The 19th Christmas (Women's Murder Club #19)(9)

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 up to.”

Sugarpuss, a.k.a. Julie Anne Molinari, screamed, “Mom meee,” and ran into the foyer. Joe grabbed her up so I could get out of my jacket and lock my weapon in the antique gun safe high above Julie’s curly-haired head.

Martha woofed and waddled in and got her paws up on my knees. We all headed into the big living-eating-relaxing room with its tan leather furniture and big TV.

And there, standing between two tall windows looking out onto Lake Street, was a beautiful Christmas tree, winkin’ and blinkin’, intensely decorated on the branches that Julie could reach. The star for the pinnacle was sitting on the windowsill, and a pile of wrapped presents filled the seat of Joe’s big daddy chair.

“Oh, my God,” I said. “You two did all of this?”

“I did, Mommy!” said Julie.

I didn’t know I still had an ear-to-ear grin left in me. I picked Julie up and she gave me a tour of the tree: the snowflakes and icicles, the globes with little scenes inside, and the now-traditional silver star from my sister, Catherine, engraved with First Christmas on one side and Julie on the other.

After the tour and Joe’s promise to place the star on the top of the tree in the morning, we put our little girl to bed. We doused the light, blew some kisses, and closed the door. As we tiptoed back to the living room, Joe said, “If I were you …”

“Hmmmm?”

“If I were you, I’d have a bowl of mushroom beef barley soup. Then a shower. Then ice cream.”

“We have that soup?”

I must have been staring at him with stray-dog eyes, because Joe laughed long and hard. “You think I would offer soup and not have any?”

“You made it from scratch?” I said.

“Mrs. Rose did that.”

Mrs. Rose, Julie’s part-time nanny, was an amazing cook.

“I’m reheating it,” said Joe. “That counts.”

“It certainly does.”

He sat me down and turned a flame up under the soup. When I was tucking into a bowl with a spoon in one hand and half of a buttered baguette in the other, I told my husband about my day.

I started with Christmas shopping for Cindy, then the chase along Grant Avenue, the capture of Julian Lambert, and our Q and A with him back at the Hall.