Praise for Steve Cavanagh ‘This guy is the real deal. Trust me’ Lee Child ‘Plotting that takes the breath away’ Ian Rankin ‘If you read a thriller as good this year, it’s only because you’ve read this one twice’ Mark Billingham ‘Steve Cavanagh must have sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads outside of Rosedale, Mississippi in exchange for becoming one of the world’s best crime writers. Steve is 5/5’ Adrian McKinty ‘A dead bang beast of a book expertly combining his authority on the law with an absolutely great thrill ride. Books this ingenious don’t come along very often’ Michael Connelly ‘A brilliant, twisty, ingeniously constructed puzzle’ Ruth Ware ‘Eddie Flynn is fast becoming one of my favourite fictional heroes and Cavanagh one of my favourite thriller writers’ S.J.I. Holliday ‘Smart and original. A belter of a book’ Clare Mackintosh ‘Steve Cavanagh stands head and shoulders above the competition with his skilfully plotted, action-packed and big-hearted Eddie Flynn novels … Highly intelligent, twist-laden and absolutely unputdownable’ Eva Dolan ‘A fantastic standalone thriller. Punchy, ridiculously gripping, fast- paced, clever. Beautifully plotted and incredibly fun to read. He’s done it again. SUPERB’ Will Dean ‘A fantastic read. Guaranteed to be one of the big books of 2019. You won’t be able to put this down. It’s about time we found out the truth about JT LeBeau …’ Luca Veste ‘Brilliant and devilishly twisty and turny’ C.L. Taylor ‘Genius plotting from a criminal mastermind’ Erin Kelly ‘Most excellent thriller. Just as good as everyone says. Top stuff!’ C.J. Tudor ‘A corkscrewing rollercoaster of thrills, switchbacks, loop-de-loops and screaming good fun. Add it to your wish list!’ Mark Edwards To Luca Veste. In thanks and admiration, for being my Podbro, for inspiring me, for writing great books that entertain me, and for making me sore with laughter. Thanks for all the goats. Contents PRAISE FOR STEVE CAVANAGH DEDICATION TITLE PAGE JANUARY: EDDIE PART ONE: SISTERS ONE: EDDIE TWO: KATE THREE: SHE FOUR: EDDIE FIVE: KATE PART TWO: THE GAME BEGINS SIX: EDDIE SEVEN: SHE EIGHT: EDDIE NINE: KATE TEN: SHE ELEVEN: EDDIE TWELVE: KATE THIRTEEN: EDDIE FOURTEEN: KATE FIFTEEN: EDDIE SIXTEEN: SHE SEVENTEEN: KATE PART THREE: LIARS AND LAWYERS EIGHTEEN: EDDIE NINETEEN: KATE TWENTY: EDDIE TWENTY-ONE: KATE TWENTY-TWO: EDDIE TWENTY-THREE: SHE PART FOUR: THE DARK RED NIGHT TWENTY-FOUR: SHE PART FIVE: THE TRIAL TWENTY-FIVE: SHE TWENTY-SIX: EDDIE TWENTY-SEVEN: KATE TWENTY-EIGHT: EDDIE TWENTY-NINE: KATE THIRTY: EDDIE THIRTY-ONE: KATE THIRTY-TWO: EDDIE THIRTY-THREE: SHE THIRTY-FOUR: KATE THIRTY-FIVE: SHE THIRTY-SIX: EDDIE THIRTY-SEVEN: KATE THIRTY-EIGHT: EDDIE THIRTY-NINE: KATE FORTY: EDDIE FORTY-ONE: EDDIE FORTY-TWO: KATE FORTY-THREE: KATE FORTY-FOUR: EDDIE FORTY-FIVE: KATE FORTY-SIX: EDDIE FORTY-SEVEN: EDDIE FORTY-EIGHT: KATE FORTY-NINE: EDDIE FIFTY: EDDIE FIFTY-ONE: HARRY FIFTY-TWO: EDDIE FIFTY-THREE: EDDIE FIFTY-FOUR: SHE FIFTY-FIVE: EDDIE FIFTY-SIX: EDDIE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR ALSO BY STEVE CAVANAGH COPYRIGHT JANUARY EDDIE For a trial lawyer, there are two words in the English language that terrify us more than any other. These two words stared back at me from my phone. They’d come through by text message seconds ago. THEY’RE BACK. The jury had been out for all of forty-eight minutes. There’s a lot you can do in forty-eight minutes. You can have lunch. You can change the oil in your car. You can probably even watch an episode of a TV show. But one thing you can’t do in forty-eight minutes is come to a fair and balanced verdict in the most complex murder trial in the history of New York City. That’s not possible. It was probably a question from the jury, I thought. This isn’t the verdict. It can’t be. Across the street, on the corner of Lafayette, is the Corte Café. From the outside it looks inviting. Inside, it’s coffee and breakfast sandwiches on plastic tables and chairs. Usually three or more lawyers cool their asses on those chairs. You can always tell the ones who are waiting on a jury. They can’t eat. They can’t sit still. They unnerve the place like a guy sitting there with a machete on his lap. I used to go there when I was waiting on a verdict, but the sight of another lawyer in jury limbo is enough to put anyone off the coffee in the Corte Café. And the coffee is good. So instead of chewing on the furniture, I grabbed a coffee to go and headed out to walk the square. I don’t know how many times I’ve walked Foley Square. My record is three days. That’s how long a jury took to acquit one of my clients, and I damn near burrowed a trench into the sidewalk with my heels. This time, I had only just stepped out of the Corte Café, coffee in hand, when I got the text. I dumped the go cup, crossed the street, and made my way around the corner to the Manhattan Criminal Court building. The stars and stripes flew from a flagpole thirty feet above the entrance doors. It was an old flag. High winds, rain and time had not been kind. Its colors had faded, and the flag was torn almost in two. Some sections of stars had unraveled and were lost in the winds. Huge threads billowed outwards from the red and white stripes, almost reaching to the paving below. There was money to replace it. Times were hard, and only getting harder, but the flag was usually kept pristine even if the roof was leaking. I thought they should keep this old flag – the sun-bleached colors, rips and tears somehow seemed appropriate in these times. I could only guess the justices felt the same way. With children in cages at the border, the stars and stripes had lost their luster for some. I’d never known my country so divided. A raven perched on the end of the flagpole. A large black bird with a long beak and sharp claws. The first ravens to return to New York City were spotted back in 2016. Normally found upstate; no one knew why they had come back. They made their nests in the high corners of bridges and overpasses, sometimes even telephone or electrical towers. They fed on garbage and the dead things that curled up in the corners of alleyways all over the city. As I passed beneath the raven it let out a sound – croaaaak – croaaaak. I didn’t know if it was a greeting or a warning. Whatever it was, it unsettled me. Before I took this case I didn’t believe in evil. Up to that point in my life I’d met and fought with men and women who did evil things, but I put it down to purely human weaknesses – greed, lust, rage, or desire. Some people were sick, too. In the head. You could say they weren’t responsible for their terrible crimes. As I was waved past security in the court building lobby, I couldn’t stop these thoughts. They invaded my mind – poisoning it. Each thought was another drop of blood in a cool glass of water. It doesn’t take long before all you can see is red. Most killers I’d come across I could make a stab at some kind of explanation for their behavior. Something in their past or their