23rd Midnight, page 24
part #23 of Women's Murder Club Series
Jeffery Deaver
‘Smart characters, shocking twists … you count down to the very last page to discover what will happen next.’
Lisa Gardner
‘No one gets this big without amazing natural storytelling talent – which is what Jim has, in spades.’
Lee Child
‘Boxer steals the show as the tough cop with a good heart.’
Mirror
‘Great plot, fantastic storytelling and characters that spring off the page.’
Heidi Perks
‘Patterson boils a scene down to the single, telling detail, the element that defines a character or moves a plot along. It’s what fires off the movie projector in the reader’s mind.’
Michael Connelly
James Patterson is The Boss. End of.’
Ian Rankin
Have You Read Them All?
1ST TO DIE
Four friends come together to form the Women’s Murder Club. Their job? To find a killer who is brutally slaughtering newly-wed couples on their wedding night.
2ND CHANCE
(with Andrew Gross)
The Women’s Murder Club tracks a mystifying serial killer, but things get dangerous when he turns his pursuers into prey.
3RD DEGREE
(with Andrew Gross)
A wave of violence sweeps the city, and whoever is behind it is intent on killing someone every three days. Now he has targeted one of the Women’s Murder Club …
4TH OF JULY
(with Maxine Paetro)
In a deadly shoot-out, Detective Lindsay Boxer makes a split-second decision that threatens everything she’s ever worked for.
THE 5TH HORSEMAN
(with Maxine Paetro)
Recovering patients are dying inexplicably in hospital. Nobody is claiming responsibility. Could these deaths be tragic coincidences, or something more sinister?
THE 6TH TARGET
(with Maxine Paetro)
Children from rich families are being abducted off the streets – but the kidnappers aren’t demanding a ransom. Can Lindsay Boxer find the children before it’s too late?
7TH HEAVEN
(with Maxine Paetro)
The hunt for a deranged murderer with a taste for fire and the disappearance of the governor’s son have pushed Lindsay to the limit. The trails have gone cold. But a raging fire is getting ever closer, and somebody will get burned.
8TH CONFESSION
(with Maxine Paetro)
Four celebrities are found killed and there are no clues: the perfect crime. Few people are as interested when a lowly preacher is murdered. But could he have been hiding a dark secret?
9TH JUDGEMENT
(with Maxine Paetro)
A psychopathic killer targets San Francisco’s most innocent and vulnerable, while a burglary gone horribly wrong leads to a high-profile murder.
10TH ANNIVERSARY
(with Maxine Paetro)
A badly injured teenage girl is left for dead, and her newborn baby is nowhere to be found. But is the victim keeping secrets?
11TH HOUR
(with Maxine Paetro)
Is one of Detective Lindsay Boxer’s colleagues a vicious killer? She won’t know until the 11th hour.
12TH OF NEVER
(with Maxine Paetro)
A convicted serial killer wakes from a two-year coma. He says he’s ready to tell where the bodies are buried, but what does he want in return?
UNLUCKY 13
(with Maxine Paetro)
Someone returns to San Francisco to pay a visit to some old friends. But a cheerful reunion is not on the cards.
14TH DEADLY SIN
(with Maxine Paetro)
A new terror is sweeping the streets of San Francisco, and the killers are dressed in police uniform. Lindsay treads a dangerous line as she investigates whether the criminals are brilliant imposters or police officers gone rogue.
15TH AFFAIR
(with Maxine Paetro)
Four bodies are found in a luxury hotel. Lindsay is sent in to investigate and hunt down an elusive and dangerous suspect. But when her husband Joe goes missing, she begins to fear that the suspect she is searching for could be him.
16TH SEDUCTION
(with Maxine Paetro)
At the trial of a bomber Lindsay and Joe worked together to capture, his defence raises damning questions about Lindsay and Joe’s investigation.
17TH SUSPECT
(with Maxine Paetro)
A series of shootings brings terror to the streets of San Francisco, and Lindsay must confront a killer determined to undermine everything she has worked for.
18TH ABDUCTION
(with Maxine Paetro)
As Lindsay investigates the disappearance of three teachers, Joe is drawn into the search for an international war criminal everyone thought was dead.
19TH CHRISTMAS
(with Maxine Paetro)
Lindsay’s plans for a quiet festive break are undone when she receives a tip-off that the biggest heist ever to hit San Francisco is being planned for Christmas Day.
20TH VICTIM
(with Maxine Paetro)
When simultaneous murders hit LA, Chicago and San Francisco, SFPD Sergeant Lindsay Boxer is tasked with uncovering what links these precise and calculated killings.
21ST BIRTHDAY
(with Maxine Paetro)
When a young mother and her baby daughter are reported missing, Lindsay takes up the investigation to find them.
22 SECONDS
(with Maxine Paetro)
Lindsay investigates an illegal shipment of drugs and weapons crossing the Mexican border, risking both her badge and her life.
