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Why the hell had it never— not once —occurred to me that U.N. Owen might be attending the Noir at the Shore conference?

What. The. Hell.

I knew perfectly well only conference attendees could get into the panels.

No. In the interests of accuracy, local residents and random hotel guests did occasionally crash conference bookrooms and panels. Not often.

But the guy had submitted a blackmail threat in the form of a manuscript. Why hadn’t I considered the possibility that he was a genuine fan of the genre? Jesus . He was using the nom de plume U.N. Owen. How had that not been my first clue?

On the other hand, how would I have located him at the conference when I didn’t have his actual name and could barely recall what he looked like?

You could have messaged him.

Yes. I could have messaged him. But if I messaged him, I was admitting…too much. I’d be leaving cyber footprints, cyber fingerprints. I’d wanted to see for myself what I was dealing with. I wanted to look him in the eyes.

Well, instead, I’d got to look his neighbor in the eyes.

Great.

And for good measure I’d treated myself to the pleasure of dropping by the old family homestead so I could dredge up a lot of terrible memories that I’d spent years trying to flush. Not useful. Not productive. Not conducive to my mental or emotional health.

I took a couple of deep breaths as I drove slowly back to the main road.

Focus on the positives. I now had a name. Troy Colby.

And I knew a couple of things about Colby. He was living lean to the bone. He wanted to be a writer. A published author.

Maybe the way out of this mess was simpler than I thought.

Maybe Colby was looking for a publishing contract.

Maybe I could find out exactly what Colby knew—and how he knew it—in exchange for a book deal. Not for I Know What You Did , obviously. A real book. A genuine work of fiction.

If there was one thing I knew how to do, it was take a mess of a manuscript and turn it into a publishable work.

Did I want to give in to blackmail? No. Did I think it was wise? No. You didn’t have to be an editor of crime fiction to know that once you submitted to extortion, you were opening a vein to your bank account.

But I didn’t have a lot of options. I couldn’t go to the police. Even if there had been someone left to corroborate my version of events, I was still culpable. I’d be ruined. I’d go to prison.

My knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. I was not someone who would do well in prison. Hell, I was not someone who did well outside of Manhattan.

There had to be another way. And maybe this was it. Maybe I could buy my way out of this nightmare. Or at least the part of the nightmare where I was completely and totally ruined. Maybe this was the price.

Maybe I deserved to pay this price for the part I’d played in Dom’s death.

On my way out of Steeple Hill, I stopped at the Valero to fill up the rental’s gas tank, use the facilities, and buy a cup of coffee for the trip back to Monterey.

I was very tired. I hadn’t slept much the night before and the day had been…long.

Very long. A million years long.

Which was how long the drive back to Monterey felt. If it hadn’t been imperative I get back for that godawful banquet, I’d have considered getting a room for the night.

Not in Steeple Hill. That went without saying. I’d be overjoyed to never see this town again. But in some safe, anonymous motel down the highway.

Irrelevant. I had to get back. I had to attend the dinner. I had to be up bright and early the next morning for breakfast with Grace Hollister and coffee with…whomever.

It was all starting to blur together.

As the cashier rang up the gas and coffee, I checked my phone for messages. My heart sank at the long list of Recents.

It was already after five. I’d lost time stopping by the house on Seaside Lane. I could spend half an hour going through my messages or I could get back in time for the cocktails before the banquet. It was already going to be close.

I opted to start driving. Not least because I wasn’t sure I could handle one more piece of bad news.

As I walked out of the Quick Mart, I happened to notice the car that had followed me into the station was still idling just beyond the reach of the Valero’s buzzing sodium lights.

A vintage Cadillac DeVille.

I hadn’t seen one of those in decades.

I glanced back at the long, low-slung frame half-hidden in the shadow of a rusted dumpster.

The midnight-black paint absorbed what little light reached it.

The engine, a deep, rumbling V8, settled into a steady, predatory purr.

Through the windshield I could just make out the faint orange glow of a cigarette tip on the driver’s side.

I smiled faintly. The scene was almost comically cliché film noir. Hayes Hartman would have strongly disapproved.

I finished filling up the tank, screwed the gas cap in, and got back in the car.

As I pulled out of the gas station, I automatically looked in the rearview. The Cadillac DeVille remained in the shadows, unmoving, as I turned toward the Highway 1 on-ramp.

