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Chapter One

Phoenix, Arizona

K enna raced up the last couple of steps and pushed the bar on the door to get out onto the roof.

Desert wind blew at her face, sending her hair back.

She slid a hair tie off her wrist and secured it all in a ponytail.

She needed to focus, not worry about tangled hair in her face at the wrong moment—or why she was far more winded than she should be from running up eight flights of stairs.

She couldn’t worry about that right now. Her problems could cost someone their life.

Terri Fleming stood at the far end of the rooftop, shrouded by the night sky and backlit by the city skyline. Kenna strode over there, trying to make some noise so the woman wasn’t startled. If that happened, then she wouldn’t be jumping, she’d have fallen because of Kenna.

She stopped about ten feet behind Terri, who stood on the ledge that was meant to keep people from falling. “Ms. Fleming.” She kept her voice soft.

Terri’s white blouse fluttered around her in the breeze. She had on tan linen pants and black ballet flats. “Don’t come any closer!” Her short salt-and-pepper hair didn’t get in her eyes, which meant she could likely see the crowd gathering below.

People out late downtown, probably after an evening of drinking. Now most had their phones out, and a few were yelling, “Jump! Jump!” Which just made Kenna want to throw something down there to get them to disburse. Instead, she said, “Terri, can we talk about this?”

“What’s to talk about? It’s over!”

Kenna took a step closer to her, already sweating even though she was dressing for the weather now.

It was so hot in Arizona she didn’t have much of a choice.

She’d opted for chino shorts and a white graphic tee, over which she had on a thin, short-sleeved salmon-colored jacket that wasn’t meant to be buttoned or zippered.

Its only function was to hide the holstered weapon at the small of her back, among other self-defense items that were on her person.

Converse on her feet, of course. She never knew when she’d have to run up several flights of stairs to convince a woman in a bad spot not to jump off a roof.

No point being caught in sandals or heels.

“If you’re still standing it isn’t over.” Kenna took another step toward her.

In the distance, she heard police sirens. Flashing lights reflected off a building a block or two down the street. Cops. Probably firefighters and an ambulance as well, because everyone had a part to play in resolving a situation like this.

But Kenna was the one who was here right now.

“I mean it, Terri. It isn’t over until you’ve given up, and how does that help set the record straight?”

“I’m the one who designed this building. Marshal stole everything from me. He took my design, claimed it was his, and never once mentioned that he was starting his own business with my design.”

Meanwhile, Terri had been skimming from the business she and Marshal Hapsworth had started together.

Funding a lavish lifestyle and healthy savings accounts while her regular paycheck went to funding her retirement at hyperspeed.

Instead of turning her in, Marshal had double-crossed her and opted to play the long game of revenge.

For five years, he’d been secretly running a competing business solo.

Getting this building up and running. Callously undermining Terri, because she’d been skimming from him, by constructing a building she’d designed in a part of the city where Ms. Fleming never traveled to as part of her daily routine.

As soon as she’d realized what Marshal had done, she’d also realized she couldn’t go to the cops. She’d hired Kenna under the guise of preparing to sue her business partner and needing evidence to prove her case.

It hadn’t taken Kenna long to figure out what was really going on.

Kenna watched the first cop car round a corner onto this street. The crowd below started to yell louder. Because they knew the situation would be resolved soon? They wanted their live stream to go viral with something epic—a woman tumbling to her death—before the cops shut the whole thing down.

“Terri, we can’t prove what Marshal did if you take your own life.”

“I’ll go to jail for embezzling from the company.”

“But you won’t get justice,” Kenna said.

“No one will know that you designed this amazing building. We might be able to talk to the prosecutor about a reduced sentence. You know I used to work in law enforcement. I have contacts, even here.” She wasn’t going to mention that her new husband was the Special Agent in Charge at the Phoenix FBI office.

“I can help you get through this, but you have to trust me, Terri.”

The cops would be up here in minutes.

Unfortunately, the wrong cop could send this whole situation sideways fast.

