Minneapolis detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth are bored - ever since they solved the Monkeewrench case, the Twin Cities have been in a murder-free dry spell, as people no longer seem interested in killing one another. But with two brutal homicides taking place in one awful night, the crime drought ends - not with a trickle, but with an eventual torrent. Who would kill Morey Gilbert, a man without an enemy, a man who might as well have been a saint? His tiny, cranky little wife, Lily, is no help, and may even be a suspect; his estranged son, Jack, an infamous ambulance-chasing lawyer, has his own enemies; and his son-in-law, former cop Marty Pullman, is so depressed over his wife's death a year ago that he's ready to kill himself, but not Morey. The number of victims - all elderly - grows, and the city is fearful once again." The detectives' investigation threatens to uncover a series of horrendous secrets, some buried within the heart of the police department itself, blurring the lines between heroes and villains. Grace MacBride's cold-case-solving software may find the missing link - but at a terrible price. "[A] fast-paced and intriguingly plotted mystery."— Boston Globe "Polished and intriguing...complex and interesting."— Chicago Sun-Times P.J. Tracy is the pseudonym of mother-daughter writing duo P.J. and Traci Lambrecht, winners of the Anthony, Barry, Gumshoe, and Minnesota Book Awards. Their first four novels, Monkeewrench , Live Bait , Dead Run , and Snow Blind have become national and international bestsellers. P.J. Lambrecht is a college dropout with one of the largest collections of sweatpants in the world. She was raised in an upper-middle class family of very nice people, and turned to writing to escape the hardships of such a life. She had her first short story published in The Saturday Evening Post when Traci was eight, still mercifully oblivious to her mother’s plans to eventually trick her into joining the family business. She has been a moderately successfully free-lance writer ever since, although she has absolutely no qualifications for such a profession, except a penchant for lying. Traci Lambrecht spent most of her childhood riding and showing horses. She graduated with a Russian Studies major from St. Olaf College in Northfield Minnesota, where she also studied voice. Her aspirations of becoming a spy were dashed when the Cold War ended, so she instead attempted briefly and unsuccessfully to import Eastern European folk art. She began writing to finance her annoying habits of travel and singing in rock bands, and much to her mother’s relief, finally realized that the written word was her true calling. They have been writing together ever since. Live Bait By P. J. Tracy Signet Book Copyright ©2005 P. J. Tracy All right reserved. ISBN: 0451214633 Chapter One It was just after sunrise and still raining when Lily found her husband'sbody. He was lying faceup on the asphalt apron in front ofthe greenhouse, eyes and mouth open, collecting rainwater. Even dead, he looked quite handsome in this position, gravitypulling back the loose, wrinkled skin of his face, smoothing awayeighty-four years of pain and smiles and worries. Lily stood over him for a moment, wincing when the raindropsplopped noisily onto his eyes. I hate eyedrops. Morey, hold still. Stop blinking. Stop blinking, she says, while she pours chemicals into my eyes. Hush. It's not chemicals. Natural tears, see? It says so right on the bottle. You expect a blind man to read? A little grain of sand in your eye and suddenly you're blind. Big tough guy. And they're not natural tears. What do they do? Go to funerals and holdlittle bottles under crying people? No, they mix chemicals together and callit natural tears. It's false advertising, is what it is. These are unnaturaltears. A little bottle of lies. Shut up, old man. This is the thing, Lily. Nothing should pretend to be what it's not.Everything should have a big label that says what it is so there's no confusion.Like the fertilizer we used on the bedding plants that year that killedall our ladybugs, what was it called? Plant So Green. Right. So it should have been called Plant So Green Ladybug So Dead.Forget the tiny print on the back you can't read. Real truth in labeling,that's what we need. This is a good rule. God should follow such a rule. Morey! What can I say? He made a big mistake there. Would it have been sucha problem for Him to make things look like what they are? I mean, He'sGod, right? This is something He could do. Think about it. You've got a guyat the door with this great smile and nice face and you let him in and hekills your whole family. This is God's mistake. Evil should look evil. Thenyou don't let it in. You, of all people, should know it's not that simple. It's exactly that simple. Lily took a breath, then sat on her heels-a young posture for suchan old woman, but her knees were still good, still strong and fl