The 23rd Midnight

Book 0: A Women's Murder Club Thriller

by James Patterson, Maxine Paetro

Genres: Police Procedurals; Crime Fiction; Suspense

Synopsis

The Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller!

An attention-seeking copycat is recreating murders by a famous killer from the Women’s Murder Club’s past—with devastating new twists.  

Detective Lindsay Boxer put serial killer Evan Burke in jail. 
 
Reporter Cindy Thomas wrote a book that put him on the bestseller list.
 
An obsessed maniac has turned Burke’s true-crime story into a playbook. And is embellishing it with gruesome touches all his own. 
 
Now Lindsay’s tracking an elusive suspect, and the entire Murder Club is facing destruction.

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 400

Sample

AT DAWN THAT morning, a man dressed entirely in black backed his gray Ford sedan up to the curb on Taylor Street. To the east, the morning sun struggled to rise through the clouds over San Francisco Bay. It was still dark but the man, who was now in “Blackout” mode, knew this street as well as he knew his own mind.

He cut his headlights, released the trunk latch, lowered the seat back a few inches and adjusted his video glasses in the rearview mirror. With his unobstructed view of Victorian row houses and the wooden staircase behind him in the rearview, Blackout waited for Catherine. She was always on time, one of the many things he liked about her.

At twenty-five, Catherine Fleet was a beautiful mother of a baby girl named Josephina, and an integral part of the masterwork he was creating. He wished he could talk with her about it, but there wouldn’t be time. She was leaving her house on Leavenworth now. She would turn down Macondray Lane, the quarter mile of footpath that ran downhill and at a right angle to Taylor.

The lane parted a smattering of trees and hugged the walls of the large homes until it merged with the wooden staircase that ended only feet from the rear of Blackout’s stripped-down cop car.

Catherine would pause there, Josie strapped into her front-facing carrier, and together they would take in the magnificent view of dawn breaking over San Francisco Bay. Moments later, she would head south to Ina Coolbrith Park for their morning walk.

As he rounded off that thought, Blackout saw a flicker of movement in his rearview mirror. Catherine was halfway down the staircase, as regular as a metronome. Her unbuttoned dark coat revealed a garnet-red, snowflake-patterned sweater over dark pants. Her long, dark hair spilled over her shoulders and floated around the redheaded baby’s ears.

Perfect. She was perfect.

Blackout secured his video glasses, worked his gloves over his large hands, and got out of his car. In only a few strides he’d reached the foot of the staircase. Catherine looked down briefly, gripping the banister, giving the good-looking young man a brief smile.

Blackout smiled back, took the first two steps upward, snagging the toe of his shoe on the third. As he’d calculated, he tripped and fell facedown spectacularly, sprawling with his arms spread like a large broken bird.

She called out, “Oh, my gosh. Are you all right?”

“I, uh, don’t know,” he said. “I think I slammed my knee on the edge of the riser…”

Blackout was awkwardly working himself up into a crouch when Catherine reached him.

“Can you stand up?”

The concern in her voice sent a wave of pleasure through him as he looked up into her blue eyes, the irises rimmed with gold halos. The baby was awake, beating her fists against the air.

“I’m good,” said Blackout. “Embarrassed, is all. I try to impress with finesse.”

Catherine laughed, saying, “Forget it ever happened,” never seeing the small vial Blackout had secreted in his clenched hand. Called “Down Dog,” it was an inelegant name, but it got the job done. He aimed the sprayer at Catherine Fleet’s golden blue eyes and thumbed the lever.

Her reaction was instant, sharp, pained. She cried, “What did you do?” She sat down hard, tearing up from the pepper spray and palming her eyes. The baby girl was gulping air, exhaling wails that could be heard through brick walls.

Blackout had to move fast, before someone else came down the stairs on their way to the park. He scrambled up and got behind Catherine, cradled her lovely neck between his forearm and biceps. She could barely draw breath, gasping, “Don’t. Hurt. My baby.”

“Don’t worry. She’s in good hands.”

Catherine tried to push off the step, to get away from him, but Blackout held her in place and spoke gently to her as he squeezed.

“Don’t fight me, Catherine. It’ll be all over soon. Shhh, shhhh. I’ve got you.”

In fifteen seconds, Catherine was unconscious. In forty seconds, a woman who’d been at the peak of life was dead. But the baby was wailing.

Blackout assessed their combined weight at a hundred and twenty pounds. He checked in all directions. They were alone. He gathered up mother and child and carried them to his car’s unlatched trunk.

