Chapter 1 He knew he was a lucky guy. First of all, how many guys loved their jobs, made good money, and could honestly say their work had changed the way people saw the world? He’d recently returned to a part of the planet he loved, a place where the night sky shone with brilliance.…
Chapter 5: Sheep’s Clothing While Shele financed the family, Rod’s enthusiasm for work continued to dissipate. Rose assumed most of the child-rearing duties for Anna and Myles while Shele kept long hours at the office. Liberated from both fatherly and professional obligations, Rod found himself with a surfeit of idle time. Instead of blanketing the…
Prologue The cold was different here. It got inside you, the raw knife edge of it slipping beneath your clothes at your collar and your cuffs, taking your breath and setting your nerves to alarm. The skin on his face and neck stung; his hands and feet were going about the business of going numb,…
Prologue I found out about my grandfather’s affair with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis when I read my grandmother’s diaries – ironically over Valentine’s Day weekend. No, I had no idea. Yes, it was a shock. Grandmama was so matter-of-fact describing their relationship that she could have been reporting on the weather or what she ate for…
Chapter 1 Thursday, May 20 Tucson, Arizona MATT COSTA, HEAD OF the FBI’s new DC-based mobile response team had been in his old office in Tucson for the last month to investigate two possibly connected cases: the murder of college activist Emma Perez, and possible illegal toxic dumping by a copper refinery plant that was…
Twenty years ago The Russell House group home for girls; Fairfax County, Virginia Seven-year-old Nina sat cross-legged on the floor with the others, breathless with anticipation. Every girl at the home envied Angelica, who was spending her final night at Russell House. Angelica had been chosen. Eleven years old and willowy, with long coltish legs…
Chapter 1 LISA Yates was trying to live normally. That’s what she was telling herself, although the truth was that she was merely trying to appear as if nothing was wrong. That was not easy to do, because something was very wrong, and there was no longer anything normal about her life. Lisa Yates…
Chapter 1 At thirty minutes past eight o’clock, red and blue strobe lights lit up the sky outside Grace Francone’s modest Cape house with the frenzy of a fireworks display. A quick check out the window revealed two cars parked in her driveway, one a sedan, a single twirling red light mounted to its dashboard,…
Prologue Wednesday, November 23, 1927 Thanksgiving Eve 8:42 a.m. Week before last, cold shooed warmth into a wish and a memory, then rattled tree limbs to leaflessness with one gnarly hand while gripping the earth with the other. Now on this cold earth Zebediah Harkins lies belly down in the shaggy brush line by an…
In my line of work, training is great, but nothing beats experience. As the two SUVs careened toward me, my experience in shitholes the world over allowed me to process several things at once: One, my Glock’s slide had locked to the rear, revealing an empty chamber. Two, my spare magazine was in the truck’s…
