From New York Times bestselling author Karen Robards comes a thrilling new novel of suspense and steamy seaside sensuality set in North Carolina's Outer Banks, where a serial killer combs the beaches filled with beautiful female tourists for his next victim. Christy Petrino hadn't planned on a vacation on Ocracoke Island, but when she learns her fiancé and boss, suave Michael DePalma, is a "made man" and the Philadelphia law firm where she works is a front for the mob, she breaks her engagement and quits her job. But no one walks away from the DePalma family business so easily....Only if she delivers a locked briefcase to a motel on Ocracoke Island will she -- and her mother and sisters -- be free. But after clandestinely making her drop-off late at night, Christy suspects she is being followed on the moonlit beach -- and unwittingly runs into a new kind of terror. Now a witness at the center of a homicide investigation, Christy learns the police are hunting a serial killer they refer to as the "Beachcomber" because beautiful young women -- women who in fact resemble her -- have disappeared recently while vacationing at nearby beach communities. Christy doesn't know whom to fear more -- a serial killer who believes she might be able to identify him, or the DePalma family, whose tentacles she can't seem to escape. Only when she's with Luke Rand, her big surfer-dude next-door neighbor, does she feel safe. But with Luke's asking so many questions about her ex-fiancé and his showing up almost too conveniently whenever danger strikes, she can't help but wonder if his interest in her is due to more than sexual attraction. Can she trust this handsome stranger to help her survive a hot and deadly summer? Karen Robards creates a tour de force of passion and suspense in this scintillating page-turner, the quintessential summertime read. Christy Petrino is originally from New Jersey and a family that is tight with the Mob. She thought she escaped that life by becoming a lawyer and working in Philadelphia with a colleague whom she believed was also tired of the gangster life, only he wasn't. Now she's in a beach house in a small tourist town on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, following mysterious instructions so that she and her family don't suffer the wrath of the Mob. As if that weren't enough pressure, she seems to be the target of a serial killer, and then there's Luke, a surfer neighbor who may or may not be as innocuous as he seems. Luke acts suspiciously, yet he keeps popping up and saving her life because he is actually an FBI agent sent to tail Christy and arrest her former boss and fiance. Not only is he trying to keep Christy alive, he's also fighting his attraction to her. Prolific and reliable, Robards delivers a perfect summer read with two dynamic main characters and a healthy dose of tension mixed with a dash of humor. Patty Engelmann Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Karen Robards is the New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty novels, including Beachcomber, Whispers at Midnight, Paradise County, Scandalous, and Irresistible. Her short fiction was featured in Pocket Books' romantic-suspense anthology Wait Until Dark. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with her husband, Doug, and their three sons. Chapter 1 Two weeks later... Sometimes in life, when one thing goes wrong it triggers another and another until disasters end up multiplying around you like horny rabbits. Unfortunately, Christy Petrino was getting the nasty suspicion that this just might be one of those times. She was being followed as she walked along the moonlit beach. She knew it. Knew it with a certainty that made her heart pound and her breathing quicken and the tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickle to attention. Someone was behind her. She felt eyes on her, hostility directed at her, the intangible vibes of another presence, with a sense that was more trustworthy yet less dependably there than the usual five. Tonight, as it typically did when it hit her, this sixth sense of hers made a mockery of sight and sound, smell, touch, and taste. She'd learned in a hard school to trust it implicitly. Please, God... Fear curled inside her quicker than a coiling snake. Like any other good Catholic girl trembling on the brink of danger, she turned to a higher power for help even though it had been an embarrassingly long time since she had actually been inside a church. Hopefully, God wasn't keeping score. I'll go to Mass this Sunday, I swear. I mean, I promise. Just let this be my imagination. Clutching the slender can of Mace that was her next line of defense against the dangers that lurked in the night, she did her best to dismiss what her sixth sense was telling her even as she brought her other five senses to bear. The rush and hiss of the ocean as it lapped practically at her feet filled her ears. It drowned out all other sounds, not that it was likely that she would have