He stowed them without trouble and was reaching inside to kill the baby, when a man’s voice called out.

“Pardon me. Do you need some help there?”

BLACKOUT TURNED TO see a jogger in shorts and a tennis shirt materialize in the gloom, coming slowly toward him. He had seen him before, a man in his seventies, stiff, arthritic, now winded from climbing the hill.

“We’re fine,” Blackout shouted back. “We’re all fine.”

The jogger’s expression showed confusion, then, as the baby’s cries filled the air, the old man put it all together. And he held up his phone.

He shot pictures, then, turned and ran surprisingly fast back down the hill, with his phone clapped to his ear. He was calling 911. Had to be. He had pictures on his phone. Of him. Of his car. Maybe he’d gotten an angle on his plates and the contents of the trunk.

The baby was shrieking.

There was no time for rage. Blackout covered the baby’s mouth and nose with his large gloved hand until the baby had stopped breathing. Then he dragged blankets over the two dead bodies. Slamming the trunk lid closed, he surveyed the field with a chopper gunner’s eyes, tipping the street toward him and dividing it into a grid.

The jogger was sixty feet away and gaining downhill speed. Farther down the block, near the Victorian row houses, an impatient woman yanked on the leash of a small, prancy dog before disappearing through a doorway.

And now, the sun was burning off the cloud cover and pinking up the sky. Blackout slid into the driver’s seat and pulled the old Ford out of the parking space. Straightening out, he touched his foot to the gas. He trailed behind the old man for a moment before darting around him, braking suddenly, blocking him in. The old man faltered, dodged, then made for the space between two parked cars.

Blackout reached for the weapon lying on the passenger seat. A stun cane. He grasped it, exited his vehicle, and using the stick as a bat, he swung and connected with the back of the old man’s head. The jogger fell against a parked van then slumped to the street. He cried out weakly, but the sound didn’t carry.

The phone had jumped from the jogger’s hand, skidded a few yards downhill. Blackout walked over and crushed it with his heel, then uncapped the stun cane.

The jogger was weeping, helpless. He couldn’t stand.

Blackout looked down at him and carefully placed the business end of the stun cane against the jogger’s throat.

He spoke in a soothing voice, “What’s your name?”

The old man pushed futilely at the stick. His face was red. Tears spilled down his cheeks.

“Don’t,” he said. “I didn’t see anything.”

“I said, ‘What is your name’?”

He wheezed, “Jay. Cob.”

“Jacob. Got it. You took pictures, buddy. Big mistake. Hang on for the thrill of your life.”

Blackout pulled the stun-cane’s trigger, sending a million volts into the old man’s body, enough to light up the entire block. He knew that the human body could only absorb one percent of a charge that strong, but that plus the current knocked the old man out and with luck, stopped his heart.

But no. The old man blinked his eyes. His mouth moved.

The sky was brightening and Blackout had no more time for this. Back in his car, he pulled the classic Ruger Mark IV, complete with suppressor, from his glove box. He walked back to the old man and aimed the gun point-blank at his forehead and fired it. Then put two more in his chest.

With his back to the many-windowed houses on Taylor’s west side, Blackout picked the SIM card out of the litter of Jacob’s broken phone. He tossed the stun cane back into his car and took the driver’s seat, returning the gun to the glove box. The engine was still running and now Blackout allowed elation, that precious, elusive feeling, to fill him up. He heard in his deep and heaving breaths, the soundtrack of his life.

He made a mental note to freeze frame on the bullet hole in Jacob’s forehead. Fade to black.

And then he headed the car downhill.

Blackout still had a lot of work to do, of the most important kind.

CINDY THOMAS SAT in the back seat of a Lincoln Town Car heading toward Book Passage in Corte Madera. It was Saturday afternoon, the first stop on her book tour, and she had every reason to be excited.

It had been a whirlwind since she’d sold the project. Given the hot subject matter, her publisher had accelerated the production schedule to push out finished copies in record time.

Prepublication reviews had been outstanding. Industry buzz had it that her book could hit number one on the New York Times Best Seller list. If that came to pass, it would be an honor and a miracle, but she wasn’t feeling the buzz, not even close.

In the course of writing Evan Burke’s authorized biography, she’d been repeatedly shocked by Burke’s ruthlessness, the pleasure he took in killing. Unable to wall herself off from the sickening details of his crimes, Cindy had come to know Evan Burke too well. And that knowledge had changed her.

