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“ G iana’s heart beat steady and sure as she eased down the hallway. The gun in her hand an extension of her own body. She paused. A faint creak from the fourth floorboard to the left of the bed—a creak she’d learned to avoid during her teenage years—sounded through the closed door of her old bedroom. Whoever was on the other side ceased moving as well. She heard nothing more. Felt nothing more—not in the air, not in the two-hundred-year-old pine planks under her feet.

“Inching forward again, her back to the wall, she wondered what—who—she’d find in her old room: the killer she’d been hunting, or just as likely, another one of his victims. She’d inadvertently started this game of cat and mouse with Timothy Rait more than a year ago, and she intended to end it. Today.

“Reaching the door, she noted that the latch hadn’t caught. Without considering her options, Giana eased to the side, set her hand on the familiar engravings carved in the facing, and gave a gentle push. The heavy wood swung slowly open. A foot came into view, then a jean-clad shin ? —”

Juliana Morganstern froze, waiting— needing —the narrator of her newest audiobook to tell her if Giana would finally catch the killer who’d taunted her for over a year. It was the twelfth in the series; the author had to wrap up the plotline at some point, didn’t she?

Another beat passed as Juliana stared at the large black-and-white framed photo in front of her—part of a new exhibit at the California Historical Society.

A suspenseful pause was one thing, but this was… She tapped her toe on the sleek wood floor, the sound echoing in the otherwise empty gallery.

She frowned. She shouldn’t have been able to hear that sound. Not with her earbuds in. Lifting her phone, she stared at the screen. Her AirPods had run out of juice.

Biting back a frustrated growl, she dropped her hand to her side. Sure, the device had warned her several minutes ago that it was down to 10 percent power, then again at 2, but couldn’t it have waited until she found out if the killer was finally going to confront Giana?!

She muttered a few choice words, then reached for the AirPod case in her purse. At least she had a three-and-a-half-hour drive home. She could plug her phone in and not worry about it running out of power.

“We have to stop him,” a man insisted, his hushed, urgent voice filtering from the hall into the gallery where she stood.

Juliana’s hand stilled.

“What are you suggesting?”

She cocked her head. A different voice. Two men.

“You know what I’m suggesting. Turning a blind eye to a drug deal here and there was one thing, but he went too far inviting the head of the cartel to the city,” the first man answered.

Juliana’s brain went completely blank, as if trying to censor what she’d just heard. Only the metaphorical “bleep” had come three seconds too late and she couldn’t unhear what she’d heard. And she was quite certain that the conversation happening just outside the gallery wasn’t one she was meant to overhear.

Too late, she realized she should have made some noise—stomped her foot, laughed, anything—to alert the two men they weren’t alone.

But she hadn’t.

“Are your people starting to question?” the second man demanded.

Adrenaline flooded her system. She closed her eyes against the assault. And her reality. The only way out of the gallery would take her right into their line of sight. She was trapped.

Like a racehorse leaving the starting gates, her heart rate leaped, beating so rapidly in her chest it pounded in her ears. A chill raced over her skin, and her stomach churned. The soft fabric of her wool slacks felt rough and scratchy against her unsteady knees, and her purse rattled around her tremoring hand. In her other, she gripped her phone tight for fear of dropping it.

The first man huffed in disgust.

Her body jerked at the sound, and she nearly lost her balance. Forcing her eyes open, she focused on the image in front of her—eleven Chinese men outside a supply store in San Francisco taken in the late 1800s—and pulled in one, two, three deep breaths. She’d paused there, arrested by the expressions on the men’s faces. Now she needed those lopsided smiles to ground her.

“As long as they get their cut of the profits, they don’t question shit. But they’re too stupid to recognize that while bigger cuts mean more money, they also mean more attention. Attention we don’t need,” he said, then added, “Attention you don’t need.”

Juliana tensed at the accusatory tone in the first man’s voice.

“What the hell does that mean?” the second man demanded in a whispered bark. One of the two shifted, and his feet shuffled against the wood floor.

