Private Berlin (with Mark Sullivan)

Private Down Under (with Michael White)

Private L.A. (with Mark Sullivan)

Private India (with Ashwin Sanghi)

Private Vegas (with Maxine Paetro)

Private Sydney (with Kathryn Fox)

Private Paris (with Mark Sullivan)

The Games (with Mark Sullivan)

NYPD RED SERIES

NYPD Red (with Marshall Karp)

NYPD Red 2 (with Marshall Karp)

NYPD Red 3 (with Marshall Karp)

NYPD Red 4 (with Marshall Karp)

STAND-ALONE THRILLERS

Sail (with Howard Roughan)

Swimsuit (with Maxine Paetro)

Don’t Blink (with Howard Roughan)

Postcard Killers (with Liza Marklund)

Toys (with Neil McMahon)

Now You See Her (with Michael Ledwidge)

Kill Me If You Can (with Marshall Karp)

Guilty Wives (with David Ellis)

Zoo (with Michael Ledwidge)

Second Honeymoon (with Howard Roughan)

Mistress (with David Ellis)

Invisible (with David Ellis)

The Thomas Berryman Number

Truth or Die (with Howard Roughan)

Murder House (with David Ellis)

NON-FICTION

Torn Apart (with Hal and Cory Friedman)

The Murder of King Tut (with Martin Dugard)

ROMANCE

Sundays at Tiffany’s (with Gabrielle Charbonnet)

The Christmas Wedding (with Richard DiLallo)

First Love (with Emily Raymond)

OTHER TITLES

Miracle at Augusta (with Peter de Jonge)

BOOKSHOTS

Black & Blue (with Candice Fox)

Break Point (with Lee Stone)

Private Royals (with Rees Jones)

The Hostage (with Robert Gold)

Heist (with Rees Jones)

Hunted (with Andrew Holmes)

Airport: Code Red (with Michael White)

The Trial (with Maxine Paetro)

Little Black Dress (with Emily Raymond)

PROLOGUE

I SPEED THROUGH the desert along a dirt road, my Jeep leaving a cloud of dust in its wake. The setting sun gives the desert landscape a reddish hue. The only thing visible in any direction, besides sagebrush and cacti, is a run-down shack up ahead. Marco’s car is already parked outside.

I have the feeling I’m walking into a trap.

On my passenger seat sits a black satin sack about the size of a sandwich bag, containing a few million dollars’ worth of diamonds. Other than that, I have only a gas station cup half full of soda. I have no gun. No knife. I bet Marco has one or the other.

Or both.

I’d been telling Marco for weeks that I was going to quit after this heist—what we’d called “the job to end all jobs”—and Marco had not been happy about it. He’d even joked that he wasn’t going to let me leave. I didn’t think much of it, but then Marco insisted that we rendezvous here, in the middle of nowhere. We had always met in public places before.

I stop the Jeep about a hundred yards from the shack and let it sit, idling in neutral. I take a drink from my soda. I think about shifting the Jeep into gear and taking off. Then I get an idea.