10th Anniversary - James Patterson [36]
“What about him?”
“He asked me out. I went out to dinner with him. Twice. It went well. So, uh … we’re dating.”
I stopped breathing and just held the receiver hard to my ear, waiting for the next shoe to drop.
“Linds?”
“Jackson Brady? You’re kidding me. Say you’re joking.”
“I really like him, Linds. I just wanted you to hear it from me.”
I’d thought there was nothing Yuki couldn’t tell me, but I’d been wrong. This news had shaken me. And I didn’t know how to tell my good friend why I felt stricken to my bones.
“Lindsay, will you please say something?”
“There’s no good way to say this. I checked Brady out when he joined the squad,” I said. “He’s married, Yuki. Did Brady tell you that he’s married?”
Book Two
LIES, LIES, AND MORE LIES
Chapter 43
THAT SUNDAY was all mine.
I had ordered eggs and hash browns at Louis’, a greasy spoon on Point Lobos Avenue. It was a great barn of a place, built in 1937 on a cliff overlooking the ocean. True, Louis’ drew tourists, but it was still a local hangout, especially in the early morning.
The day was still too young for tourists, so Louis’ was full of regulars, mostly runners and walkers from the coastal trail at Lands End, now relaxing and reading papers at the counter. Nobody was bothering anyone.
I sighed with contentment.
From my seat in a booth, I had a view of the Sutro Baths at Lands End and I could also see my parking spot in front of Louis’ and Martha in the driver’s seat of my Explorer. Before coming here, we’d made a stop at Crissy Field so that Martha could run on a sandy beach and swim in the surf of the bay.
“Careful, the plate’s not,” the waitress said, setting down my breakfast. She refilled my chunky brown mug with fresh-brewed Colombian java.
“Thanks. It looks perfect,” I said.
My cell phone rang, just as I picked up my fork. Why was I so goddamned popular? I looked at my phone, but didn’t recognize the name on the caller ID. Who was W. Steihl?
Should I take the call? Or should I let it go to voice mail?
I flipped a quarter and smacked it on the back of my hand. I took a peek.
“Boxer,” I said with a sigh into the phone.
“Sergeant Boxer, this is Wilhelmina Steihl. Willy. I met you the other day at Brighton?”
Now, I remembered her. Willy Steihl was one of Avis Richardson’s school friends. She had shiny black hair to her shoulders and steel-rimmed glasses, and she wore bright red lipstick.
I also remembered how hesitant she was to talk to Rich and me a few days ago, but from the sound of her voice, she had something urgent to tell me now.
“I couldn’t say anything when you were here,” Willy Steihl said to me. “People would have figured out that I was the rat.”
“Let’s not worry about being a rat,” I said. “Rats can be heroes, too. Do you know where we can find Avis’s baby?”
“No, no, I don’t know that. I’m a friend of Larry Foster? He said I should call you. Are you near a computer?”
“No, but my phone is pretty slick. What should I look up?”
“I want to show you some pictures. On Facebook. But I don’t want to give you my password.”
The kid was worrying about a password — something she could change in a couple of keystrokes — but I didn’t want to go balls to the wall with her. Willy was a minor. She didn’t have to talk to me at all.
“What if I meet you at your dorm?” I said. I signaled to the waitress to bring me my check.
“Not there. I don’t want anyone to see me talking to you,” Willy said.
I stifled a groan and told her I’d meet her at the entrance to 850 Bryant in an hour.
“I’ll be there,” Willy told me.
Was she going to help me find Avis’s baby? Or was this going to be another lead to nowhere?
I put a ten and a fiver on top of the check and left Louis’ still hungry.
Chapter 44
IT WAS JUST ABOUT TEN and an overcast sixty-four degrees when I rolled the window down a few inches for Martha and left my car in the lot across from the Hall.
Willy Steihl was not outside the large granite cube where I worked, so I waited on the corner, tapping my foot as traffic breezed by at a steady clip even for a Sunday.
Ten minutes