A book in the Black Cats series, 2009

I must extend sincere thanks to several people who helped me with this project from start to finish.

To Janelle Denison, Julie Leto, and Carly Phillips-aka the Plotmonkeys-thank you so much for supporting me from the very minute I said I wanted to try writing something dark and thrilling.

To my agent, Pamela Harty. Thanks for looking at a romantic comedy writer and seeing the potential for blood and gore. I so appreciate your standing by me.

To my editor, Laura Cifelli… you won’t regret giving me this shot. I promise.

Sincere thanks also to Leo A. Notenboom (www.ask-leo.com) for the technical advice and consultation. All the computer expertise is his… any errors are entirely my own.

Seventeen months later

During his five years working the roughest streets of Baltimore, and his seven in the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, Special Agent Dean Taggert had seen firsthand just how vicious people could be.

He’d responded to shootings and gang hits. Had put his hands onto gushing wounds to try to save a victim waiting for an ambulance. He’d shot and had been shot at.

But this… God, he had never seen anything like this.

“It can’t be real,” he muttered. “This video is a fake. It’s got to be.”

He spoke more to himself than to IT specialist Brandon Cole, who had pulled him aside and asked him to take a look at something he’d stumbled across on the Internet. Cole, who’d been with the FBI’s Cyber Division for less than a year, was a bit of a renegade, but the kid knew his stuff when it came to computers.

This time, though, he was wrong. He had to be wrong.

“It’s real,” Cole said.

He didn’t elaborate, letting Dean see for himself, waiting for him to concede that something so far beyond his darkest nightmares could really have happened.

Waiting for him to accept it.

He didn’t want to. Didn’t want to even imagine that someone could do such a thing, and then upload it to the Web for others to see, as well. When the final moment came, however, when the poor woman on the screen died without the camera pulling away for a single second, he could no longer deny it.

“Okay. It’s not a fake,” he admitted, both to himself and to his coworker.

Nobody outside of Hollywood could pull off a scene as horrifically convincing as this one. And the video they were watching had been taken by an amateur, not a cinematographer with a multimillion-dollar budget for gory special effects.

The crime itself, however, was anything but amateur.

He’d thought leaving ViCAP for a new Cyber Action Team-CAT-would mean never having to work a case like this again. He’d wanted to get all that darkness and violence out of his life so he could be normal. Have fewer nightmares.

Be a better father.

Even in a new type of CAT devoted to solving Internet-related murders, he’d never imagined the hideous possibilities, picturing only money launderers who’d embezzled from the wrong guys or scumbags luring victims via online dating sites.

This? He’d never even conceived of it.

“I recognize that setup,” he said, swallowing hard, trying to keep his breakfast down as the video faded to black. “It’s a scene right out of that old movie The Hitcher, where the girl is chained to the back of a semi and then pulled apart.”

“Yeah, I think so,” Brandon said. He tapped a few keys to return the digital video file to the beginning, as well as enlarge the image. As if anybody would want a better view of that. Pausing on a close-up of the victim’s face, he added, “I wouldn’t have shown it to you if I hadn’t been sure it was authentic and not some fake snuff film. To be certain, I did some digging on unusual unsolved murders and I found her.”

Smart. Very smart.

“You might even remember the case. It made national news after her remains were found. She was a twenty-seven-year-old accountant, murdered five months ago. She left her office for lunch one afternoon and was found in pieces a week later in a wooded area outside a small Pennsylvania town.”

“Yeah, I remember it. Sick.”

Brandon nodded his agreement. “The victim’s photo looked close enough to the woman in the video footage for me to contact the locals and get a copy of the autopsy report. It was like reading a script for what happened on the tape.” Shrugging in self-deprecation, which was completely out of character for the young man, he added, “Not that I’m an expert on that type of thing, of course, but it seemed pretty irrefutable.”

Brandon, with his obviously bleached blond hair, his brightly colored dress shirts worn beneath his trendy suits, and a damned cocky attitude, was smart enough to be an expert on just about anything. He’d probably never try it out in the field, but the twenty-five-year-old got away with a lot here in cyber crimes because he was pure magic when it came to computers. The FBI had been lucky to get him. Brandon could have made himself rich in the private sector. Or in the criminal one.

Finally, when the tension in Brandon ’s small office reached its breaking point, the younger man closed the video player window. At last able to look at something other than the victim’s terrified face, Dean released the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“I figured it was time to bring somebody else in once I knew for sure.”

“Next time, how about a warning before you show me a real-life slasher flick?”

“You’re warned.”

Damn. Something about the intensity in Brandon ’s voice, and the tense way his body hunched over his keyboard, told Dean there was more to this case. More than just one poor, pretty young accountant who’d met a human savage.

“Why’d you decide to show me?” Dean asked.

“With your violent crimes and Baltimore PD background, I figured you’d be the best bet. I didn’t want to take it to Wyatt until I knew for sure.”

Supervisory Special Agent Wyatt Blackstone was their leader, and though the new team had come together only a month ago, Dean already knew his boss was very good at what he did. Not everyone agreed with that, however-as evidenced by the fact that some called the new team the Black CATs, with both humor and a little malice.

The malice-spite, really-was all directed at Wyatt. And everybody knew why.

Exposing a case of internal corruption had taken guts and a desire for career suicide. Despite being highly respected by many, Blackstone was also hated by some. Especially those whose friends had been brought down in the scandal uncovered by Blackstone last year, a scandal that had gone all the way up to the deputy director’s office. Dean didn’t know everything, but he did know that a couple of convictions that had relied on evidence run through the FBI crime lab had been overturned after Blackstone had brought up the allegations of evidence tampering against several other agents.

“So what’s the matter, Cole? You think Wyatt’s not going to believe you?”

Brandon leaned back in his rolling chair. “He won’t doubt it once he sees all the evidence. But I want backup when I fight for the case.”