James Patterson
10th Anniversary
Women's Murder Club — 10
For Isabelle Patterson
and Madeline Paetro
Acknowledgments
Our thanks and gratitude to New York attorney Philip R. Hoffman, Captain Richard J. Conklin of the Stamford, Connecticut, Police Department, and Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk, Medical Examiner of Trumbull County, Ohio, for generously sharing their time and wealth of experience.
Our thanks, too, to our excellent researchers, Ingrid Taylar, Ellie Shurtleff, Melissa Pevy, and Lynn Colomello. And to Mary Jordan, who, as always, manned the control tower.
Prologue. WITH BELLS ON
One
THIS WAS THE DAY I was getting married.
Our suite at the Ritz in Half Moon Bay was in chaos. My best friends and I had stripped down to our underwear, and our street clothes had been flung over the furniture. Sorbet-colored dresses hung from the moldings and door frames.
The scene looked like a Degas painting of ballerinas before the curtain went up, or maybe a romanticized bordello in the Wild West. Jokes were cracked. Giddiness reigned — and then the door opened and my sister Catherine stepped in, wearing her brave face: a tight smile, pain visible at the corners of her eyes.
“What’s wrong, Cat?” I asked.
“He’s not here.”
I blinked, tried to ignore the sharp pang of disappointment. I said sarcastically, “Well, there’s a shock.”
Cat was talking about our father, Marty Boxer, who left home when we were kids and failed to show when my mom was dying. I’d seen him only twice in the past ten years and hadn’t missed him, but after he’d told Cat he’d come to my wedding, I’d had an expectation.