Juliana straightened. Were they moving back to the reception celebrating the new exhibit? As an employee of the presidential library in Mystery Lake, she’d volunteered to attend as a representative. She loved history, and the exhibit was wonderful. But after the last five minutes, she’d be hard pressed to remember any of it. Although…if she couldn’t escape, she could at least try to memorize their conversation. Surely, someone would be interested in the details. One of the two men sounded like a police officer, so maybe a federal agency.

Of course, that assumed she’d make it out of the museum to tell them.

The first man laughed darkly, his voice as close as before. “You don’t think people are looking into the decision made about the Bayview development? Even I’m hearing rumblings about that. Anna Palmer from the Chronicle made an offhand comment about it the other day.”

“Anna Palmer doesn’t make offhand comments,” the second man said.

“Exactly.”

Heavy silence filled the space. Juliana held her breath.

“Fuck,” the second man said. The first didn’t bother to reply. “We have to do something.”

Her stomach somersaulted.

“It’s gone on long enough,” the first agreed.

“Barlow him?” the second man said. A pause followed. She didn’t try to figure out what that meant; instead, she committed the words to memory.

“It would take care of things. Take care of him. Permanently,” the first replied.

She bit back a whimper. Part of her brain refused to believe what she’d heard. People like her, law-abiding history geeks from small towns, did not overhear people discussing murder.

“We shouldn’t have let it come to this.”

“No, but did you ever see any other way out? Don’t tell me the first time he blackmailed you, you didn’t think about killing him,” the first man said.

Only apparently, people like her did overhear people talking about killing someone. Swallowing down her nausea, she darted a look around the gallery. How on earth was she going to escape their notice? She didn’t want to think about what they might do if they knew they’d been overheard. But what were her options?

The other man chuckled, a sinister whisper echoing down the hallway. “Of course I did. The fucker. Didn’t mean I wanted to do it.”

“And now?”

She held her breath, but the question went unanswered.

“Shit, Tony’s coming. With his entourage,” the first man said. “We’ll continue this conversation later. Tony!” he called in greeting.

The din of several voices talking at once drowned out any specific words. With her mind no longer focused on the conversation, the urge to flee came roaring to the surface. If they were willing to kill one person, what would they do if they figured out that she’d overheard them? She didn’t know the two men or whether they’d actually murder someone, but she didn’t want to test that. It seemed safer to assume they would.

A flicker of movement in the corner caught her attention, and a spider scrambled across the hardwood floors. If only she could be an animal shifter from one of the fantasy books she read and join the little guy. Or gal. Sexing spiders wasn’t her specialty.

The sound of several feet moving down the hall toward the gallery jolted her back to the situation. Books had given her unrealistic expectations of herself, and rather than act like one of the kick-ass heroines—like Giana—all she wanted to do was curl into a ball and cry.

Her gaze caught again on the eleven men in the picture. She couldn’t imagine the hardships they’d faced immigrating to California all those decades ago. The long boat ride, leaving their families, facing all those unknowns. And there they were, smiling into the camera.

With a deep breath, she mentally shimmied into her big-girl panties. If those eleven men could do what they’d done, then she could figure out how to persuade those two men that she posed no threat to them. Not that she planned to forget what she’d heard, she just needed to convince them she hadn’t heard anything.

The herd of people drew closer and closer. An avuncular laugh, a disingenuous comment, a criticism veiled as a compliment all echoed down the hall as the group drew closer.

She didn’t bother looking for another exit. Any way out would take her directly in front of the two men. And triggering their prey instincts by scampering by them was not on her to-do list.

If she looked lost enough in the photo, maybe they’d believe she hadn’t paid attention to them?

Wait…

She glanced down at her phone. Gripped tightly in her hand, the cover of her audiobook still displayed on the screen.

She had a better solution. Well, a better solution if she could keep her cool and not freak out. Acting had never been her strong point. Then again, her life had never depended on that particular skill.

The footsteps drew closer, making her decision for her. If she wanted the two men to believe that she hadn’t heard a thing, she had one option and one option only. Focusing her attention on the photo, she stared, phone in hand, at the eleven men, and took a deep breath.

The group entered as she exhaled.