Read on for an extract from RUN ROSE RUN
The global smash-hit by James Patterson and Dolly Parton
Out now in paperback, ebook and audiobook
Prologue
The Louis Seize–style mirror in the bedroom of suite 409 at the Aquitaine Hotel reflected for little more than an instant a slim, fine-featured woman: wide blue eyes, clenched fists, dark hair streaming behind her as she ran.
Then AnnieLee Keyes vanished from the glass, as her bare feet took her racing into the suite’s living room. She dodged the edge of the giltwood settee, flinging its throw pillow over her shoulder. A lamp fell with a crash behind her. She leaped over the coffee table, with its neat stack of Las Vegas magazines and tray of complimentary Debauve & Gallais truffles, her name written in chocolate ganache flecked with edible gold. She hadn’t even tasted a single one.
Her foot caught the bouquet of Juliet roses and the vase tipped over, scattering pink blooms all over the carpet.
The balcony was up ahead of her, its doors open to the morning sun. In another instant, she’d reached it, and the hot air hit her in the face like a fist. She jumped onto the chaise longue and threw her right leg over the railing, struggling to push herself the rest of the way up.
Then, balanced on the thin rail between the hotel and the sky, she hesitated. Her heart beat so quickly she could hardly breathe. Every nerve ending sparked with adrenaline.
I can’t, she thought. I can’t do it.
But she had to. Her fingers clutched the rail for another split second before she willed them loose. Her lips moved in an instant of desperate prayer. Then she launched herself into the air. The sun flared, but her vision darkened and became a tunnel. She could see only below her — upturned faces, mouths open in screams she couldn’t hear over her own.
Time slowed. She spread out her arms as if she were flying. And weren’t flying and falling the same?
Maybe, she thought, except for the landing.
Each millisecond stretched to an hour, these measures of time all she had left in this world. Life had been so damn hard, and she’d clawed her way up only to fling herself back down. She didn’t want to die, but she was going to.
AnnieLee twisted in the air, trying to protect herself from what was coming. Trying to aim for the one thing that might save her.
ELEVEN MONTHS EARLIER
CHAPTER 1
AnnieLee had been standing on the side of the road for an hour, thumbing a ride, when the rain started falling in earnest.
Wouldn’t you know it? she thought as she tugged a gas station poncho out of her backpack. It just figures.
She pulled the poncho over her jacket and yanked the hood over her damp hair. The wind picked up, and fat raindrops began to beat a rhythm on the cheap plastic. But she kept that hopeful smile plastered on her face, and she tapped her foot on the gravel shoulder as a bit of a new song came into her head.
Is it easy? she sang to herself.
No it ain’t
Can I fix it?
No I cain’t
She’d been writing songs since she could talk and making melodies even before that. AnnieLee Keyes couldn’t hear the call of a wood thrush, the plink plink plink of a leaky faucet, or the rumbling rhythm of a freight train without turning it into a tune.
Crazy girl finds music in everything — that’s what her mother had said, right up until the day she died. And the song coming to AnnieLee now gave her something to think about besides the cars whizzing by, their warm, dry occupants not even slowing down to give her a second glance.
Not that she could blame them; she wouldn’t stop for herself, either. Not in this weather, and her probably looking no better than a drowned possum.
When she saw the white station wagon approaching, going at least twenty miles under the speed limit, she crossed her fingers that it would be some nice old grandpa pulling over to offer her a lift. She’d turned down two rides back when she thought she’d have her choice of them, the first from a chain-smoking lady with two snarling Rottweilers in the back seat, the second from a kid who’d looked higher than Mount Everest.
Now she could kick herself for being so picky. Either driver would have at least gotten her a few miles up the road, smelling like one kind of smoke or another.
The white wagon was fifty yards away, then twenty-five, and as it came at her she gave a friendly, graceful wave, as if she was some kind of celebrity on the shoulder of the Crosby Freeway and not some half-desperate nobody with all her worldly belongings in a backpack.
The old Buick crawled toward her in the slow lane, and AnnieLee’s waving grew nearly frantic. But she could have stood on her head and shot rainbows out of her Ropers and it wouldn’t have mattered. The car passed by and grew gradually smaller in the distance. She stomped her foot like a kid, splattering herself with mud.
Is it easy? she sang again.
No it ain’t
Can I fix it?
No I cain’t
But I sure ain’t gonna take it lyin’ down
It was catchy, all right, and AnnieLee wished for the twentieth time that she had her beloved guitar. But it wouldn’t have fit in her pack, for one thing, and for another, it was already hanging on the wall at Jeb’s Pawn.
If she had one wish — besides to get the hell out of Texas — it was that whoever bought Maybelle would take good care of her.
The distant lights of downtown Houston seemed to blur as AnnieLee blinked raindrops from her eyes. If she thought about her life back there for more than an instant, she’d probably stop wishing for a ride and just start running.
By now the rain was falling harder than she’d seen it in years. As if God had drawn up all the water in Buffalo Bayou just so He could pour it back down on her head.