It had been a beautiful scenic drive in the daylight.

Each turn of the winding road revealed fleeting glimpses of the churning Pacific to the left and steep, shadowed cliffs to the right. Dense patches of coastal fog had clung to the cliffs, swirling around the stands of wind-bent cypress and knotty, low-slung Monterey pines.

But as daylight drained from the sky, it was a different story.

The state highway dwindled to a serpentine, deeply shadowed two lanes. Guardrails were random, and the long gaps between revealed sudden, sheer drops to jagged rocks where waves crashed violently, sending plumes of silver spray skyward.

I was a competent driver, but I didn’t drive a lot anymore—I especially didn’t drive a lot of narrow coastal roads—and my night vision wasn’t great.

The lane dipped and twisted, coiled and uncoiled, the rental’s headlights swinging through the darkness of each blind curve, and I found myself tensing each time a car approached, headlights flaring blindingly before whipping past and vanishing into the void.

I couldn’t help watching the rearview mirror, waiting for the next car more familiar with the road to speed up behind me, lights flashing for me to move over.

There were not a lot of turnoffs.

Eventually, I did spot a pair of headlights far behind me, but the driver didn’t seem to be in a hurry, maybe also unfamiliar with the road, and I was able to relax a little.

It was dark and the moon was rising when the highway finally veered away from the ocean, unrolling into a shady, forested stretch.

I flicked on my high beams, and now and again white light illuminated a pair of glowing eyes in the underbrush or the outline of a deer standing motionless by the side of the road.

It was a relief to have trees and solid ground on either side as opposed to a sheer cliff and open sky. I accelerated a bit, the car lunged forward and we raced on as the trees closed in, redwoods blotting out the stars.

And then— bang . I sucked in a breath as the sedan jerked, shuddered, and the steering wheel yanked right.

Was that a gunshot?

I hung onto the wheel, let off the gas as the car began to jog. Slowly, slowly I straightened out the wheel. I could hear a loud and alarming hiss coming from beneath the vehicle.

My heart thundered as the car thudded over something solid—with the way my luck was going, I’d probably hit a boulder—or a stray hiker—followed by the heavy and heart-sinking unmistakable flop-flop-flop.

The sound of a blown tire slapping against the wheel well.

A blow out.

I began to swear quietly and bitterly.

No. Not great. But better than a gunshot. Right?

Why had I leaped to the idea of a gunshot?

My nerves really were in pieces.

I bumped the car onto a dirt turnout, gravel and sand crunching beneath the tires as I rolled to a stop and turned off the engine.

It was very dark. Very quiet. In fact, the only sound in all the universe was the final oozy trickle of air from the blown tire.

After a shaken second or two, I gathered myself, and opened the driver door, stepping out into the pine-scented night. The air felt chilly and damp against my perspiring skin. I flicked on my cellphone flashlight, the bright beam cutting through the gloom.

The good news was this hadn’t happened on a blind curve or on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. The bad news was I was miles from help. The road here was bordered by thick stands of ferns and towering redwoods. No street lamps. No call boxes. Not a lot of traffic. Probably no cell phone service.

Not a lot of anything but trees and shadows

It was the sort of place where a scream for help might echo for miles without ever reaching another human ear.

Oh-kay.

Now was not the time to be thinking like an overwrought mystery author.

Although, actually, the moon, the trees, the lonely winding road—it would make a terrific image for key art in a thriller cover composition.

Yeah, also not the time to be thinking like a frazzled workaholic mystery editor.

Did this car have a spare? Emergency flares? Did I remember how to change a tire?

Circling the sedan, I aimed my phone’s flashlight at the flat tire. It was hard to tell at this angle, but I’d have expected a clean puncture, not a jagged tear.

I frowned. Was I really thinking…well, what was I thinking? Sabotage?

No. I had to have hit something.

What?

The faint sound of an engine in the distance snapped me to attention. I straightened, the hair on my nape prickling. I listened uneasily and thought I recognized the muted growl of a V8 engine driving slowly up the road.

Right. Because I was such a car guy, I could recognize a V8 from a large diesel?

Now I was really letting my imagination run away with me.

Headlights flickered across the trees a few yards down. My pulse spiked. I clicked off my phone, instinctively backing into the shadows, and then stepping still farther back, slipping deep into the trees.