26 Beauties

Book 0: A Women's Murder Club Thriller

by James Patterson

Genres: Financial Thrillers; Vigilante Thrillers

Synopsis

The Women’s Murder Club goes searching for 26 Beauties—young women missing in San Francisco. 

SFPD’s Sergeant Lindsay Boxer's best friend, Claire Washburn, is named medical examiner of the year.
           But an uninvited guest crashes the Women’s Murder Club's party: a concerned father seeking investigative reporter Cindy Thomas’s help in locating his missing daughter. And she’s not the only one.
           Lindsay’s been investigating the deaths of a Jane Doe washed up on a nearby beach, and a young woman found in Golden Gate Park. 
          What if all these cases are connected? 
     The answers lie with the 26 Beauties on the run and in the wind. 

Release date: May 4, 2026

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 400

Sample

I COULDN’T HELP but feel proud, looking over the crowd at Susie’s Café. I’ve never considered myself much of a party planner, but I’d knocked this one out of the park.

One of my best friends, Claire Washburn, had been named medical examiner of the year by a national medicolegal investigators board. The association had put on a dull dinner for Claire and a dozen other winners of various awards. I felt she deserved more.

Claire had been expecting a very small affair. Maybe just the four of us members of the Women’s Murder Club: me and Claire plus our other besties, Cindy Thomas and Yuki Castellano. Instead, without telling Claire, I’d invited everyone who loved her. Which was pretty much everyone she knew, from family and friends to her associates at the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Everyone was mixing and milling and having a great time. Somehow it made me feel like a hero. At least a social hero.

My husband, Joe, gave me a sweet kiss on the cheek. “You did a great job on this party, Blondie.” He’d whispered it in my ear like it was a secret. I wouldn’t have been upset if he shouted it to the crowd. It made me smile from ear to ear.

As Joe wandered off to regale some members of Claire’s staff with stories of his exploits at the FBI, Yuki came up and gave me a hug. “Lindsay! This party rocks! Even Jackson is having a good time. Look in the corner.”

I glanced to my right to see Yuki’s husband, Jackson Brady, talking to a small group that included my partner, Rich Conklin, and a few other cops. The only notable absence was our other partner, Inspector Sonia Alvarez, who was currently away on a well-earned vacation.

Yuki glanced around the room and said, “You really pulled all this together yourself? It’s incredible. I want you to organize a big birthday bash for me. If you can pull this off for an award, you can go overboard for a birthday.”

“You never even acknowledge your birthday.”

“I didn’t know I could have a party like this if I did! I’ll make one up if I have to.” Yuki added, “I’m sorry I wasn’t really any help setting this up. I’ve got a drug-dealing case with nine defendants. There’s an attempted murder charge thrown in on the main defendant. We have two different interpreters, and one of the defendants claims he’s got a syndrome that won’t let him sit for more than ten minutes at a time. A court psychologist confirmed it. Makes for a very difficult trial.” She sighed, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

I noticed the ever-changing streak of color in her hair was now a royal purple and decided to change the subject. “I see you’ve updated your hair.”

“I thought purple was a better color for the social event of the year.”

We both laughed.

“Speaking of fashionable,” Yuki said, glancing down at my feet, “I love your shoes! Are those Louboutins? Real or knockoffs?”

Like I would ever pay a thousand dollars for a pair of shoes. I gave her a look. “I prefer to call them imitations.”

We both laughed again. Yuki knew as well as anyone that I wasn’t much of a fashionista. As a cop in San Francisco, I tended to stick with my usual slacks, button-down shirts, and sensible shoes. But somehow when I saw these pumps in a window over on Polk Street, I had to buy them.

I went back to my hostess duties and made sure there was plenty of food coming out of the kitchen. Then I spotted Claire’s husband, Edmund, a percussionist with the San Francisco Symphony, specializing in kettledrums. He’d arranged for a string quartet of fellow orchestra members to entertain, but after about ten minutes of classical music, it was clear the party was more of a rock ’n’ roll event. Two musicians found the house band’s guitars, and while the usual drum kit wasn’t set up, Edmund improvised with a pan he’d grabbed from the kitchen. It was fantastic.

A few minutes later, Claire came up to me and gave me a big embrace. “I can’t believe you put all of this together without me figuring it out!”

“I was afraid you’d be mad that it was too much.”

“Good food, fine drinks, and all my friends. It’s just right.” She gave me another spontaneous hug.