She was shivering, her stomach ached with hunger, and suddenly she felt so lost and furious she could cry. She had nothing and nobody; she was broke and alone and night was coming on.
But there was that melody again; it was almost as if she could hear it inside the rain. All right, she thought, I don’t have nothing. I have music.
And so she didn’t cry. She sang instead.
Will I make it?
Maybe so
Closing her eyes, she could imagine herself on a stage somewhere, singing for a rapt audience.
Will I give up?
Oh no
She could feel the invisible crowd holding its breath.
I’ll be fightin’ til I’m six feet underground
Her eyes were squeezed shut and her face was tilted to the sky as the song swelled inside her. Then a horn blared, and AnnieLee Keyes nearly jumped out of her boots.
She was hoisting both her middle fingers high at the tractor trailer when she saw its brake lights flare.
CHAPTER 2
Was there ever a more beautiful color in the whole wide world? AnnieLee could write a damn ode to the dazzling red of those brake lights.
As she ran toward the truck, the cab’s passenger door swung open. She wiped the rain from her eyes and looked at her rescuer. He was a gray-haired, soft-bellied man in his fifties, smiling down at her from six feet up. He tipped his baseball cap at her like a country gentleman.
“Come on in before you drown,” he called.
A gust of wind blew the rain sideways, and without another second’s hesitation, AnnieLee grabbed onto the door handle and hauled herself into the passenger seat, flinging water everywhere.
“Thank you,” she said breathlessly. “I thought I was going to have to spend the night out there.”
“That would’ve been rough,” the man said. “It’s a good thing I came along. Lot of people don’t like to stop. Where you headed?”
“East,” she said as she pulled off her streaming poncho and then shrugged out of her heavy backpack. Her shoulders were killing her. Come to think of it, so were her feet.
“My name’s Eddie,” the man said. He thrust out a hand for her to shake.
“I’m … Ann,” she said, taking it.
He held her fingers for a moment before releasing them. “It’s real nice to meet you, Ann.” Then he put the truck into gear, looked over his shoulder, and pulled onto the highway.
He was quiet for a while, which was more than fine with AnnieLee, but then over the road noise she heard Eddie clear his throat. “You’re dripping all over my seat,” he said.
“Sorry.”
“Here, you can at least dry your face,” he said, tossing a red bandanna onto her lap. “Don’t worry, it’s clean,” he said when she hesitated. “My wife irons two dozen for me every time I head out on a run.”
Reassured by news of this wife, AnnieLee pressed the soft bandanna to her cheeks. It smelled like Downy. Once she’d wiped her face and neck, she wasn’t sure if she should give it back to him, so she just wadded it up in her hand.
“You hitchhike a lot?” Eddie asked.
AnnieLee shrugged because she didn’t see how it was any of his business.
“Look, I been driving longer than you been alive, I bet, and I’ve seen some things. Bad things. You don’t know who you can trust.”
Then she saw his big hand coming toward her, and she flinched.
Eddie laughed. “Relax. I’m just turning up the heat.” He twisted a knob, and hot air blasted in her face. “I’m one of the good guys,” he said. “Husband, dad, all that white-picket-fence business. Shoot, I even got a dang poodle. That was my wife’s idea, though. I wanted a blue heeler.”
“How old are your kids?” AnnieLee asked.
“Fourteen and twelve,” he said. “Boys. One plays football, the other plays chess. Go figure.” He held out a battered thermos. “Got coffee if you want it. Just be careful, because it’s probably still hot as hellfire.”
AnnieLee thanked him, but she was too tired for coffee. Too tired to talk. She hadn’t even asked Eddie where he was going, but she hardly cared. She was in a warm, dry cab, putting her past behind her at seventy miles per hour. She wadded her poncho into a pillow and leaned her head against the window. Maybe everything was going to be okay.
She must have fallen asleep then, because when she opened her eyes she saw a sign for Lafayette, Louisiana. The truck’s headlights shone through slashing rain. A Kenny Chesney song was on the radio. And Eddie’s hand was on her thigh.
She stared down at his big knuckles as her mind came out of its dream fog. Then she looked over at him. “I think you better take your hand off me,” she said.
“I was wondering how long you were going to sleep,” Eddie said. “I was getting lonely.”
She tried to push his hand away, but he squeezed tighter.
“Relax,” he said. His fingers dug into her thigh. “Why don’t you move closer, Ann? We can have a little fun.”
AnnieLee gritted her teeth. “If you don’t take your hand off me, you’re going to be sorry.”
“Oh, girl, you are just precious,” he said. “You just relax and let me do what I like.” His hand slid farther up her thigh. “We’re all alone in here.”
AnnieLee’s heart pounded in her chest, but she kept her voice low. “You don’t want to do this.”
“Sure I do.”
“I’m warning you,” she said.
Eddie practically giggled at her. “What are you going to do, girl, scream?”
“No,” she said. She reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out the gun. Then she pointed it at his chest. “I’m going to do this.”
Eddie’s hand shot off her leg so fast she would’ve laughed if she weren’t so outraged.
