Chapter 1

       Lose the evidence or lose your life…

      That was the first threat Wendy Thompson had received, tucked behind the windshield wiper on her car. When she’d seen the slip of paper, she’d thought it was a flyer for a new restaurant or a dry cleaner. Of course, as an evidence tech, she’d processed the paper for prints. The couple of very smudged partials she’d recovered had been insufficient for her to match in AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System.

      The next threat she’d received a few weeks later had been a phone call, the voice of the caller a hoarse, unidentifiable whisper. Lose the evidence or lose everything and everybody you love…

      She shivered as she replayed the call in her head as she had so many times since receiving it two days ago. Even though she hadn’t recognized the caller’s voice, she knew who was behind the threats. She knew which ballistics and DNA reports, despite all the cases she handled, that someone didn’t want making to trial. Because she knew that, she also knew the threats weren’t idle.

      She hadn’t slept since receiving that call, and she worried she wouldn’t sleep tonight, either. She had been lying awake in the dark for hours. She’d already kicked off the blankets, but now that she was shivering, she pulled them back up over her panties and the oversize T-shirt she wore as a nightgown. Maybe she should shut the window, but it was a few feet away, so she would have to walk across the creaky floor to reach it. The noise might awaken her parents, who weren’t used to someone else being in the house.

      They already suspected something was wrong because she’d come home the night she’d received that call. She’d claimed her apartment was being fumigated for cockroaches, and they’d seemed to buy that explanation—until she’d started checking locks on the windows and doors. She hoped she’d convinced them that was just a habit she’d developed since living alone.

      She hadn’t locked her window, though, because her old bedroom was on the second floor. Her parents had moved their bedroom to the den on the main floor since Mom’s knee replacement surgery a month ago. Wendy probably should have slept down there, as well—to protect them—but then they would have known for certain that something was going on. And she didn’t want to worry them.

      She had reported the threats to the chief of the River City Police Department, though, and he’d ordered a patrol car stationed on the quiet suburban street. The officers would notice if there was anyone suspicious in the area. At this hour, anyone outside would be suspicious.

      But Wendy felt better being here herself, her service weapon within easy reach on the bedside table. While not all police departments armed their crime scene technicians, River City PD had. Not too long ago, the southwestern Michigan city, which was even bigger than Detroit, had been as corrupt and lawless as the cities in the old Westerns her father watched. And, of course, crime scenes were usually in the most dangerous areas of the city. The FBI had stepped in years ago to help clean up the city, but it wasn’t really safe.

      Not yet…

      Getting legendary drug kingpin Luther Mills