I circulated for a while, catching up with various friends and colleagues. But a little later, I noticed Claire at a table in the corner. She looked to be in a serious discussion with a teenage girl I recognized as her niece, Hope. Claire was clearly trying to keep Hope calm, but the girl seemed to be getting agitated. It looked like it might turn ugly.

Whatever the conversation was, Hope didn’t like it. She stood up from the table so fast she knocked her chair over. The clanking sound drew some stares. The teen turned and marched out the front door of the restaurant.

I went over and sat down next to Claire. Just offering support. I was glad I did. “I’m sorry about whatever set your niece off just now,” I said. I knew not to say anything more or ask any probing questions. I was just here to listen. I put my arm around Claire’s shoulder.

“Technically, Hope isn’t my niece. She’s my cousin Ellen’s daughter,” Claire said. “But Ellen and I have always been close. We were like sisters growing up. So Hope has always felt like my niece.”

“It’s still nice she came to your party.” Well, it was nice, until she stormed out.

“To tell you the truth, she’s been staying with us for the last little while. And I was afraid to leave her at the house alone.” Claire sighed. “I just don’t understand her. I always thought raising boys was harder. But Hope’s been a challenge since she turned twelve.”

Claire was a mother of three, two young adult sons and an eight-year-old daughter, Rosie. She was my go-to for parenting advice for my own daughter, Julie, so it surprised me to hear her sound so frustrated.

“I had really hoped that alternative school Ellen found might turn Hope around. But she’s nineteen now, and graduated, barely.” Claire described the special school her cousin had sent Hope to, in one of the towns east of Orinda, after some kind of trouble she’d had in regular classes. More behavioral than academic. To be honest, the “alternative school” sounded more like a boot camp.

“I seriously worry what’s next for her. But I guess I’ll worry about that at another time. Because there’re too many people here to let them see me cry.” Claire used a napkin from the table to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. Without another word, she stood up and strolled into the crowd.

A few minutes later, I spotted a tall man I didn’t recognize. He was startlingly good-looking. His longish brown hair and dark eyes gave him a rugged vibe. I noticed a faded scar that ran down the left side of his face. Somehow it made him even more attractive. I couldn’t explain it.

Who is this, and why is he at Claire’s party? I wondered. My cop’s curiosity got the better of me. I went over to the man and introduced myself.

He pocketed his iPhone, took my hand, and shook it. “I’m Eric Snaff,” he said with a weak smile.

“How do you know Claire?” This caught him by surprise. Eric didn’t seem to recognize Claire’s name.

He said, “I’m afraid I don’t really know her. I’ve sort of crashed this party because I need to talk to Cindy Thomas, the reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle, and I heard she’d be here. I’ll scoot out of here as soon as I speak to her.”

I sensed his embarrassment and appreciated his honesty. “She’s around here somewhere,” I said. I scanned the floor, then saw Cindy’s curly blond head across the room. She was chatting with one of the college-aged waitresses. Probably listening to the girl’s life story and offering encouragement, I thought.

To be on the safe side, I decided to walk the good-looking stranger over to my friend, and I stood by while Eric introduced himself.

Eric said, “I’m so sorry to intrude. I went to the Chronicle looking for you and happened to overhear two people saying that you were at Susie’s Café. I don’t think they meant for me to hear that.”

Cindy looked a little frustrated. “What is it I can help you with, Mr. Snaff?”

“I have a story I’d like you to investigate and write. An incredible story.”

“I’m sure your story will be just as incredible in the morning.” Cindy glanced around at the partygoers, locating her husband, Rich Conklin, then back at Eric Snaff. “This is hardly the time or place. You’d have to make an appointment and come by my office.”

Eric looked crestfallen. He nodded his head in an apology.

His response seemed to have gotten to Cindy. She sighed and said, “What’s the story about?”

“My seventeen-year-old daughter disappeared three months ago.”

I WOKE UP early, with a slight headache. I refused to call it a hangover. Last night I’d had Joe drive us home because I was tipsy. But having a couple of drinks had never seemed to bother me before. I almost hoped I had the flu. No one likes to come to the realization that they can’t do everything they did when they were younger.

Joe was already out of bed. I glanced over to the corner of the room where Martha, my constant companion of many years, lay resting on a new dog bed our six-year-old daughter, Julie, had set up for her, thinking Martha could use a bed in every room of the apartment. This bed was just an old sheet over one of the couch cushions, but the geriatric border collie seemed to appreciate it.

