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Zusatztext "Intriguing."— San Francisco Chronicle "Nina Reilly is one of the most interesting heroines in legal thrillers today." — San Jose Mercury News "A roller-coaster ride...a tale not to be missed." — Midwest Book Review Informationen zum Autor Perri O'Shaughnessy is the pen name for sisters Mary and Pamela O’Shaughnessy, who both live in California. They are the authors of eleven bestselling Nina Reilly novels as well as a collection of short crime fiction, Sinister Shorts . Klappentext Lightning strikes twice. Two people have died in Lake Tahoe in shocking accidents. In a nearly empty parking lot! a hit-and-run driver kills probation officer Anna Meade Hallowell. High up on a jagged mountain! wife abuser Ray de Beers gets what he deserves: he's struck by lightning. Attorney Nina Reilly! hiking on a rare day off from her one-woman law practice! sees him die. So does her date! Tahoe deputy DA Collier Hallowell. Still shaken from his wife's violent death! Hallowell is hit hard by the accident. It's a bad end to a first date... and the start of a case that will test Nina's ethics and her heart. Nina is certain de Beers's death is an act of God. But his aging father wants to exhume the body to rule out foul play. De Beers's frantic wife and teenage twins hire Nina to stop the disinterment. What gets unearthed are secrets that raise new questions about Anna Hallowell's death! an indictment against one twin for murder! and a damning piece of evidence that can convict the boy . . . unless Nina obstructs justice by hiding it. No good lawyer will take that kind of risk. But a brilliant lawyer! one with a passion for truth! just might . . . . Leseprobe She and Collier Hallowell, the deputy D.A. in whom she'd developed a personal interest, were no longer alone on Mt. Tallac. Voices from the trail told Nina that they weren't alone any longer. A group of hikers came straggling up to their lookout one by one, led by a strong-looking bald man with a set, hard expression on his face, wearing a heavy aluminum-frame pack and olive-colored golf hat. Behind him came a boy and girl in their late teens, both astonishingly tall and attractive, look-alikes with their fair hair and sunglasses and long legs in hiking shorts. The girl wore a black T-shirt that said WHATEVER. The girl and the man, who appeared to be her father, were arguing, the girl's voice protesting, the man's caustic and commanding. The boy, who must have been her brother, lagged behind as if reluctant to get involved. A few moments later they were joined by a woman in shorts with a tennis visor over her curly black hair, stumbling and breathless, and another man, grim-faced and weathered, wearing a blue and green bandanna around his neck. Nina and Collier stood aside to let the group pass and take in the best view, but though they walked over to the standpoint, the hikers weren't interested in the scenery. The tension between the girl and the man occupied them completely. Only the woman in the visor bothered to nod; to the others, Nina and Collier might as well have been rocks. We better hustle," Collier said as they moved back onto the trail. "Those clouds make me nervous." The trail led past another small lake on a flat, just before a steep two-hundred-foot slope that led to smooth rock where fresh, cold water ran down. They followed it upstream, glad to be on a level stretch, looking up every once in a while toward the cumulus clouds massing like mushrooms in the east. Not far behind them they could see the small figures of the other hikers. "Not... a...happy...group," Nina said between breaths. "It's a hard climb," Collier said. "The guy in front with the big backpack--the father, is my guess--sounds like the domestic-tyrant type to me. Maybe he's the only one who wanted to come, but it's hard to say no to a man like that." "What a...
