CHAPTER ONE
She'd been here before. Not this park, but another one just like it—a place where shadows gathered between the trees and secrets died in the dark.
A shiver ran down her spine as Haley Kenton parked her Honda Civic in a nearly empty lot at Griffith Park, a large, wide-sweeping park in the middle of Los Angeles. It was after six on a Thursday evening in April, and the sun was sinking lower in the sky. It would be completely dark within the hour. She needed this meeting to be quick.
When she turned off the engine, the silence felt heavy and foreboding. There was one other car in the lot, a small white electric vehicle, probably belonging to the woman who'd contacted her. She would have preferred to talk here, or somewhere with lights and people, but she'd been told by a woman named Sabrina Lin to take the trail into the woods to the old bridge. It definitely felt wrong, maybe a little stupid, but she had no choice, not if she wanted information, and she did.
As she got out of the car, she took a deep breath to calm her nerves, but as she looked at the trailhead disappearing into the thick trees, she felt herself going back six years…
She was twenty-five and standing at the edge of a different wood, a campus security officer telling her they'd found her younger brother's body in the pond behind the fraternity house. It looked like an accident, they'd said. Landon had probably been drunk or high and had stumbled into the pond, completely disoriented. There was no evidence of foul play.
Angry tears pressed at her eyes now, but she couldn't get emotional. She needed to stay in the present; to find out why some stranger had asked her to come here tonight so she could share information about Landon's death. It seemed doubtful that there was anything new to learn. But she'd always chased every lead, every whispered rumor, every false hope, believing someday she would find the truth. Maybe that day would be today.
As a journalist, she was used to people not always wanting to speak in public or to come forward about something they'd seen, so this type of situation was one she had faced before, but never had it been this personal.
Moving toward the trailhead, a gust of wind lifted her dark-brown hair off her neck, sending goosebumps down her arms. She zipped up her bomber jacket, grateful that she'd changed into jeans after leaving her office. It had been an unusually cool day with the temperature only reaching the high sixties, and it was much colder than that now.
As she left the parking area, her stress level increased. She told herself to breathe. Landon needed her to be here. He needed her to fight for him, and she'd always fought for him. She wasn't going to stop now.
The trail curved again, and she caught sight of the wooden bridge ahead. A figure stood at its center—a woman with straight black hair, wearing a gray business suit that looked out of place in the wilderness setting.
Sabrina Lin? It had to be.
Haley's pulse quickened; every instinct, honed by years of chasing dangerous stories, screamed something was wrong. The woman stood too still, like a deer that sensed a predator. She had a phone in her hand and a black bag over her shoulder.
When Haley reached the bridge, she was still twenty feet away from Sabrina, but she could see the tension in her stance, in her expression.
"Sabrina Lin?" she called out.
Sabrina's gaze met hers. Her mouth opened, but it wasn't a word that came out of her mouth; it was a piercing scream, and then she crumpled to the ground.
Haley froze in shock as Sabrina's body jerked violently before suddenly going still again. And she had the terrible feeling that whatever Sabrina had wanted to tell her would never be said.
"No, no, no!" She ran toward Sabrina, her low-heeled boots pounding against the wood. She dropped to her knees beside the fallen woman, her hands hovering over Sabrina's still form, unsure where to touch, how to help.
Sabrina's eyes were open but unseeing, her pupils dilated. A thin trickle of blood ran from a tiny puncture wound on the left side of her neck, so small she almost missed it. But there—embedded in the flesh just below her jawline—was something that looked like a needle or a dart. Avoiding the needle, she pressed two fingers to Sabrina's throat, searching for a pulse she knew she wouldn't find. The woman's skin was still warm, but there was nothing. No breath, no heartbeat, no flicker of life.
A branch snapped somewhere in the trees.
Her head jerked up, adrenaline flooding her system. The woods had fallen completely silent—no birds, no insects. Even the wind seemed to have stopped. Someone was out there. Someone who had just killed Sabrina Lin with what looked like a poisoned dart. Someone who might be about to take their next shot.
Without thinking, she grabbed Sabrina's phone from where it had fallen next to her body and jumped to her feet, sprinting down the bridge.
She hit the dirt trail at a dead run, branches whipping at her face as she crashed through the undergrowth. Behind her, she could hear movement—footsteps, or maybe just her imagination transforming the sound of her own panicked breathing into something more sinister.
She didn't stop running until she reached the parking lot, where there were still only two cars, hers and maybe Sabrina's. Her hand shook as she jumped behind the wheel, locked the door, and then fastened her seat belt. She reversed as quickly as she could, the tires of her car spinning on loose gravel. She didn't take a full breath until she reached the main road, until the normalcy of traffic lights and strip malls eased her panic and allowed her to think clearly.