Then I heard giggling from the kitchen. I looked at Martha and said, “What do you think those two nuts are up to?”

Martha’s tail flapped against the cushion. Then she got up gingerly and followed me to the kitchen, where we were greeted by a grinning little girl holding up a plate of misshapen pancakes, and a grown man with a goofy smile standing proudly behind her.

Julie was literally jumping up and down with excitement. “Mommy! We made these just for you.” Joe’s expression told me he didn’t expect me to eat the odd-shaped blobs on the plate. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“How did you know I wanted pancakes for breakfast?”

Julie’s grin was infectious. “Everyone wants pancakes for breakfast.”

It was hard to argue with someone who had a fact so firmly set.

The three of us sat in the kitchen eating pancakes bathed in syrup and chatting.

These were the moments I tried to savor. I love my job. I love helping people and stopping bad people from hurting others. But spending time with my family like this was the way I used to dream my life could be.

The problem was, I knew this would be the high point of my day. I looked at Julie’s beautiful face and imagined all the fun we’d have if I just blew off my job and stayed home today. Our relationship had grown tremendously since I’d started using some of the parenting tips I’d learned in therapy with my psychiatrist, Dr. Greene. He’d made me consider the idea that work wasn’t the only thing fulfilling to me—that it might even be keeping me from my best possible relationship with Julie.

Joe said, “I should be out of the office early today.”

I said, “I’ll try to do the same thing.”

Then Julie chimed in, “Me too.”

That made us laugh. Julie turned and gave me a broad smile. Then she stretched forward and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“I love you, Mommy,” she said.

“And I love you, Julie-bug.” My heart felt like it would burst, I was so happy. I knew Julie’s little kiss would carry me through the whole day.

HEADING TOWARD THE entrance of the Hall of Justice on Bryant Street, I nodded to a number of acquaintances and friends. The building held the court system, the district attorney’s office, and the Homicide unit of the San Francisco Police Department.

The rest of the divisions of the police department had moved some time ago, with the headquarters now south of Oracle Park. I had no idea why they thought it was a good plan to leave Homicide here at the Hall of Justice, but at least it was familiar. There was something comforting about stepping through the doors I knew so well.

That was probably the last comfort I’d feel today. The case that occupied my mind wasn’t pretty. No homicide ever is. But this one, a corpse that had washed up on Marshall’s Beach in the Presidio, was especially unpleasant.

All we could tell was that the victim was a young woman. Maybe late teens or early twenties. Claire Washburn had determined the girl was dead by the time someone tossed her into the ocean. Even with all the damage caused by sea life and exposure to salt water, Claire had been able to determine the cause of death was strangulation.

It made me shudder. I often hear people say that fire would be a terrible way to go or falling from a great height. But to me, strangulation is the most terrifying method. It usually takes a while, and forces victims to look directly at their killer.

But other than that, we were stumped. It had been ten days and we still had no real leads. Marshall’s Beach, where she’d been found, wasn’t where you’d expect to find a body. It was a place for tourists, or for the wealthy locals living in the Presidio’s surrounding neighborhoods who liked to hike down the bluff to the beach.

I saw my boss, Jackson Brady, sitting in his office. I didn’t bother to duck in and say hello. If he needed something, I knew he’d come out and find me in the bullpen.

By this time of the morning, my head had cleared. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t fooling myself, so I pulled out a compact mirror I kept in my left-hand desk drawer. I took a quick look and decided I was presentable. My hair looked a little wild, but it was a Friday. Everyone knew where I’d been the night before. Hell, several people in my unit had been there too.

Like Rich Conklin, who plopped down at the desk next to mine. He rubbed his eyes, groaned, then looked at me.

“Why is it that you look alert and prepared and I feel like a truck hit me?” Richie complained. “It’s not just you either. Cindy rolled out of bed on time and ready to go this morning.”

“Just good genes, I guess,” I mumbled, then changed the subject. “What are you up to? I’ve got a few things to do on our Marshall’s Beach case.”

“So, I do have a little update, but it’s not much. I’ve checked with every safe house and runaway shelter in the Bay Area. So far, no one recognizes the girl from the digital composite the ME’s office put together for us. You know how people react to composites. In this age of the internet and cell phones, they want to see an actual photograph of someone before they’ll commit.”

“I appreciate you handling this. It’s a shit job but important on this case.”

