LITMIR.BIZ

      Leslie J. Wainger

       Executive Editor

      The Cradle Will Fall

      Maggie Price

      MAGGIE PRICE

      turned to crime at the age of twenty-two. That’s when she went to work at the Oklahoma City Police Department. As a civilian crime analyst, she evaluated suspects methods of operation during the commission of robberies and sex crimes, and developed profiles on those suspects. During her tenure at OCPD, Maggie stood in lineups, snagged special assignments to homicide task forces, established procedures for evidence submittal, even posed as the wife of an undercover officer in the investigation of a fortune-teller.

      While at OCPD, Maggie stored up enough tales of intrigue, murder and mayhem to keep her at the keyboard for years. The first of those tales won the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart Award for Romantic Suspense.

      Maggie invites her readers to contact her at 5208 W. Reno, Suite 350, Oklahoma City, OK 73127-6317, or on the Web at http://members.aol.com/magprice.

      To white knights…

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 1

      At five minutes to five, Sergeant Grace McCall-Fox limped into the Oklahoma City PD’s Youth and Family Services squad room, feeling as old as her undercover disguise made her look. She had a jagged hole in her right support stocking, put there during the day’s last arrest when she used her knee to force an uncooperative juvie to kiss pavement while she cuffed him. One pocket on the tan wool coat she’d scored at a thrift store sale had gotten ripped in the struggle and small pebbles had somehow wedged into both toes of the prison-matron-looking lace-ups she’d borrowed from her grandmother’s closet. Her cheeks were chapped from the hours she’d spent trolling the frigid shopping mall parking lot; the gray streaks she’d sprayed on her raven-black hair had turned sticky the minute snow had begun falling. Her right arm ached from having been nearly jerked from its socket by several wannabe purse snatchers who thought they’d make easy prey of an elderly woman out doing her Christmas shopping.

      Instead of a fragile senior citizen, they’d encountered a slim, petite, thirty-year-old cop who’d dropped them on their collective butts in one smooth move.

      “McCall!”

      The booming voice pulled Grace’s gaze across the squad room to the tall, gray-haired man leaning out an office door.

      “Sir?”

      “I need to see you,” Lieutenant David Kelson said. “Now,” he added, before stepping back into his office.

      Grace dropped her vinyl decoy purse on her desk, pulled off her coat and gold wire-rims with nonprescription lenses. Thinking Kelson might want to review the plan on her current undercover op, she snagged the file, then wove her way around the scattering of city-issue metal desks, mostly vacant this late in the day.

      Through the wedge of the open door she saw that Kelson was now seated at his desk, his attention focused on the paper in his hand.

      Gripping the file, Grace smoothed a palm down the baggy gray dress she’d bought at the same time as her coat.

      “Sir?” she asked.

      Kelson glanced up. “Come in, McCall.” Like everyone, he used the shortened version of her hyphenated last name. “How’d things go today at the mall?”

      “The team took down four juvie purse snatchers and three auto burglars. We’re hoping to nab more tomorrow.”

      “That happens, it’ll be without you. The FBI has asked for your assistance on a case. Consider yourself on special assignment.”

      “Yes, sir.” She arched a brow. “What sort of assignment?”

      Kelson rose. “I’ll let the agent in charge brief you.” The drift of her lieutenant’s gaze across her shoulder gave her the first indication of another presence in the office. “I understand you two have worked together?”

      “I’m looking forward to teaming with you again, Grace.”

      She went utterly still at the sound of Mark Santini’s deep, rich voice coming from behind her. A voice from her past. A voice whose owner had continued to haunt her over the span of six years, even though she’d loved and married another man during that time.

      Spine stiff, she forced herself to turn. And felt everything slip out of focus when her

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