CHAPTER 1 “Son, come and taste this,” I called, holding up a fork and summoning Sonya Perlman-Dokter, my best friend, sous chef, and the namesake “Son” of my pizza restaurant, Delilah & Son. She stood at the counter near me, prepping for the dinner service. Sonya pivoted toward me with her eight-inch gyuto chef’s knife…
PROLOGUE Two Years Ago Desmond Aloysius Limerick has been ordered to fly into Baku, Azerbaijan, under a false name, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and a paperback Michel Bussi mystery in the original French. He’s met by a woman he knows to be a British agent, MI6. She’s Pakistani and English, lovely, five-five,…
One “Guards! Guard and American Guard! Guard and American Guard!” My partner, Garda Jason Savage, and I are just finishing up our community patrol when we see two boys beckoning to us along the South Circular Road. Jason rolls his eyes at me. We’ve tried to get to know this little gang of kids who…
1 It’s a wonder that all marriages don’t end in murder-suicides,” said my stepfather’s new wife, Jubilee. Neil, my stepdad, nearly spit out his decaf. It was the evening of Stacey’s and my engagement party. In the five years since my mom had died, Neil Turner and I had drifted apart. We had never been…
7 DAYS LATER: 20 MINUTES BEFORE “GO ZERO” FUSION CENTRAL, WASHINGTON, DC On May 1, at twenty minutes to noon, Justin Amari, unbreakfasted, rumple-haired, is greeted by a welcome committee outside Fusion Central, a private complex that had sprung up near McPherson Square the year before with odd speed and mystery—“Silicon Valley Billionaire Cy…
Chapter Two “I’m not leaving.” “Nat.” I poked my nipple at Oliver’s chin. His mouth, pink and wet like chewed-up bubble gum, turned down at the corners, remained resolutely closed. He was so beautiful. Peach fuzz of golden hair, eyes that were cobalt in the light, black in the dark of night. “Natalie. Let’s go…
Chapter 1 The woman on the phone refused to give her name, but she swore she’d just seen a rattlesnake on her hike up Black Cat Mountain. “I almost stepped on the frigging thing!” The man on the other end of the call was a Maine game warden named Mike Bowditch. “Did you get a…
It was the latter part of the following Saturday afternoon; the sun was low in the sky and dusk not an hour away as they walked along a well-trodden path to an area of woodland known to both girls. Following a detailed introduction to the weapon they would be using, it was time to begin.…
Chapter One: An Unwanted Journey Exeter August 1922 There were three things a girl wanted after the night I had. One: a proper breakfast. Two: a scarcity of sunlight. And three—possibly most important—coffee. Dark, bitter, and at least two pots. But I had none of the aforementioned. What I did have, however, was a splitting…
It had been a while since Danny Avery was on anything resembling a stakeout. Of course, this could never be classified as a normal stakeout. No one else in the Paterson Police Department knew where he was or what he was doing; Avery was working this one independently. At some point they would find out,…
