Detective D.D. Warren (abridged)

Alone...Massachusetts State Trooper Bobby Dodge watches a tense hostage standoff unfold through the scope of his sniper rifle. Just across the street, in wealthy Back Bay, Boston, an armed man has barricaded himself with his wife and child. The man's finger tightens on the trigger and Dodge has only a split second to react, and forever pay the consequences.

It was a case that haunts Bobby Dodge to this day - the case that nearly killed him and changed his life forever. Now, the gruesome discovery of six mummified corpses resurrects his worst nightmare: the return of a killer he thought dead and buried.

was a case guaranteed to spark a media feeding frenzy: a young mother, blond and pretty, disappears without a trace from her South Boston home, leaving behind her four-year-old daughter as the only witness and her handsome, secretive husband as the prime suspect. But from the moment Detective Sergeant D. D. Warren arrives at the Joneses - a snug little bungalow, she senses something off about the picture of wholesome normality the couple worked so hard to create.

Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant believes that she will be murdered in four days. And she wants Boston’s top detective to handle her death investigation. It will be up close and personal. No evidence of forced entry, no sign of struggle. Charlie tells a chilling story: Each year at 8:00 p.m. on January 21, a woman has died. The victims have been childhood best friends from a small town in New Hampshire; the motive remains unknown. Now only one friend, Charlie, remains to count down her final hours.