The 19th Christmas

by James Patterson

  Julie was there on the threshold, looking up at me. Still hearing people talking, I looked over her head, but only Julie could see into the bathroom. I stooped down and said, “Honey, I’ll be out in a minute—”

  “Mommy, guess what?”

  “Let me get dressed before I guess, okay?”

  I shooed Julie out of the bathroom doorway and darted into the bedroom with my little sweetie calling behind me, “Hurry up.”

  I reached into the closet for pants, a top, flat shoes. My hair was damp, but I finger-combed it and put it up in a ponytail, and then, ready or not, I joined the party in the living room.

  Joe stood up from his chair and so did the lithe young woman who’d been sitting on the sofa. Martha, wagging her tail, ran to me and pushed at my hand.

  My husband said, “Lindsay, this is Franny.”

  “Hi, Franny,” I said, walking toward her. She said, “So good to meet you,” but my arms were already outstretched as if they had a mind of their own.

  I wrapped her in a hug.

  Julie ran over and hugged my legs and Joe stood behind Franny, where I could see him beaming.

  My little girl tugged at my shirttails and I looked down at Julie-Bug’s precious face. She was grinning.

  “Guess what?” she said.

  “What?” I said, releasing my stepdaughter.

  “Mom. Mom. This is Franny.”

  “Yes, darling, I know.”

  “Franny is my sister, Mom. I have a sister.”

  There were smiles all around, and then Joe said, “Who’s hungry?”

  “I’m starved,” said my stepdaughter.

  “Me, too,” said Julie.

  “I can always eat,” I said.

  Franny helped in the kitchen as Joe set the table and then lifted the pan of his amazing lasagna from the oven. I tossed the salad, and very soon, we were all gathered around the dining table. I sat across from Joe; Julie sat between Franny and me.

  The awkwardness, the tension, the fear of God only knew what—that was gone.

  All of the Molinaris were home, together.

  Acknowledgments

  The authors wish to thank the many people who have been essential advisers to our fictitious characters: Capt. Richard Conklin, BCI Commander, Stamford, Connecticut, PD; attorneys Phil Hoffman and Steve Rabinowitz, partners at the law firm of Pryor Cashman, NYC; Hugo Rojas, who advised us in immigration law for this book; Chuck Hanni, arson investigator in Youngstown, Ohio; and the late Humphey Germaniuk, medical examiner and coroner of Trumbull County, Ohio, who sadly passed away in 2018.

  We are also grateful to Ingrid Taylar, our on-location researcher in San Francisco, to Mary Jordan, who successfully keeps the many moving parts and pieces in order and on time, to our supportive spouses, Sue and John, and to Team Patterson.

  Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all.

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  About the Authors

  JAMES PATTERSON is the world’s bestselling author and most trusted storyteller. He has created many enduring fictional characters and series, including Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club, Michael Bennett, Maximum Ride, Middle School, and I Funny. Among his notable literary collaborations are The President Is Missing, with President Bill Clinton, and the Max Einstein series, produced in partnership with the Albert Einstein Estate. Patterson’s writing career is characterized by a single mission: to prove that there is no such thing as a person who “doesn’t like to read,” only people who haven’t found the right book. He’s given over three million books to schoolkids and the military, donated more than seventy million dollars to support education, and endowed over five thousand college scholarships for teachers. The National Book Foundation recently presented Patterson with the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, and he is also the recipient of an Edgar Award and six Emmy Awards. He lives in Florida with his family.

  Novelist MAXINE PAETRO has collaborated with James Patterson on more than two dozen bestselling novels, including the Women’s Murder Club, Private, and Confessions series; Woman of God; and other stand-alone novels. She lives with her husband, John, in New York.

  Read on for an excerpt

  from the next

  Women’s Murder Club thriller

  The 20th Victim.

  Chapter 1

  Cindy Thomas was tuned in to her police scanner as she drove through the Friday-morning rush to her job at the San Francisco Chronicle.

  For the last fifteen minutes there’d been nothing but routine calls back and forth between dispatch and patrol cars. Then something happened.

  The Whistler TRX-1 scanner went crazy with static and cross talk. It was as though a main switch had been thrown wide open. Codes in the four hundreds jammed the channel. She knew them all: 406, officer needs emergency help; 408, ambulance needed; 410, requested assistance responding.

  Cindy was an investigative journalist, top dog on the crime beat. Her assistance was definitely not requested, but she was responding anyway. Tips didn’t get hotter than ones that came right off the scanner.

  The location of the reported shooting was a Taco King on Duboce Avenue. Cindy took a right off Otis Street and headed toward the Duboce Triangle, near the center of San Francisco between the Mission, the Castro, and the Lower Haight.

  With the sirens from the patrol cars ahead and the ambulance wailing and honking from behind, she sure didn’t need the street number. She pulled over to the side of the road, and once the emergency medical bus had passed her, she drafted behind it, pedal to the floor and never mind the speed limit.

