. And to you, Cindy, for sending Kathleen Wyatt to Lindsay in the first place and for covering the investigation and the trial of Lucas Burke and for being on the record with all of it.”

Of course, we laughed. And we ordered too much food, and that balanced out the margaritas so that Yuki didn’t sing and dance. When we were on the key lime pie course, I called Brady to come over and drive Yuki home.

Took him about ten minutes before he came through the door of the Caribbean café.

I said, “Brady, sit. Have a drink.”

He said to Lorraine, “Dr Pepper and the check for alla this, please.”

Minutes later Brady lifted his glass and said, “A more formidable murder club doesn’t exist, anywhere.” He drank the soda down, and when he was done he said, “I’m gonna take this little sweetie home now. Love all y’all.”

The Women’s Murder Club answered in unison, “Night, you guys. Good night.”

CHAPTER 110

CLAIRE ORDERED AN UBER, I walked Cindy to her car, then caught a cab that was letting out a passenger just outside.

When my cab dropped me off on Lake Street, I felt buzzed, satisfied, and happy to be alive.

My husband, little girl, and best dog were all waiting for me when I blew through the front door. I was home, and even a hotel with a two-hundred-foot fountain playing show tunes and slot machines that could pay out a million dollars in quarters couldn’t touch it.

Joe said no one had called, not Chief Belinky, nor Alvarez, nor any of the brass at the SFPD. A miracle. I read to my little Bugster until she told me, “You read like you’re singing, Mom.”

“Do I?”

“Uh-huh. I like it.”

“I’ll keep reading,” I said, but Julie Bugs had fallen asleep in my lap.

I tucked her into bed, took a leisurely hot shower, changed into fresh PJs, and threw myself into bed.

It was past ten when I realized that I’d never turned my cell phone back on after leaving Susie’s.

I got out of bed, grabbed my phone out of my bag, and that fast, Joe took it out of my hand. I protested that I had to check my calls, but he said, “You need to chill, Linds, and I’m the enforcer.”

I knew he was right, but when my eyes flew open at 4 a.m., that nagging feeling was right there with me as if lit