She tugged off her jacket and laid it on the ground, then pulled her weapon and its holster from the back of her belt, which she put on the jacket. Fully visible. Making it immediately evident she was now unarmed. She took two steps to the side so she was out of reach of the weapon.

Kenna could hear the cops coming up the stairs, pounding feet and loud conversation.

A second before the door opened, she spread her hands out to the sides so that they would see right away that she had no weapon in her grasp.

The door flung back and hit the wall.

Kenna held her focus on Terri. She couldn’t grab Ms. Fleming if she started to fall, not from this distance. Also, Kenna didn’t have the strength in her arms to hold a person up most of the time.

She had even less these days, when every part of her body felt sluggish each morning and she had to drag herself out of bed. Slow starts, as if her body had to rev its engine up to full power. She could do the same in the afternoon if she took a long nap.

“Ma’am, step away from the edge.” The first cop was uniformed but with sergeant stripes on his short black sleeves. The highest ranking officer on scene right now. He approached with steady steps.

But who was the guy talking to? Maybe both of them? Her T-shirt fluttered in the hot wind, which didn’t cool her off much. “Terri, I need you to climb down for me so we can figure this out.”

“It’s over,” Terri said. “I’m going to jump.”

The cops spread out, moving closer to Kenna and her client. Terri faced the street, so she couldn’t see them, but that command presence police officers had sometimes felt like a physical thing that hung in the air.

Below them, the crowd had started to chant, “Jump! Jump! Jump!”

The sergeant said, “Terri, is it?”

“I’m not talking to cops!”

“I’m sure your friend here would like to hear what you have to say.”

“She already knows too much. It’s over!” Terri screamed. “It’s so over that I’m going over, and then it’s done.”

Kenna took a step toward her. “Terri, please don’t jump.”

“You just wanna get paid!”

Sure, Kenna had an unpaid invoice on her accounting software, but that was hardly the point.

This woman was determined to end her life.

No matter what the situation, that would be a tragedy.

“This isn’t about money. I want everyone to know what Marshal did to you and to your company.

Which means I need you to tell your side of the story. ”

“You didn’t do your job if you need that. You were supposed to find evidence!”

Kenna said, “People need a story. Not facts. A story is what changes someone’s mind, and it’s how we learn the truth.”

The sergeant came closer, catching sight of her gun on her jacket. He looked at Kenna with raised brows.

“I’m a private investigator. Ms. Fleming is my client, and she’s going to get down off that ledge so we can figure out a solution to all this.”

The sergeant asked, “What do you say, Terri? Do you want us to help you find a solution?”

Below, the crowd renewed the chanting. Jump! Jump!

“There is no solution.”

The sergeant moved close enough to grab her.

Kenna caught the attention of the closest uniformed officer and pointed to her forearms. In the dim light of the rooftop, maybe he hadn’t seen her scars, the ones that were visible and ugly in the daylight.

That was the thing about darkness and shadows—it hid far too much that would be plainly true in the light.

Darkness obscured that truth and shrouded it in mystery.

Kenna’s job was to bring those things from the darkness into the light.

She waved the cop over, and as he passed her, she whispered, “I can’t grab her.”

She turned back to the ledge. “Terri, don’t do this.

Please. I’ve seen someone die before because they lost hope and took their own life.

I know how much it hurts when you have nothing but despair, but you have to know there is always a reason to keep going.

What about your niece, Charlotte? What am I supposed to tell her?

You’ll be altering her life in a way she might not recover from.

There are people who care about you. If you love them, you need to do everything you can to stick around. ”

“I know about your boyfriend and that serial killer,” Terri said. “This is just about you not failing again. You don’t care about me. You just want to save yourself the grief. I don’t care.”

Kenna’s heart squeezed in her chest. She had a gold wedding band on her left hand these days.

That life with Bradley felt like decades ago, even though it was just a few years.

“You should care. This is your life we’re talking about.

If you give up, then there’s nothing I can do to help you.

And yes, I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life. ”

“I’m not going to jail.”