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CHAPTER ONE

As Gabriel's Jag tore up the country road, I stared at the house ahead Flames blazed frohts flashing As I saw that, I exhaled The only witness who could set my father free was in that house, and we'd been terrified we'd finally found her only to lose her again But the ambulance said otherwise

That's when they brought out the stretchers With body bags

"Maybe it's not Ien," I said

Gabriel parked, and as alked toward the burning house, I surveyed the personnel on duty I chose et and picked up speed as Gabriel fell back We were alht be state troopers, but that didn't mean they wouldn't know Gabriel by reputationas one of the city's most notorious defense lawyers

I approached the young officer left guarding the peri for one of the woen Seale She's a material witness in a multiple homicide"

The trooper peered at me with a Don't I know you froht I was just Liv Jones Not Olivia Taylor-Jones, forhter of the Mills & Jones departhter of notorious serial killers Todd and Pamela Larsen

"Hope she wasn't a valuable witness," the trooper said

"Kind of," I said with a wry s she didn't survive"

"Dead before we arrived, I' on the sofa You'd really think people would know better"

"No smoke detector?"

She shook her head "In old rentals like this, nobody checks until so happens A fifty-dollar investment could have saved two lives"

"Any chance I can see the bodies?" I asked "If she's definitely my witness, I need to move fast in another direction"

"I hear you," she said, and waved for me to follow "And I hate to see a killer walk free Especially a multiple murderer"

Mmm, yeah, sorry, but actually, if in this one, we do set amy mother, too

As alked, Gabriel fell in beside lanced at hiue"

"Organized crime?" she said

I choked on a laugh, and she quickly added, "Ilike that"

It wasn't the first tiuard When we ed him as hired muscle myself Even the expensive cut of his suit had only made me amend that to "hired muscle for someone with a lot of money" He was at least six-four and built like a linebacker It was h He just had a look that et out of the way

The trooper said so to one of the para It was Ien's mother Death seens of suffocation andWhichat the badly burned re? Ien herself, en was the only person who could have testified that Tyson had actually killed the first couple my parents were supposed to have murdered That was the reasonable doubt we'd needed to overturn the conviction

And noe'd lost it

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