Outside, the flash of Wiggins sprinting after Cervantes. Then Buckley filled the car doorway, yanking the swords out of the dead man’s hands. “Frames, you hurt? You need help? You okay?”

Frames looked at the other officers without really seeing them. He felt the dead man’s weight and sweaty skin on his legs. The body was large and soft, and seemed to be settling, as if the man had crawled inside the car to fall asleep.

“Yeah,” Frames said. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

Acknowledgments

My gratitude goes to the whole team at Poisoned Pen Press and Sourcebooks who enthusiastically embraced this book from the start and supported me in its publication. Special thanks to my editor, Barbara Peters, who brought to bear her long experience in this genre and who provided smart editing and counsel. I’m also grateful to Robert Rosenwald for first reading the book and to Diane DiBiase, Beth Deveny, Anna Michels, Jenna Jankowski, and Leyla Parada, who patiently steered a first-time author through the publishing process and helped me keep my feet on the ground.

I would like to thank my longtime critique group, who read the book from the start: Andy Gloege, Thonie Hevron, and Billie Settles. They taught me to add more and cut in just the right places. Without them, the book would not be what it is today.

Thanks also to my early readers: Chris Baker, Sean Cotter, Robert Digitale, Brian Fies, and Carol and Robert Sanoff, who generously read a rough draft and whose comments helped greatly.

I must thank David Rintell, who prodded me to keep writing, who read a copy of the novel on a coast-to-coast flight when he was supposed to be preparing a business presentation, and who had a fateful conversation on behalf of my book at a wedding reception. Thanks also to Gayle Shanks for making a connection for an author she never met.

I am indebted to retired Santa Rosa Police Lieutenant Tom Swearingen. Tom read the story and answered my questions with the unique experience of a police officer who actually worked on the SRPD VCI team. No, he’s not Eddie Mahler or any of the others, and he’s obviously not responsible for any errors or exaggerations in the portrayal of the team. To quote the English novelist Kate Atkinson, “All mistakes are mine, some deliberate.” I was also given great insight into the officers and practices of the Santa Rosa Police Department by the terrific Citizen Police Academy course given by the SRPD.