  The ambulance braked at the entrance to the Taco King at the intersection of Duboce Avenue and Guerrero Street. Cruisers had blocked off three lanes of the four-lane street, and uniformed officers were already detouring traffic. People were running away from the scene, screaming, terrified.

  Cindy left her Honda at the curb and jogged a half block, reaching the Taco King in time to see two paramedics loading a stretcher into the back of the bus. She tried to get the attention of one of them, but he elbowed her out of his way.

  “Step aside, miss.”

  Cindy watched through the open rear doors. The paramedic ripped open the victim’s shirt, yelled, “Clear,” and applied the paddles. The body jumped and then doors slammed and the ambulance tore off south on Guerrero, toward Metro Hospital.

  Police tape had been stretched across three of the four lanes, keeping bystanders from entering the parking lot and the restaurant. At the tape stood a uniformed cop—Al Sawyer—a friend of Cindy’s live-in love, homicide inspector Rich Conklin.

  She walked up to Sawyer with her notebook in hand, greeted him, and said, “Al, what the hell happened here?”

  “Oh, hey, Cindy. If you hang on, someone will come out and make an announcement to the press.”

  She growled at him.

  He laughed.

  “I heard you were a pit bull, but you don’t look the part.” She wore blond curls, with a rhinestone-studded clip to discipline them, and had determination in her big blue eyes. That was how she looked, no manipulation intended. Still.

  “Al. Look. I’m only asking for what everyone inside and outside Taco King saw and heard. Gotta be forty witnesses, right? Just confirm that and give me a detail or two, okay? I’ll write, ‘Anonymous police source told this reporter.’ Like that.”

  “I’ll tell you this much,” Sawyer said. “A guy was shot through the windshield of that SUV over there.”

  Sawyer pointed to a silver late-model Porsche Cayenne.

  “His wife was sitting next to him. I heard she’s pregnant. She wasn’t hit and didn’t see the shooter. That’s unverified, Cindy. Wife’s inside the squad car that’s moving out of the lot over there. And now you owe me. Big time. Give me a minute to think so I don’t blow my three wishes.”

&
nbsp; Cindy didn’t give him the minute, instead asking, “The victim’s name? Did anyone see the shooter?”

  “You’re pushing it, Cindy.”

  “Well. My pit-bull reputation is at stake.”

  He grinned at her, then said, “Can you see the SUV?”

  “I see it.”

  “Take a picture of the back window.”

  “All right, Al, I sure will.”

  Sawyer said, “Here’s your scoop: The victim is almost famous. If he dies, it’s going to be big news.”

  Chapter 2

  Sawyer shook his finger at Cindy, a friendly warning.

  Cindy mouthed, “Thank you,” and before she could get chased away, she ducked the tape, got within fifty feet of the SUV’s rear window, and snapped the picture. She was back over the line, blowing up the shot, when Jeb McGowan appeared out of the crowd and sidled up to her. McGowan looked like a young genius with his slicked-back hair and cool glasses with two-tone frames. He played the part of journo elite, having worked crime in his last job at the LA Sun Times. He had a daily column—as she had—and had done some interviews on cable news after he reported on the Marina Slasher two years ago.

  Back then McGowan had implied that San Francisco was small-time and provincial.

  “Why are you here?” she’d asked.

  “My lady friend has family in Frisco. She needs to see them more. So whaddya gonna do?”

  Cindy had thought, For starters, don’t call it Frisco.

  Now McGowan was in her face.

  “Cindy. Hey.”

  That was another thing. McGowan was pushy. Okay, the same had been said of her. But in Cindy’s opinion, McSmarty was no team player and would love to shove her under a speeding bus and snatch the top spot. Or maybe he’d just stick around, like gum under her shoe, and simply annoy her to death.

  “Hiya, Jeb.”

  She turned away, as if shielding her phone’s screen from the morning sun, but he kept talking.

  “I had a few words with a customer before she fled. I have her name and good quotes about the mayhem after the shooting. Here’s an idea, Cindy. We should write this story together.”

  “You’ve got the name of the victim?”

  “I will have it.”

  “I’ve already got my angle,” she said. “See you, Jeb.”

  Cindy walked away from McGowan, and when she’d left him behind, she enlarged the image of the Porsche’s back window. A word had been finger-painted in the dust.

  Was it Rehearsal?

  She sucked in her breath and punched up the shot until Rehearsal was clear. It was a good image for the front page, and for a change, no friend of hers at the SFPD was saying, “That’s off the record.”

  As she walked to her car, Cindy wondered, Rehearsal for what? Was it a teaser? Whatever the shooter’s motive for shooting the victim, he was signaling that there would be another shooting to come.

  Cindy phoned Henry Tyler, the Chronicle’s publisher and editor in chief, and left him a message detailing that her anonymous source was a cop and she was still digging into the victim’s identity.

  Back in her car, she listened to the police scanner, hoping to catch the name of the victim. And she called Rich to tell him what she’d just seen.

  He might already know the victim’s name.

  Chapter 3

  Yuki Castellano locked her bag in her desk drawer, left her office, and headed to the elevator.

