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Chapter One
     
    On a warm dark
summer night Brianna stood, motionless, in the park where the
murder had taken place. There wasn’t a single visible star in that
pitch-black sky above her. Brianna veered off the lighted pathway
and waited in the still of the night. The darkened shadows of trees
surrounded her. Not a single consideration of fear crossed her
mind. In fact, she felt nothing since Lisa’s death. The murder she
had become obsessed to solve. She held her breath as she heard the
sound of nearby footsteps. Was it him?
    At
twenty-eight, Constable Brianna Wilson was part of the Special
Victims Unit. She had been with the police force for over five
years. Her inspector told her she had let her sister’s death become
personal. He advised her to take the time she needed to grieve her
loss and let the homicide department do their job. She couldn’t let
it go. She was determined to find Lisa’s killer. She owed it to her
sister. She owed it to their mother.
    She hadn’t
talked to Pete since the night Lisa was murdered. She wished she
stayed home with her sister that night. If she had, she would have
stopped Lisa from going to meet a man she had only spoken to
online. Brianna had talked to Lisa several times about Internet
predators and the dangers of chatting online with strangers. She
dealt with these issues daily on her job. Why did my sister take
the risk of meeting him face-to-face? So many questions raced
through Brianna’s mind as she waited.
    Footsteps
echoed in the dark. She knew it wasn’t the sound of an animal.
Sadly, she hoped it was him. Despite the darkness and how unsafe it
was to be there, she waited with her Smith & Wesson .40 caliber
pistol in her hand. Her finger rested on the trigger. She knew
protocol was to have backup. She had let it become personal.
Homicide hadn’t been able to track the so-called predator Brianna
found on her sister’s tablet. Brianna lured him using herself as
bait.
    Brianna
swallowed hard as the sound of footsteps came inches away from her.
She’d been waiting twenty minutes or so. He was late. Her eyes had
adjusted to the night’s darkness enough to determine shadowed
figures. She felt his presence, so close she smelled whiskey from
his breath. Slowly she moved one foot to balance her stance. Before
she grounded her foot, she felt a sharp point at her back and heard
his rough voice whisper, “It’s your turn.” The coldness in his tone
should have sent a shiver up her spine. It didn’t. In one quick
sudden movement, her elbow jabbed him and dug in between his ribs.
Her reaction had stunned him long enough for her to turn and point
her pistol at him. Brianna could see his shadowed position but not
his face clearly.
    “Brianna?” The
tone in his voice was no longer cold, no longer confident. It
startled her that he knew her name. She tried hard to focus on his
face, but the shadow before her turned away. Before she could say
anything, he ripped a branch off the tree and tossed it between
them. Then he was gone. She only heard footsteps move faster.
    “How do you
know my name?” she yelled, but there was no reply. “Shit!” She
cursed when she stumbled. She freed herself from the branch and
headed in the direction she’d heard his footsteps. By the time she
made it to the lighted pathway, there was no sign of him.
     
     
     
     

Chapter Two
     
    “Don’t worry,
Mom. I’ll stay with her. Go and have a great time. You deserve it.”
Brianna tossed the last pile of clothes into her mother’s
suitcase.
    Audrey Wilson
sighed, “You’re right. I need the break. I haven’t seen my sister
in so long.”
    Brianna
promised to move into her mom’s house for the weekend. Not to
babysit, but to have a sisters’ weekend, or so she had tried to
explain it to her sister. At seventeen, Lisa didn’t require a
babysitter. Audrey had Lisa in her mid-forties after finally
finding true love—Steve Wilson. He proposed the day she discovered
she was pregnant with Lisa.