I’d built up a fictional life for the young woman we’d found. A smart girl who didn’t feel like she fit in anywhere. Maybe she got suckered in by some slick-talking pimp. Or maybe she just needed some space from her neglectful parents. She’d run away only to be murdered.

Sometimes the job started to catch up to me.

Having a backstory for the victim was important to me. It wasn’t like I blabbed it to everyone. I didn’t even tell my partners. But I knew somewhere there was someone who missed this young woman. Someone who’d be saddened to hear that she was dead. And I wasn’t just going to sit here and let a killer get away with murdering her.

Conklin was the same. He said, “If one of my nieces disappeared, I hope a cop would work just as hard trying to find them. I also think it’s important for families to have closure. That’s why I’d like to identify this girl.”

“That’s just part one. Part two is finding out who strangled her.” Just then my desk phone rang with a call from the unit’s gatekeeper. I told Conklin to hold that thought.

“Sergeant, I have someone out here who insists on talking to you.”

“Who is it?”

“He won’t give me his name. He said you’d know him.” Bobby Nussbaum, a retired bailiff and Homicide’s front desk receptionist, lowered his voice. “He’s an odd one, Sergeant. I wouldn’t even have bothered you except he was insistent.”

I could hear a loud voice in the background saying, “Tell her the Duke of the Tenderloin is here. I request an audience at once!”

Bobby said, “I’m guessing you heard all that.”

“Can you have someone escort him to the conference room?”

“So you really do know him.”

“I do. And the duke has just enough decent information for me to talk to him every once in a while. Thanks, Bobby.”

I hung up the phone and turned to Conklin. “We have an interview. It’s a guy who’s lived on the streets in the Tenderloin for at least the last ten years. He calls himself the Duke of the Tenderloin. His real name is Barry Seifert. He was some kind of tech guy who just went over the edge with stress. Sometimes he’s good for weird information.”

Conklin nodded. He was probably the easiest partner I’d ever worked with. After so many years of working together, Richie was like the little brother I never had. And now that he and Cindy had finally gotten married—after the world’s longest on-again, off-again engagement—he seemed more than ever like family.

A minute later, a uniformed security guard walked up to my desk and said, “The guy you wanted to talk to is sitting in your conference room. I’m not sure I’d walk in there without a mask on.”

“Why? Does he seem sick? Is he coughing?”

“No… but I don’t think this guy’s taken a shower in the last year. He’s a little on the gamy side. More than a little, actually.”

Rich Conklin clapped his hands. “The perfect way to close out the week.”

CINDY THOMAS WAS settling into her desk chair on the second floor of the Chronicle Building on Mission Street.

She’d put a good face on it this morning with Rich, but she was feeling a little queasy after last night’s party. She was craving sugar and greasy food, just like when she was hungover back in college. On her way into work, the Shake Shack down the street had been calling her name. Fries sounded awfully good to her, maybe even a burger. But it was too early in the day.

Besides, she had a goal this morning. She was researching the man she’d met last night, Eric Snaff. At the party she’d taken his number, but put him off until she could be more certain of both him and his claim.

She started looking through news articles centered on the smaller cities of the East Bay. The first thing she found on Eric Snaff was that he was a widower and a youth services worker. He’d been working at the same facility near Walnut Creek for almost fourteen years. The article was about how he’d been injured by a broken bottle while breaking up a fight. That explained the scar on his face. It also assured Cindy that he wasn’t just a nut who had wandered in off the street.

The next story Cindy read was about Eric’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Nicole, who had disappeared roughly three months ago. There’d been a tremendous initial effort to find her. Search parties combed the foothills. People volunteered to take tips over the phone. All the usual community involvement when someone disappears. Over the course of a few weeks the involvement became less and less intense.

Cindy found a picture of Nicole. She really was beautiful, just like her father had said. The photo itself was of Nicole playing soccer, her long auburn hair flowing behind her. It wasn’t posed, but she still looked like she’d just stepped off the cover of Vogue.

Cindy had always been organized and logical. At least at her job. She considered the pros and cons of meeting with a stranger like Eric Snaff. There was some risk involved, but after reading all the articles, she thought the danger was minimal. It seemed like Eric was now the only one looking for his daughter. The whole situation made Cindy put herself in his shoes. She’d be devastated too if her child had disappeared.

Cindy decided to make a bold move. She phoned the number Eric Snaff had given her the night before. After a terse hello, he realized who was calling and agreed to meet her.

“Can you meet me at about noon in downtown San Francisco, Mr. Snaff?” she asked.

“Please call me . . .