As she came to a stop at a red light, she drew in her first full breath and tried to make sense of what had happened: Sabrina Lin was dead. Murdered. With something that left barely a mark. If she hadn't seen it happen, if she hadn't been standing right there when the woman collapsed, it might have looked like a heart attack or stroke. The attack had been professional, skilled, a killing that suggested resources, planning.
Sabrina had wanted to talk to her about her brother. Had she been killed to silence her?
It seemed unbelievable. But she couldn't come up with another conclusion. She glanced down at Sabrina's phone lying on the seat next to hers. Maybe there was a clue on her phone. She was about to reach for it when an impatient horn told her that the light had turned green. She drove several more blocks, then pulled into the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant and picked up Sabrina's phone.
A text message was on the screen: Stop digging. You don't want to lose your job over this, do you? Let it go. The message was from someone with the initial, A.
What had Sabrina been digging into? Her brother's death? But why?
She hadn't had time to look into Sabrina beyond doing a brief internet search to discover that Sabrina was a lawyer with a renowned Los Angeles law firm, Adler and Briggs. Sabrina was a corporate attorney and had been hired by the firm two years earlier.
None of that information tied Sabrina to her brother, but there had to be a connection, and she needed to find it, especially now.
She shuddered as the image of Sabrina's shocked gaze ran through her head. One minute she'd been alive, a young, vibrant woman, and now she was dead.
She needed to call the police, report the murder. She should have done it before she left the park, but she'd needed to get out of there. Picking up her own phone, she hesitated. If she came forward as a witness, she'd be painting a target on her back. If she stayed silent, Sabrina's killer would go free, and whatever she'd died trying to expose would stay buried. She needed to be careful.
Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a prepaid phone she sometimes used on her job when talking to people she didn't want to have her real number.
After connecting to 911, she said, "There's been a death at Griffith Park, the remote trail entrance off Crystal Springs Drive. It's a female. She's on the wooden bridge about a quarter mile up the trail."
"Ma'am, can I get your name and—"
She ended the call, knowing that even if the police traced her number, they wouldn't get to her. And they didn't need to get to her, because she didn't know anything.
That wasn't exactly true. She did know why Sabrina had been in the woods at that location, but she certainly hadn't seen who had shot her with that dart. The police would have to figure that out. In the meantime, she'd do her own investigation into Sabrina and what possible tie she might have had to her brother.
As she drove home, another question nagged at her mind: Why hadn't the shooter gone after her? If Sabrina's death was tied to her brother, then why hadn't the murderer shot her, too? She'd been an easy target, not thinking clearly when she'd run toward Sabrina. Maybe the shooter hadn't known who she was. They might have thought she was just a jogger in the park. They might have left as soon as Sabrina hit the ground.
But it bothered her that the unknown killer might know she'd been there. Even if they didn't know who she was, they might still worry that she'd seen something, that she could be a potential witness, a loose end. They could be following her right now.
Maybe the danger wasn't over. It might be just beginning…
* * *
FBI Special Agent Matt Lawson's phone buzzed as he pulled into the parking garage of his apartment building in Santa Monica Thursday evening. He was surprised to see Flynn MacKenzie's name on the screen. He was scheduled to start work for Flynn's elite FBI unit on Monday, and he hadn't expected to hear from anyone before then. In fact, he'd turned off his phone for the last three days, taking a break from life, because he'd been exhausted after working a futile case for the LA field office's white-collar crime division that had yielded nothing close to the results he'd wanted, and had been preemptively shut down by the new director. That frustration was the reason he'd joined Flynn's team. He'd heard from Jason Colter, one of his former coworkers, that the unit was fast, agile, and worked without layers of bureaucracy.
"Flynn?" he asked.
"Sorry to cut into your time off, Matt, but something has come up. Are you in town?" Flynn's voice carried a familiar edge of controlled urgency that meant his quiet Thursday evening was about to become a long night.
"Just pulled into my parking garage. Why?"
"We've got a body in Griffith Park, and this one's got your name on it. Literally."
He tensed. "What do you mean—literally?"
"Victim had your name and number written on a piece of paper in her pocket. Her name is Sabrina Lin, attorney at Adler and Briggs. You know her?"
Matt's mind raced through recent contacts, cases, and interviews. "No. I've never heard of her."
"We need to figure out why she had your contact information and why she's dead. How long until you can get to the scene?"
Matt checked his GPS. "Twenty-five minutes."
"Make it twenty."
As the call ended, he reversed out of his parking space and exited the garage, his mind turning to the deceased woman who'd had his contact information—Sabrina Lin. He couldn't place the name. Nor could he remember having any dealings with her law firm. It was possible she was tied to one of his cases and he just didn't remember her, but he was still rolling her name around in his head when he arrived at the park.
The crime scene was in a remote area, poorly lit, and swarming with police. Matt badged his way past the perimeter tape and found Flynn standing on a wooden bridge next to a body bag.