  A San Francisco assistant district attorney, Yuki was prosecuting an eighteen-year-old high school dropout who’d had the bad luck to sign on as wheelman for an unidentified drug dealer.

  Two months ago there’d been a routine traffic stop.

  The vehicle in question had a busted turn-signal light and stolen plates. The cop who’d pulled over the vehicle was approaching on foot when the passenger got out of the offending vehicle and shot him.

  The cop’s partner returned fire, missed, and fired on the vehicle as it took off on Highway 1 South. The cop called for assistance and stayed with the dying man.

  A few miles and a few minutes later the squad cars in pursuit forced the getaway car off the far-right lane and roadblocked it. The police found that the passenger had ditched, leaving the teenage driver, Clay Warren, and a sizable package of fentanyl inside the car.

  The patrolman who’d been shot died at the scene.

  Clay Warren was held on a number of charges. The drugs were valued at a million, as is, and impounded. Warren and the car were identified by the dead cop’s partner, and forensics had found hundreds of old and new prints in the vehicle, but none that matched to a known felon.

  Bastard had worn gloves or never touched the dash, or this was his first job and he wasn’t in the system.

  Yuki doubted that.

  So in lieu of the killer dealer, the wheelman was left holding the bag.

  The DA was prosecuting Clay Warren for running drugs in a stolen car and acting as accomplice to murder of a police officer, but largely for being the patsy. Yuki had hoped that Warren would give up the missing dealer, but he hadn’t done so and gave no sign that he would.

  Using the inside of the stainless-steel elevator door as a mirror, she applied her lipstick and arranged her hair, then exited on the seventh floor and approached Sergeant Bubbleen Waters at the desk.

  “Hi, B. I have a meeting with prisoner Clay Warren and his attorney.”

  “They’re waiting for you, Yuki. Hang on a sec.”

  She picked up the desk phone, punched a button, and said, “Randall. Gate, please.”

  A guard appeared, metal doors clanked open, and locks shut behind them. The guard escorted Yuki to a small cinder-block room with a table and chairs, two of the chairs already occupied. Clay Warren wore a classic orange prison jumpsuit and silver cuffs. His attorney, Zac Jordan, had long hair and was wearing a pink polo shirt, a khaki blazer, jeans, and a gold stud in his left ear.

  Zac gave Yuki a warm smile and stood to shake her hand with both of his.

  “Good to see you, Yuki. Sorry to say, I’m not getting anywhere fast. Maybe Clay will listen to you.”

  Chapter 4

  Zac Jordan was a defense lawyer who worked pro bono for the Defense League, a group that represented the poor and hopeless.

  During a brief break from her job with the DA, Yuki had worked for Zac Jordan and could say that he was one of the good guys and that his client was lucky to have him.

  In this case, his client was facing major prison time for being in the wrong car at the wrong time.

  Yuki sat down and asked, “How’s it going, Clay?”

  He said, “Just wonderful.”

  Clay Warren looked younger than his age. He was small and blond haired, with a button nose, but when he glanced up, his gray eyes were hard. After his quick appraisal of Yuki, he lowered his gaze to his hands, the cuffs linked to a metal loop in the middle of the table. He looked resigned.

  “Clay,” she said, “as we discussed before, a police officer is dead. You know who shot him. I’m asking you again to help us by telling us who did that. Otherwise, I can’t help you, and you’ll be charged as an accomplice to murder and for possession of narcotics with intent, and tried as an adult. You’re looking at life in prison.”

  “For driving the car,” he said.

  “Do you understand me?” Yuki asked. “You’re an accomplice to the murder of a cop. If you help us get the shooter, the DA might help you out. The charges could be lowered significantly, Clay.”

  “I don’t know anything. I was driving. I heard the siren. I pull over and get charged with all of this bullshit. It’s wrong. All wrong. I was speeding. Period.”

  “And the drugs inside the car? Where’d you get a million dollars’ worth of fentanyl?”

  Yuki knew that there was a tentative ID on the dealer. The cop who’d watched his partner die on the street had reviewed photos of likely suspects, big-time drug dealers, and thought the shooter might be Antoine Castro, but he wasn’t entirely sure.r />
  Yuki said, “Why are you taking the weight for scum like Antoine Castro?”

  The kid shook his head no.

  Castro was on the FBI’s most-wanted list. By now, Yuki was willing to bet, he’d left the country and assumed a new identity.

  Zac said, “Lying isn’t helping you, son. I know ADA Castellano. I’ll negotiate for you.”

  “For God’s sake,” Warren shouted. “Leave me alone.”

  Yuki imagined that if the killer dealer was Castro, he’d gotten word to the kid. Warned him.

  You talk. You die.

  Clay Warren wasn’t going to talk. Yuki stood up.

  “I’m sorry, Zac.”

  “You tried,” he said.

  She went to the door and the guard opened it for her. She left Zac Jordan alone with his client, a scared kid who was going to die in prison, just a matter of when.

  Coming Soon

  Criss Cross

  Lost

  Blindside

  Texas Outlaw

  The 20th Victim