4th of July (2005)

by JAMES PATTERSON (with Maxine Paetro)

  “Wait,” said Cindy, scooting into the booth on my other side. “I want to hear. For the record, if you don’t mind, Lindsay. I think a little profile of our homicide ace is in order.”

  I bussed her on the cheek. “You’ll have to clear it with PR,” I told her.

  “You’re such a pain,” she said, kissing me, too.

  Claire and Cindy each ordered one of the exotic drinks the bar was famous for as Yuki arrived, straight from the office. She was still in her prim lawyer’s suit, but she had a new sassy red streak in her glossy black hair.

  The oysters and firecracker shrimp came, and the hand-cut steak tartare was dressed by a waiter at tableside. As the food and libations were served, I told the girls about the takedown at the stucco house on the hill.

  “It was so freaking weird that I thought of her as a buddy,” I said of Carolee, “and I didn’t know her at all.”

  “Makes you doubt your intuition,” said Cindy.

  “Really. And she fooled my sister, too.”

  “You think she was just keeping tabs on you because you investigated this Brian Miller’s murder?” said Claire.

  “Yeah. Keeping her ‘friend’ close and her enemy closer.”

  “To John Doe Number Twenty-four. His case is closed,” said Yuki, lifting her glass.

  “Case closed,” we repeated, clinking our glasses to hers.

  We ordered monkfish, skate with asparagus, Maine lobster spaghetti, and New York Black Angus steak, and somehow, between chowing down on the sensational food and all of us trying to speak at once, everyone got her story in.

  Cindy was writing a story about a bank robber who’d gotten caught because he wrote his “stick ’em up” note on the back of his own deposit slip.

  “He left the deposit slip and took off with the dough,” Cindy said. “Cops were waiting for him when he got home. This one goes to the head of my ‘Dumb Crooks’ column.”

  “I’ve got one for you!” Yuki jumped in. “My client—to remain nameless—is a stepson of one of the partners, and I had to defend him,” she said, twirling the red streak in her hair. “A coupla cops bang on his door looking for a robbery suspect. My guy says, ‘Come on in,’ because he doesn’t know anything about a robbery. Then he says, ‘Look anywhere you like—except the attic.’”

  “Go on, go on,” we urged her. Yuki sipped her Germain-Robin Sidecar and looked around the table.

  “Judge grants a search warrant, and the cops find my client’s setup in the attic. Hydroponic marijuana under grow lights. Sentencing is next week,” she said over our laughter.

  As the conversation swirled around the table, I felt lucky to be with this gang again. We all felt so comfortable together and had shared so much—even with our newest friend, Yuki, who’d been unanimously admitted to the group for saving my butt and my life as I knew it.

  We were about to order dessert when I saw a familiar white-haired man with a slight limp coming toward us.

  “Boxer,” Jacobi said, without even acknowledging the others, “I need you now. The car’s running outside.”

  I put my hand over my now-empty glass reflexively. My heart rate shot into high gear, and a mental slide show of a car chase and a shoot-up flashed before my eyes.

  “What’s going on?” I asked him.

  He bent his head toward mine, but instead of whispering, he kissed me on the cheek.

  “There’s nothing going on,” he said. “I was going to pop out of a cake, but your girls here dissuaded me.”

  “Thanks, Jacobi,” I said, cracking up. I put my hand on his arm. “Come and join us for dessert.”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  Jacobi slid into the booth, and we all shoved over one seat to make room for him. The waiter brought chilled Dom Perignon—thanks, Jacobi—and when our flutes were full, my friends new and old toasted my return.

  “To Lindsay. Welcome home!”

  Epilogue

  Chapter 146

  THE FIRST WEEK BACK on the job blew around me like a Category 5 hurricane.

  The phone rang nonstop, and cops were at my door every few minutes bringing me up to speed on several dozen active cases. Everything was a red alert.

  But the overarching problem was clearer to me than ever before. The department’s average of solved cases hovered around 50 percent, which put us very close to the bottom of large-city homicide squads.

  It wasn’t that we weren’t good; we were simply undermanned and overwhelmed, and the squad was burning out. In fact, people had been calling in sick all week.

  When Jacobi knocked on the glass door that Friday morning, I told him to come in.

  “Lieutenant, shots were fired in Ocean Beach, two men down. One car is on the scene, one on the way, and the officers are still requesting backup. The witnesses are panicky and starting to scatter.”

  “Where’s your partner?”

  “Taking lost time.”

  I could see everyone in the squad through the glass walls of my office. The only cop without a stack of active cases on his or her desk was me. I grabbed my jacket from the back of my chair.

  “I guess we’re catching,” I said to my former partner. “Tell me what you know.”

  “Two gangs from Daly City and Oakland had it out in the parking lot near the beach,” Jacobi told me.

  We hustled down the stairs, and once we were outside on McAllister, Jacobi unlocked the car and took the wheel.

  “It started with knives, then a gun came out. Two vics dead at the scene, one wounded. Two perps are in custody. One of the perps waded out into the surf and buried the gun in the sand.”

  I was already imagining the scene of the crime, looking ahead to putting the puzzle pieces together. “We’ll need divers,” I said, gripping the dash as we took the corner at Polk.

  Jacobi gave me a rare grin.

  “What’s that for, Jacobi?”

  “Pardon me, Lieutenant,” he said over the sound of the siren. “I was thinking.”

  “Yes?”

  “I still like working with you, Boxer. It’s good to have you back in the saddle again.”

  About the Authors

  James Patterson is the author of the two bestselling new detective series of the past decade: the Alex Cross novels, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers London Bridges, The Big Bad Wolf, and Four Blind Mice, and the Women’s Murder Club series, including the #1 bestsellers 1st to Die, 2nd Chance, and 3rd Degree. He is also the author of the bestselling love stories Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas and Sam’s Letters to Jennifer. He lives in Florida.

  Maxine Paetro is a novelist and journalist. She lives with her husband in New York.