Product Description New York Times bestselling author Christine McGuire packs her riveting legal thrillers with authentic details drawn from her career as a criminal prosecutor. Now McGuire, who "expertly builds suspense" (Publishers Weekly), brings back her savvy heroine, Assistant D.A. Kathryn Mackay, in a sensational new page-turner. Hours after her beloved boss and mentor Harold Benton dies, Kathryn is thrust into her greatest challenge yet -- as the new District Attorney of Santa Rita County, California. Appointed unexpectedly, she is thrown into an explosive series of seemingly connected deaths. Two pregnant teenage girls have committed suicide, and the investigation quickly reveals other cases with disturbing connections. Immersed in political and personal hazards like never before, Kathryn is unprepared to do battle with her shrewd top deputy, who's running a media campaign against her for the upcoming election. And if Kathryn isn't already overwhelmed with her frenzied career and role as a single mother of a young daughter, her love life heats up when a new man enters the picture. Walking a tightrope of deadly secrets and murderous betrayal, Kathryn must determine whom to trust -- before ore all that she holds dear is destroyed. About the Author Christine McGuire prosecutes murder cases in a California district attorney's office. She has taught at the academy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Quantico, Virginia. Her first book, Perfect Victim, a nonfiction account of a sexual enslavement case, was a #1 New York Times bestseller. She is also the author of the acclaimed Kathryn Mackay series. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter One"Hold still, you grouchy old nag," Todd laughed at his bay gelding as he cinched the saddle up tight. The horse snorted angrily, blowing snot on his owner's shirt, and tried to bite his arm."Too quick for you," Todd told him, jerking his arm away. He slipped the bit into the horse's mouth and swung up onto his back. Sonny plodded reluctantly to the green Powder River corral gate, which Todd unlatched and swung open. Bill Todd, airline pilot and part-time rancher, surveyed the panoramic view of the bay from his corral at the top of Mount Cabrillo. He could see from the farms on the outskirts of Española to the open space beyond Santa Rita that swept up the hill toward the university campus. The circular bay stretched south from narrow sandy beaches toward Monterey and Pacific Grove, across twenty miles of sparkling azure water. It was a stroke of flight scheduling luck that Todd could spend the morning mending fences around his forty-acre gentleman's ranch. The downside to his lifestyle was the drive to work. The skinny old road snaked across and down the hill from Mount Cabrillo Park at the top to south Santa Rita. No guardrails separated the roadway from the sheer cliffs, which in some places dropped vertically several hundred feet. Todd spotted dangling wire and four metal fence posts pushed over, the result of seven tons of hungry cattle poking their necks through the fence. "Damn cows are just like people, they always think the grass is greener on the other side," he said to no one. He swung out of the saddle and tied the horse to a tree. Sonny nuzzled his left arm and grunted. "Oh, so now you like me? I know what you want." He reached into a saddlebag and pulled out two green apples, which he cut into quarters with a pocket knife and held one piece at a time in the palm of his hand. Sonny grabbed them with his agile lips and chewed with surprising delicacy. After the repair, they made their way to the corner of the ranch, a small, level meadow studded with century-old white oaks hidden from the roadway by a row of apple trees. The meadow abutted a precipitous drop into a narrow canyon, which was bisected by a creek about twelve feet wide and six inches deep. From the sharp curve in the roadway above, the drop to the bottom wa