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Back Cut and Run
Chapters (48)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Prologue
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. Chapter Four
  10. Chapter Five
  11. Chapter Six
  12. Chapter Seven
  13. Chapter Eight
  14. Chapter Nine
  15. Chapter Ten
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Chapter Thirteen
  19. Chapter Fourteen
  20. Chapter Fifteen
  21. Chapter Sixteen
  22. Chapter Seventeen
  23. Chapter Eighteen
  24. Chapter Nineteen
  25. Chapter Twenty
  26. Chapter Twenty-one
  27. Chapter Twenty-two
  28. Chapter Twenty-three
  29. Chapter Twenty-four
  30. Chapter Twenty-five
  31. Chapter Twenty-six
  32. Chapter Twenty-seven
  33. Chapter Twenty-eight
  34. Chapter Twenty-nine
  35. Chapter Thirty
  36. Chapter Thirty-one
  37. Chapter Thirty-two
  38. Chapter Thirty-three
  39. Chapter Thirty-four
  40. Chapter Thirty-five
  41. Chapter Thirty-six
  42. Chapter Thirty-seven
  43. Chapter Thirty-eight
  44. Chapter Thirty-nine
  45. Also by Allison Brennan
  46. Praise for these other novels by New York Times bestselling author Allison Brennan
  47. About the Author
  48. Newsletter Sign-up

Victoria had been stabbed and pushed into the pool at the house she had listed for sale while the owners were out of town. She would have bled out, but the pool quickened her death and the COD was drowning.

There had been no wine, no food, no sign that Victoria intended to meet anyone at the house. Why had she gone there at night? To check on something? To meet someone? Was she having an affair—except she was single.

Harrison Monroe isn’t single.

“Do you have the autopsy report?”

“Next folder.”

Lucy read the autopsy report. Victoria had been stabbed twice in the stomach, fully clothed, then pushed into the pool. Chlorine had destroyed any evidence on her person. The knife hadn’t been recovered.

Lucy held the autopsy photos under the hotel lamp. The coroner had measured the wounds and determined the angle. Whoever stabbed her had gone for center mass, slightly on Victoria’s left side, suggesting the killer was right-handed—like 90 percent of the population. He held the knife at waist level and stabbed Victoria, up close and personal. Once, twice. Knife wounds were always messy and Victoria may have been able to survive the attack if she’d had immediate medical attention—her heart had not been compromised. But the killer pushed her into the pool and she drowned, secondary cause blood loss.

“This was personal,” Lucy said. “Whoever killed her waited to ensure she didn’t get out of the pool. The water hastened blood loss, loss of consciousness, and subsequent death by drowning. But theoretically, Victoria could have pulled herself out of the pool, so the killer would want to make sure she was dead. It wouldn’t take long. Five, ten minutes tops.”

She closed the folders and put them back on the desk. “The killer was face-to-face, inches away. He stabbed her in the stomach twice. She didn’t see it coming. There were no defensive wounds on her hands or arms, and the only other injury was a cut on her ankle from when her foot hit the edge of the pool as she was pushed in. She trusted whoever killed her, or didn’t see him as a threat.”

“She expected to meet someone there,” Max said.