21st Birthday, James Patterson [best mystery novels of all time TXT] 📗

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 got my phone out and punched in Brady’s number. He picked up. The wireless reception was two bars, but I told him everything in twenty-five words or less.

“I’ll call you back once Burke is in lockup.”

Burke’s actions tonight put terrible pictures in my mind along with doubt. Was Yuki trying the wrong Burke for the triple homicide? I couldn’t shake the feeling, but I had a live killer right in front of me and work to do.

Turning back to Burke, I said, “Alvarez and I watched you kill your companion. We’ll make statements and testify to that. You want any help from us, this would be the time to talk.”

He made a laugh-like sound.

I said, “You’re looking at murder one for this. Feds get next bite at you. The DA in San Francisco might intercede on your behalf for a confession to the murder of Tara and Lorrie Burke, Melissa Fogarty, and anyone else you’d care to name.”

“You’re a riot, lady. Those hits belong to Lucas. I know Luke better than anyone and I’m telling you, sarge, he’s a killer.”

“Like you.”

“He’s worse. He’s been killing since he was a little shit. Baby birds, puppies, cutting them, stabbing them, putting a hole in the chest every second until they died. Don’t waste any sympathy on him, Boxer, is it? Lindsay. He’s a savage. A monster. What kind of man kills his own child?”

Two officers were at the doorway. I gave them the short version. “He killed his date. He’s under arrest. We called for an ambulance. Keep eyes on him at all times.”

Cops were taping off the hallway when forensics arrived.

“Time’s running out,” I said to Burke.

“You look cute in a dress.”

I ignored what he said and asked, “What’s your date’s name?”

“Candy? Tammy? Sugar?”

I snapped a shot of Burke, sent that to Berney as the room filled with paramedics and CSU. Before Jane Doe was wrapped in a sheet and carried out on a stretcher, Alvarez took a close-up of her face, the bullet hole through her forehead.

I kept thinking of her as a girl because she looked so young. Was she twenty?