PROLOGUE

      The ledge outside of the tenth floor window of the hotel had a beautiful view of Central Park. It was also dangerously narrow and covered with pigeon crap.

      A cold late September breeze sliced through FBI Special Agent Lara Grant as she stepped out of the window of room 1021 and onto the ledge.

      She leaned with her back against the window frame and eyed the man who sat on the ledge about five feet to her right. She shouldn’t be here. She’d been in the middle of a meet and greet with her new unit when the call had come in. Talking down potential jumpers wasn’t in her new job description, but the man had asked for her specifically by name.

      She had no idea who he was, had never seen him before in her life. It was nine-thirty in the morning, and the last place she wanted to be was on a breathtakingly small ledge trying to stop a stranger from committing a very public and messy suicide.

      “Bad day?” she asked.

      “Bad life,” he replied. He didn’t look at her but, rather, stared straight ahead. “Are you FBI Agent Lara Grant?”

      “You asked for me and here I am. What’s your name?” she asked. Despite the coolness of the day, his forehead shone with perspiration. She tried to gauge how best to connect with him. What persona could she pull out of her professional hat to get him down to safety? Tough talk or sweet and honeyed? Too soon for her to tell.

      “Sean.” He leaned over and looked down below where Lara knew the NYPD had gathered, along with a growing crowd of looky-loos and local reporters.

      “Sean what?”

      “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now.” His voice held a weary hopelessness that shot tension through Lara.

      It had been her experience that there were two types of people who crawled out on a high ledge and threatened to jump. The first were the people who wanted drama and were usually easily talked down from a window or a bridge.

      The second were the serious ones, people who were more than willing to take the plunge to end their lives. Her initial observation was that Sean was dead serious.

      “What’s going on today, Sean?” She kept her voice conversational and nonthreatening.

      “I just can’t take it anymore.”

      “Take what?” Lara made no move toward him. Her job was to keep him talking until a team on the ground got her some personal information about him that she could hopefully use to get him off the ledge and to safety.

      “You wouldn’t understand.”

      “You obviously thought I would. You asked for me specifically to come here and talk to you.” She could hear the crowd below now, some asshole yelling “jump.”

      Sean wasn’t a small man. Despite his seat on the ledge, he appeared tall and muscular; but as he looked at her, there was the darkness of impending death in his eyes. “I was wrong. I thought you might be the one to understand everything, but nobody will.”

      “Try me,” she replied softly. “Talk to me, Sean.” Sweet and honeyed instinctively felt right for now.

      He shook his head, closed his eyes and leaned back against the building.

      “Sean, at least tell me your last name. It doesn’t seem fair that you know mine, and I don’t know yours.”

      “Dunst. I’m Sean Dunst, and I deserve to die.”

      “Sean Dunst,” she repeated. “It’s nice to meet you.” Lara was wired and knew an officer on the ground could hear what she said. With his full name they could now hopefully get her some information that might be useful.

      Another cold gust of wind whipped around the building. “It’s freezing out here, Sean. Why don’t you come inside where it’s nice and warm and we can talk?”

      He shook his head and didn’t reply.

      For the next three hours he refused to speak. Lara