Chapter 1

Chris Mason felt like he was being watched. He sat in the driver’s seat of the black Tahoe, parked behind a dumpster in an alley that ran between two three-story brick buildings. After a quick glance around, he ran his hand over his dark hair and then double-checked that the doors were locked. In his two years of working as an assistant private investigator, he typically didn’t have a bad feeling about their cases, but he was troubled this night.

He placed a camera on the dash and then verified it was recording to the laptop on the passenger’s seat. Next, he zoomed in the camera on the building across the street; it was all glass in front with a For Lease sign in the window. The lights had been on when Chris arrived there, but there was no one to be seen inside.

All that was left was to wait for the feed from his older brother Dylan’s camera to appear on the laptop, but it was almost nine o’clock. He wasn’t going to have to wait long.

He slid in an earpiece. “I’m in position.”

“We’ll be there in a few minutes,” Dylan said.

A view inside Ron Abram’s truck popped up on the laptop; first, the dash and then Ron behind the wheel, his dark eyes fixed ahead and a smirk on his unshaven face.

“You always have trouble with that,” Ron said.

“Are you getting this?” Dylan asked.

The camera remained aimed at Ron.

“Yes. Looks good,” Chris said, then felt his cheeks blush. “You still don’t think we should call the cops in on this?”

“Naw,” Ron scoffed. “They’ll only screw it up.”

Chris verified the cameras and mics were recording once more, then took another look around the alley. Other than some trash being blown around, there wasn’t any movement, and yet he felt like someone was near.

“I don’t know why we’re trusting Bart Nolan on this,” Chris said.

“He said he has information about the Charity Grobin murder,” Dylan said.

“He’s never helped us before,” Chris said. “Probably rather shut us down.”

“We still need to check this out,” Dylan said.

“You’re going to trust a rival?”

“No,” Dylan said. “It was his number, but it wasn’t Nolan who called. Something’s definitely going to happen and I want to be ready when it does.”

“Don’t worry,” Ron said, his voice deep and husky. “We’re expecting a trap. We won’t get caught.”

Chris stole a glance out the driver side window, wishing he could shake the feeling of someone standing beside him. Tonight was getting to him and he couldn’t place why. He’d seen a lot of bad things in his line of work, but Charity’s murder affected him more than usual. Perhaps it was how the young woman had been so brutally stabbed, or maybe it was how she’d been found in a hotel room with flowers surrounding her dead body.

Ron’s truck pulled up to the curb in front of the building and parked. Dylan and Ron stepped out and quickly surveyed the area, then went inside.

“Hello?” Dylan yelled. “Anybody here?”

Dylan and Ron took a few steps deeper into the front office, toward a table that had a vase full of red and yellow flowers sitting in the middle.

“Odd,” Dylan said.

Ron took a stem from the vase. “Snapdragons.” He held the stem up to the camera for Chris to see the red flowers shaped like dragon heads, then pushed the middle of one flower so the mouth of the dragon opened as he let out a soft roar. “For my favorite Snapdragon.” Ron winked at him through the camera’s lens.

Chris felt his cheeks warm. He knew what a prankster Ron could be and didn’t take his flirts to heart, but he enjoyed the playful tone Ron used when he called him by his nickname.

“Watch out,” Dylan said, “he’ll snap all right.”

“Hey,” Chris said.

“That’s him,” Ron said, grinning into the camera.

Dylan turned to his left and followed a trail of flowers scattered on the floor that led to a doorway of a dark room. “Why are they here?” Dylan asked.

Ron said, “This might not be good.”

“Dylan Mason, with Mason and Abrams. Anyone here?” Dylan said.

They waited a few moments in silence, then Ron nodded and drew his gun.

“We’re going in the back,” Dylan said. Dylan aimed his gun in front of him as he advanced into the building. They entered a back room lit only by a handful of fluorescent lights.

“Anyone here?” Ron called out as they slowed their movement into the room.

Chris’s heart beat faster as he watched Dylan and Ron move deeper into what felt like a trap. He shook his head and tried to tell himself everything would be fine, that he was just being paranoid.