Free 10th Anniversary by James Patterson Page B

the story,” he said. “It’s going to hit the fan on the networks in a couple of hours, but it’s already broken on cable news and the Web.”
    Cindy was my next caller.
    “Lindsay. How could you not call me? You promised the story to me. You
swore.
”
    “I’ve got nothing, Cindy. Nothing at all. Zero. Zip. Legwork with no payoff.”
    Conklin’s phone rang, too. It was Paul Richardson saying that the media were gathering outside their hotel, clamoring for a statement.
    “Don’t tell them anything,” Conklin told Avis’s father. “Stay in your room and get the hotel to block your incoming calls. Use only your cell phone.”
    “The press is going to do cartwheels with this story,” I said to Conklin as we got back into the car.
    “Maybe a lead will come out of it,” he said.
    “I like your optimism.”
    I’d seen similar stories spin out of control and confuse evidence, spawn hoaxters, and contaminate jury pools. “Baby missing” could become kidnapping, child trafficking, even witchcraft or alien abduction. And that would be before the supermarket tabloids got hold of the story.
    “We need to catch a break,” Conklin said as we got back on the road.
    I sighed loudly.
    I wished I felt upbeat about this one. But I was feeling that it was too late to strap in. We’d already hit the wall.

Chapter 33
    THE PRESS-MOBILES were already parked in front of the Hall, satellite trucks and setups with talking heads using the gray, granite edifice as a backdrop.
    Conklin pulled into the lot off Harriet Street and I got a buzz in my hip pocket. Yuki was texting me to say she wanted to see me, tell me about her date last night. She’d put a picket fence of exclamation marks at the end of her message.
    I fired back a message in return, saying that I had to see her, too. Important!!!!!
    At just after six, I edged into the standing-room-only crowd at MacBain’s Beers o’ the World Saloon, a cop-lawyer-bail-bondsman hangout two blocks from the Hall. There were peanut shells on the floor, exotic beer on tap, and a pool table in back. Yuki was at the bar.
    I opened my jacket and, revealing my badge hooked to my belt, flashed it at the guy sitting to Yuki’s right.
    “I didn’t do it, Sergeant,” he said, holding up his hands. We both laughed. “Congratulations on, you know, getting married,” he said.
    “Thanks for the seat, Reynolds.”
    I said, “Hey, girlfriend,” to Yuki, kissed her cheek, planted myself on the bar stool. Then I ordered a Corona and plunged ahead. “I met with Candace Martin last night.”
    “You did
what?
I don’t think I heard you right.”
    Yuki was only sitting a foot away from me, but she jacked up the volume to a yell. She’d never been angry with me before, and frankly I felt ashamed.
    I flashed back to that trial of mine a couple of years ago, when I’d been accused of wrongful death in the shooting of a teenage girl who had fired on me and Jacobi without provocation.
    It was absolutely self-defense, but I was put on trial anyway. The city of San Francisco couldn’t help me. I could have lost my job, my life savings, my reputation, but that didn’t happen.
    Yuki Castellano had been on my defense team. She had fought for me and we had won. I owed her a lot.
    I said to Yuki now, “Phil Hoffman asked me to see her. He said we’ve got the wrong person for Dennis Martin’s killing.”
    “Are you ka-razy?” Yuki said.
    And then she let loose with her trademark breathless verbal fusillade. “You listened to a
defense
lawyer? You wentbehind my
back
and interviewed the defendant in my
case?
How could you
do
that, Lindsay? What made you even think you had the
right?
”
    “Chi and McNeill report to me,” I said, feeling my cheeks flaming. “If they made a bad arrest, I had to know.”
    I could have called Yuki. I
should
have called Yuki. But she would have been aboard the same train as Brady, Chi, and McNeill. She would have said, “Don’t do it.”
    “I just
talked
to her,