19th Christmas (Women's Murder Club #19) - James Patterson Page 0,9

AND BRADY were at home that evening, dressing for a pre-Christmas dinner with DA Len Parisi and a handful of coworkers. They had promised each other that they would pick out a tree together. There was still time.

Yuki fastened the clasp of her jet necklace, and it curled neatly above the rounded neckline of her little black dress. She brushed her hair and then sat on the edge of the bed, watching Brady get ready.

He said, “I’m looking forward to getting out, talking to people. Wonderin’ if I still have any charm left after all these years.”

“You’ve still got it, sweetie. Charm to spare.”

In Yuki’s opinion, he underplayed his appeal and it was a pleasure to see him dressing for a night out. She liked his pink shirt, a sweet complement to his buffed body and white-blond hair. He held up three ties for her review, and she selected one with a pattern of jumping dolphins.

“This place is going to be jammed,” said Brady as he knotted his tie in front of the mirror.

The restaurant they were going to was the new hip successor to LuLu’s, also specializing in local seafood, suckling pig, and gourmet pizza cooked in wood-fired brick ovens. Yuki thought about her first dinner at LuLu’s with Len Parisi.

Yuki and her new boss had been discussing a case in which a ferry passenger had pulled a gun and unloaded on the other passengers, killing six innocent people. The Brinkley case was Yuki’s first prosecution of a mass murderer, and it was personal: the killer had shot her friend Claire Washburn and her teenage son, both of whom, thank God, had survived.

She and Len had been deep in conversation over wine and pizza when he suddenly clutched his chest and toppled backward onto the restaurant floor.

To this day, Len credited her with saving his life. She had only made a phone call, but he insisted that it was because of her clearheaded actions—waving off the fellow diner who had volunteered to drive him to the hospital, calling 911, staying with him, riding with him in the ambulance—that he was alive today.

In Yuki’s opinion, Len didn’t owe her a thing. It was the other way around. She’d learned so much from him, and she liked him, too.

It had been at least a year since she and Brady had had a social evening with Len and friends, and she was thinking ahead to what she knew would be a memorable event.

Brady was lacing up his shoes when his phone vibrated. Yuki had tried instituting a no-phone-after-eight-p.m. rule, but it hadn’t lasted for even a day. She got calls. He got calls. Drowning “those dang things” in the sink was a fun idea but definitely impractical.

Brady grabbed his phone off the dresser, and Yuki listened to his end of the conversation.

He said, “Tell me everything, Boxer. But y’all are okay? I need the name of the FBI agent. Okay. Got it. You need to get all of those tenants off the sixth floor and into the lobby. I agree. Wait for the ME. I’ll call the mayor. Absolutely. Twenty minutes, traffic permitting.”

Yuki knew what was coming next. She sighed.

He ended the call, speed-dialed the mayor, and left an urgent message.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Yuki. “Our investigation just turned into a shootout with two fatalities. I’ve got people on the scene, more on the way, and a lotta displaced tenants needing a place to bunk.”

Yuki was disappointed, but she didn’t say so. Dinner was dinner. This was life and death. Brady had been talking with Lindsay, and that meant that her friend had been in danger. Yuki tuned back in to what her husband was saying.

“I have to go. Yuki, tell Red Dog I’m sorry.”

“He’ll understand,” she said. “Be safe. I love you.”

CHAPTER 12

AFTER LIVING THROUGH the terrifying shootout at the Anthony, I was weak-kneed, shaky, and ready for sleep, a shower, hugs, and dinner, not necessarily in that order.

I took the elevator to our apartment and had stabbed my key at the front-door lock several times when the door opened. Joe said, “Hey, just wondering what happened … oh, man, look at you, Blondie.”

“That good, huh?”

I got my hug. I held on to Joe, thinking once again that my love for my job could cost me everything. Any day. Any time.

I told Joe that I loved him, my voice cracking in the middle. He said, “Hey, hey, you’re home now. Take a look at what Sugarpuss and I have been