rocks and scrub brush until he came to rest on the beach.
Groaning in pain, he propped himself up on one arm to look around for help.
His eyes met nothing but empty sand and indifferent sea. He was alone.
The doctor had no illusions about what his pursuers intended to do when they reached him. He was going to die. Right now. Right here on this beach.
The knowledge hit him with such force that he almost crumbled under the weight of it. But then he remembered. There was one last thing he needed to do. One final task to complete before the curtain closed.
He fumbled with the zipper of his waist pouch, forcing himself to concentrate.
Once he’d pulled out his phone, he tried to type his password. But his hands, slick with arterial blood from a deep gash on his wrist, slid across the touch screen.
A cascade of pebbles rained from above. His attackers were side-slipping down the hillside, approaching rapidly. They’d be on him in seconds.
The doctor wiped his hand on his shirt and tried again. He had to get critical information free from his mind before it died with him.
Forcing his trembling hand to steady, he entered his password. Then he moved on to writing the text message. The letters and numbers came more quickly. He’d planned for this. With adrenaline coursing through his body, the doctor no longer felt his injuries. His entire existence boiled down to the glowing screen he held.
He couldn’t fail. Not now.
He hit “Send” just as the crunching of footsteps stopped behind him.
His eyes blurred. His head swam. The clinical part of his mind told him he’d lost at least a pint of blood. He’d lose consciousness soon.
But he was still conscious when he turned to face the killers.
He was still conscious when he met their cold eyes and begged, “Please, no.”
And he was still conscious when the tall, pale man stepped behind him, gripped his neck, and twisted it hard, bringing down the final darkness.
The man in the ski cap crouched beside the corpse. Middle-aged. African American. Nonpracticing doctor. Definitely his target.
He pried the phone loose from the dead man’s hand and looked at the screen.
Then he met the eyes of his compatriot and shrugged.
He wiped the phone of fingerprints and dropped it in the sand.
CHAPTER 2
Caroline Auden hunched over her laptop, her shoulders constricting in her woolen business suit. Her hair fell across her eyes as she studied the chessboard. The computer was playing the Sicilian defense. That meant she needed to play the Perenyi attack. She hated to sacrifice so much material, but if she wanted to win, she’d have to do it.
Caroline let the game’s complexity distract her from the churning in her gut. In ten minutes, she’d report to her first day of work at Hale Stern, LLP, one of the most dynamic law firms in Los Angeles. Until then, she was hiding out in one of the tiny cafés that serviced the buttoned-down set. With its graffiti-art murals and its staff that smelled faintly of dope, Black Dog Café stood in stark contrast to its conservatively dressed patrons.
“It will be. I promise it will,” floated a voice from across the café.
Something raw and desperate in the sound made Caroline look up.
She found the barista leaning on the counter, talking on the phone. His tattooed forearms and blue Mohawk were incongruent with the forlorn, almost childlike fear in his eyes.
“I know, but I swear I—” he began, but then his shoulders slumped. “I understand.”
Hanging up, he turned to clean the counter. The haphazard sweeps of his towel bespoke the tumult in his mind.
Her chess game forgotten, Caroline watched the barista, trying to imagine what had caused his discontent. If his choice of personal styling was any indication, this was a man usually unbothered by anyone’s opinion. A generally confident soul whose confidence had forsaken him on this cold, clear morning.
Caroline felt a sudden kinship with him.
“What was that about?” she called across the café.
The barista paused before answering. “My boss thinks I’ve been overcharging customers and pocketing the money,” he said before continuing his assault on the innocent countertop, the strokes of his rag hard and angry and ineffective.
“Did you?” Caroline asked.
“No. But the register dumped a bunch of charges. I can’t find them anywhere.” He shot the offending machine a scornful glare. “Stupid fucking computer.”
Caroline nodded. She’d seen people crumple in the face of technology, laid low by a password-protected banking site or an application that wouldn’t launch properly.