Flynn MacKenzie looked like he should be teaching surf lessons in Malibu instead of running one of the FBI's most elite units. He wore jeans and a brown jacket, his blond hair on the longer side, his skin tan, his laid-back stance deceptively casual.
Flynn gave him a nod, then unzipped the bag, revealing the face of Sabrina Lin. She was young, probably early thirties, attractive, wearing business attire, with no visible sign of an injury.
"What do we know?" he asked as Flynn zipped up the bag.
"She's a thirty-year-old attorney with Adler and Briggs. Time of death appears to be around seven. A 911 call came in at 7:15. Police found her at 7:26." Flynn paused, then handed him an evidence bag containing what looked like a small dart or needle, no bigger than a toothpick. "This was embedded in her neck, barely visible. My guess is that she was injected with a lethal dose of something."
Matt studied the dart through the clear plastic. "Someone wanted this to look natural—heart attack, stroke, maybe an overdose, if it left a trace of drugs in her system. Clean, quiet, and designed to avoid the attention we're giving it now."
"Exactly. We'll have to wait for the autopsy and tox screen to get the full results, but this was definitely a homicide."
"Any witnesses? You said there was a 911 call."
Flynn's expression tightened. "That's where it gets interesting. Park security cameras caught a woman running into the parking lot around the estimated time of death. Dark hair, medium build, driving a silver Honda Civic. We've got a partial on the license plate, but she was moving fast."
"Was she fleeing the scene or running for help?"
"Who knows? But she could be our 911 caller. That woman hung up before dispatch could get any information."
Matt nodded, his mind already working through the possibilities. "She could be a witness or the killer. But if she was the killer, why call 911? She could have left Sabrina in the woods. It might have been hours before anyone found her."
"She could have just stumbled across the body, panicked, and ran. Didn't want to get involved," Flynn suggested. "But there's still the question of why Sabrina Lin had your name and phone number on this piece of paper." He held up another plastic bag with his contact information visible.
"That's my office number," he murmured, reading the digits. "Not my cell phone. I've been out of the office the last three days. If she called recently, she wouldn't have reached me."
"Maybe she spoke to someone else."
"I'll find out."
Matt pulled out his phone and dialed his former partner, Agent Shari Drummond. She answered on the second ring.
"Matt? Is something wrong? I thought you were taking a vacation before you started your next assignment."
"I was, but I have a quick question. Do you know if anyone named Sabrina Lin called our office, trying to reach me?"
There was a pause. "Actually, yes. She called this morning. I told her you weren't working in our office anymore and asked if I could help. She said she would only talk to you, that she didn't trust anyone else. What's going on?"
"She was found dead in Griffith Park an hour ago. My name was on a note in her pocket."
Shari blew out a breath. "That's terrible. Who is she?"
"I don't know. Did she say anything else?"
"No, she didn't. Sorry."
"Thanks. I'll talk to you later."
"Good luck."
He turned to Flynn as he slipped his phone into his pocket. "Ms. Lin called my office this morning and was told I no longer worked in that unit. She refused to talk to anyone but me. I need to know what happened to her. Are we taking this case? Or will it go to the LA field office?"
"We'll take it. With your name on the victim, and Ms. Lin's refusal to talk to anyone in your old office, it's better if we handle the investigation. I'll let Director Markham know. LAPD will notify Sabrina's family and her employer. We'll go from there."
"First thing we need to do is locate our possible witness."
"Derek is already in the office, running plate combinations. He's one of our best techs."
"Great. I know I'm not officially on the payroll…"
"Just moved your hire date to today," Flynn said with a smile. "Welcome aboard, Matt. You've got your first case."
"Do you want me to work with anyone else? Do I have a partner?"
"As Jason may have told you, we don't have official partners. Whoever is free teams up. We do every job, big or small. That's how we move fast. We don't worry about hierarchy or credit or who's doing what. Whoever lands a case is the lead, and everyone else is backup. Sometimes you're in charge, sometimes you're watching security cameras. You good with that?"
"Absolutely."
"That said, Jason and Agent Andi Hart just wrapped up a case, so they should have some time to help you, depending on where this investigation goes. They'll be in tomorrow morning."
He nodded. "I'll go to the office now and talk to Derek. Hopefully, we can track down our mysterious witness by then."
"We don't hope, we do," Flynn said with a smile. "See you tomorrow, Matt. Oh, and don't bother to wear a suit. We prefer to operate less obtrusively. We find the suit sometimes puts an unneeded barrier between ourselves and a potential witness."
He was fine with changing things up. What he had been doing had not gotten him the results he wanted.
As he made his way back to his car, his mind raced with questions centering on two women: the one who'd run away, and the one who'd died after trying to reach him. That personal connection made the case more important to him. He'd worked homicides before, but this woman had wanted to talk to him, and he needed to know why.