Cindy held the book in her lap tightly with both hands. She flipped it over to look again at Burke’s photo on the back cover. He looked ordinary: A white man with an unlined face and a full head of hair who could be anywhere from his fifties to his seventies. He’d had work done, too, getting his face sculpted and chemically abraded. That rolled back his age by ten to twenty years. His brown eyes looked kind. But Evan Burke had never felt kindness. He was a psychopath, a serial killer who’d racked up over a hundred murders before he was finally caught in the act.

Injured in a shoot-out with police, he’d been arrested, hospitalized, and charged with murder in the first degree.

That should have been a full stop, the end of the story, but Evan Burke’s narcissism couldn’t be stopped. While still being treated for his injuries, cuffed and shackled to a hospital bed, he’d asked to see Cindy Thomas, star crime reporter with the San Francisco Chronicle.

Cindy hadn’t known that Burke was a fan of her work, but he’d told her that he read her column daily and that she would be famous one day. She had gone to the hospital hoping for a quote, and he’d pitched his big idea.

“I want to cement my place in history. What do you say, Cindy? Let’s write a book together.”

An investigative reporter with an earlier true-crime book to her credit, Cindy remembered being a little dazed in Burke’s presence.

It was only later, after she’d seen his vision of a compelling read that would showcase her talent and boost her career, that she’d said, “Okay,” to his proposal and even “thank you.” Evan Burke would savor his standing in the serial killer Hall of Fame from his cell in solitary confinement.

Early into this agreement with Burke, she’d changed the original title from Evan Burke’s Last Stand to a new one: You Never Knew Me: The True Story of Evan Burke, “The Ghost of Catalina.” Bob Barnett, Cindy’s agent and lawyer, had said, “Great title. Very selling. Your name goes first.” That’s how Cindy Thomas became Evan Burke’s confidante, coauthor, and conduit to the world beyond San Quentin State Prison.

Now, holding the finished product, the book looked small when compared with Burke’s hellacious crime spree. He confessed to a half dozen murders and helped law enforcement crack multiple unsolved serial killings in exchange for his demands, namely TV, a no-Wi-Fi laptop, a radio, and private time in the shower. And he wanted an attorney-client room where he could meet with her.

And that’s how Evan Burke got monthly access to Cindy’s previously wide-open and very fertile mind.

Cindy stuffed the book into her handbag and stared out at the view blowing by without actually seeing anything. She hadn’t slept a full night since meeting Burke and her waking thoughts were consumed with bloody murder and the pantheon of Burke’s so-called peers; Bundy, Gacy, Dahmer, BTK with a little Son of Sam thrown in. Burke liked the comparisons because by his calculations he stood above them with a gold medal hanging from a ribbon around his neck.

But one unexpected and redeeming feature had come of this total immersion in all things Burke. Cindy had a platform and a bullhorn, and if You Never Knew Me became the success her friends and supporters believed it would be, she might actually save lives.

The driver said over his shoulder, “We’re here, Miss.”

As the car came to a stop, Cindy reapplied her lipstick, ran her fingers through her cloud of blond curls, then got out of the car without waiting for the driver to open her door.

The driver worked for her publisher, had been vetted, validated, and approved. He had expressed no interest in her whatsoever.

But Cindy Thomas no longer trusted men she didn’t know.

THE DOOR TO Book Passage swung open before Cindy touched the handle.

She heard Richie call out, “She’s here.”

Richard Conklin, Cindy’s good-looking, good-tempered fiancé, a homicide inspector with the SFPD. He greeted her with a hug and a kiss. Then he held her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes.

“You okay, hon?”

“How do I look?”

“Like a TV personality. Prime time.”

“Hunh. So you like me in red?”

He grinned and said, “Wear this more often.”

She laughed, “Okay,” as Rich released her and Elaine Petrocelli, owner of Book Passage, came toward them. Elaine shook Cindy’s hand with both of hers, saying, “Cindy, so good to finally meet you. Tell me what I can get for you.”

“I’m just happy to be here,” Cindy said and found that, in that moment, she felt it.

Elaine frequently hosted book events and was a friend to authors. Cindy understood that giving a talk at one of Elaine’s gatherings was good for her in all ways. Get out of your shell, Cindy. Now, she told herself.

Cindy tried to take a panoramic look around, but it was impossible to see the whole store from the doorway. It was designed in a maze of long bookshelves and the aisles were jammed bumper-to-bumper with a crowd of shoppers and browsers. The ceilings were high and the tall plate glass windows on the long side of the store let in the afternoon light.

