FBI Special Agent Ana Grey returns in this psychologically acute, completely and unstoppably suspenseful thriller from April Smith. A fifteen-year-old girl has been abducted and Ana Grey is sent to investigate. When the girl reappears, completely traumatized, Ana realises she is far too emotionally invested in the case. She can no longer separate her own life from the victim's. And if the situation wasn't already sufficiently disturbing, her partner on the investigation is Andrew Berringer, her on-again, off-again lover. As her personal and professional lives converge, Ana reaches a breaking point. She no longer knows who she can trust, no even Berringer, and in a moment of anger fires her gun. Suddenly more than just the case is on the line--it's her whole career. "A rocket-propelled narrative. . . . You won't be able to stop rooting for [Ana]--or stop reading." -- People "One heck of a crime story, with tightly woven, suspenseful plots." -- USA Today "April Smith writes in the forceful style of a true literary maverick." -- The New York Times "A galloping good read." -- The Oregonian “Evocative and brilliantly crafted. . . . Keeps up the tense drumbeat of the chase.” — The Houston Chronicle   “Smith has created a vibrant, intriguing cast of characters and has a superb eye for detail. . . . Her true forte is storytelling.” — Pittsburgh Tribune-Review   “Spellbinding, full of passion and rage and all the elements that make fiction great. . . . This novel is not to be missed.” — The Globe and Mail (Canada)   “This stunner of a book twists and turns. . . . The devil is in the details: All the clues are in place, but the ending still packs a punch.” — St. Louis Post-Dispatch   “[Smith’s plots] are so fast, harrowing, and breathtaking that they are like skiing down the expert slope while juggling vials of nitroglycerine.” — New York Sun   “April Smith is a writer with a laser eye that can record with cold precision the details of the daily life of her crime-solving subjects.” — Chicago Tribune April Smith is the author of Judas Horse, North of Montana, Good Morning, Killer, Be the One, and White Shotgun. She is also a television screenwriter and producer. She lives in Santa Monica with her husband and children. Part One Proof of Life It was winter and I was swimming laps in the rain. I have found it a privilege to swim outside in the rain, a perk you get in return for living in Los Angeles that not many appreciate. You have to like being extremely wet, and enjoy the feeling of smug superiority because the canyon air is forty degrees and you're in a relatively warm bath. You have to appreciate the subtle play of vanished circles on the water and the dance of droplets off your goggles, blurring the shapes of redtail hawks resting on a telephone pole and deer moving close to the houses. I did not know about the girl. I was doing the backstroke, looking up at the clouds, trying not to get pushed into the lane lines by the county lifeguard who was working out beside me, with the tapered legs and the chest of a manatee. He was gray-haired, with a stroke so smooth it never seemed to break water, as if propelled by some internal muscular power known only to yogis. In fact the lifeguard was a kind of spiritual seeker and would speak of "the breath" as if it were a living thing. My personal meditation that day was on a briefing with the senior superintendent from the Hong Kong Police Force. It would be a lunch with twenty other folks, a long ungainly table in Distefano's, everyone trying to look spiffy and smart--a total waste of time when I had to get my files in order for an upcoming ninety-day file review, an assessment of open cases as pleasant as a cross between a migraine headache and spring cleaning. When you work the kidnap squad you find a lot of cases--mostly missing children--stay open forever. When the red hand on the workout clock brushed 6:55 a.m., I hauled out of the water and hightailed across the frigid pool deck, raindrops popping off my silicone cap. Checking the pager hooked inside the swim bag, I found it was blinking: Code 3-PCH-AB. Emergency. I stood alone in the freezing cinder-block locker room, dripping freely and staring at the numbers with a secret smile. It was a message in police code from "AB" (Detective Andrew Berringer), which usually meant not a life-and-death emergency but an emergency of the gonads, which I could feel responding as I peeled off the cold clinging bathing suit and headed for the open shower. The two other women who had been swimming in the rain (both lawyers) came hurrying in, shivery and goose-bumped, absorbed in chatter about book clubs, children, different types of olives, someone's half-demolished kitchen, as a wild mix of botanicals--mint, eucalyptus, citrus, rose--swirled in the steamy vapor and they lathered unabashedly and shaved and loofahed, while I stood under the hot pounding spray with head bowed in thanks because of this sudden un