Elaine escorted Cindy to a rear corner of the store where rows of folding chairs had been set up at the foot of the podium. Behind and to the left of the podium was an easel displaying her book cover, a black-and-white shot of a Burke crime scene in downtown San Francisco, enlarged and printed on foam board. And to the right, a table piled high with fresh new books with her name as lead author.

Across that corner of the room, standing by the wall of windows, were Cindy’s best friends: Lindsay Boxer, Yuki Castellano, and Claire Washburn, all members in good standing of the Women’s Murder Club. All three crime-solving experts in their own realms—Claire as the city’s chief medical examiner, Yuki as a top prosecutor, and Lindsay as a homicide detective who partnered with Cindy’s boyfriend, Rich—were laughing and talking together and hadn’t seen her come into the store.

Cindy turned back to Elaine, who was saying, “I was only going to read a chapter, Cindy, but I couldn’t sleep. I finished the whole book by three a.m. My God. What a story.”

Tears came into Cindy’s eyes brought on by equal parts of humility, gratitude, and a feeling like freedom. That Evan Burke was losing his grip on her just a little. In fact, she never had to talk to or see him again.

Chairs filled and the room hushed as Elaine tapped the podium’s microphone, saying, “Everyone, please welcome Cindy Thomas and prepare to be blown away.”

Cindy took her place at the mic. Richie sat in the front row with Yuki, while Lindsay and Claire sat behind them. Cindy smiled as Lindsay gave her a thumbs-up and grinned, then kept it going, nodding to strangers who’d come to hear about her book.

Cindy said, “Hello, hello, can you hear me?” into the mic and when the people in the back said she was coming across loud and clear, Cindy, uplifted by the strong sound of her amplified voice, launched into her speech.

GRIPPING THE EDGES of the podium, making eye contact with her audience, Cindy began, “Writing this book has been the most harrowing experience of my life.

“I wasn’t expecting Evan Burke’s proposal,” she said, “but I was prepared. I had already been writing about the Lucas Burke case for the Chronicle. When the body of his infant daughter—Evan Burke’s granddaughter—washed up on Baker Beach, I was there. I interviewed a schoolgirl who days later was murdered in her car. Many months after that, I was present when the police discovered the murder weapon.

“I didn’t know then who was committing these crimes, but I was reporting on them. Later, Evan Burke was shot by police and arrested in Las Vegas. We knew he was the killer. At his invitation, I flew there to meet him, hoping he’d tell me something no one else knew, details that we could publish in the Chronicle. I was looking for a quote, but Burke proposed something else. And he gave me this.”

Cindy tugged on a red cord she wore around her neck, tucked inside her blouse, and after pulling it free, she held up a key looped into the end.

“Burke lived in a shack in the desert outside Las Vegas, about four hundred square feet all told. He kept a trunk under his bed and this is the key to that trunk. Two dear friends who are with the SFPD were with me when we unlocked the trunk, but I was not prepared for what we found.

“Burke had been documenting his kills from his first, over thirty years before. He’d filled several scrapbooks with souvenirs and photos. He had drawn maps to where he’d hidden his victims’ remains. And along with the scrapbooks, he had a dozen journals detailing his kills. Often he described the women he was about to kill, what they said, how they died, and bits of poetry along with his victims’ last words.”

Cindy paused, put her hand on the book and looked out at the silent audience. Many in the group looked frightened, as if Evan Burke might just stand up and replace her at the microphone.

She said, “Evan Burke will die in prison. His career as a killer is over. But, along with his trophies and voluminous notes, Evan Burke gave me, gave all of us, a priceless gift.

“Ninety-five percent of Burke’s victims didn’t know him, received no warning, and didn’t survive their first encounter. His gift is one our parents gave us as children and is reiterated, no, proven in this book.

“It’s simply this: Beware of strangers.

“Take that to heart. It comes from one of the most successful serial killers in America.

“Are there any questions?”

APPLAUSE ROLLED FROM the front to the back of the store. Some people stood to reinforce their approval and appreciation and at the same time, a forest of hands shot up. Cindy smiled and, stepping on her own ovation, called out, “The woman in blue on the aisle. What would you like to know?”

“Hi, Cindy. How did the work process go? Were you in the same room with Burke during the interviews or sitting outside his cell?”

“We were in an attorney-client room about as big as a small walk-in closet. It was barred. Burke was shackled and there were guards only feet away. What was I thinking? Silence of the Lambs.”

As she took questio. . .