Insidious

Insidious 1
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

LATE JUNE

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

Missy Devereaux, whose real name was Mary Ann Duff, fluffed her hair as she pretended to look in the store window, scanning behind her, wondering if he'd followed her to Las Vegas. And then she saw him, across the street, ducking behind an old gray Volvo in the thick Las Vegas Strip traffic. He looked thin in his baggy jeans and his loose-hanging dark blue shirt. She couldn't see his face-he wore dark sunglasses and a Giants baseball cap.

It wasn't fair. She'd just landed a six-month stint here at the Mandalay in a Beatles musical retrospective, hoping for half a year of peace and calm without a stalker to tie her stomach in knots, but here he was, after only four days. She'd been so careful when the taxi picked her up at her cottage in Malibu nearly a week before-had the driver drop her off at LAX, a terminal away from the airline she'd booked-but still he was here, watching her, following her. All she'd wanted was her life to return to normal. She'd done everything she could. She'd gone to the cops to see if they could stop him. Movie star stalkers were old hat to the Calabasas Sheriff's Department, responsible for handling all the criminal problems in Malibu. They had a protocol in place, a pleasant older cop had told her four months before, they would talk to him if she would point him out. What, she'd asked, would her stalker do when he got tired of following her around? Attack her? The friendly older cop only shook his head, avoided answering that question. That same day, Missy bought a Becker Ka-Bar knife, a fixed blade three and a quarter inches long, with a three-inch handle. It was made of Cro-Van steel, the salesman had told her, and was favored by sailors going back nearly to the ark. She liked the sound of that, carrying something badass enough for the marines. She liked the feel of the Ka-Bar, too, solid, and ready to go in its sheath hooked onto her waistband.

The cops

Catherine Coulter is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eighty-four novels, including the FBI Thriller series and The Brit in the FBI international thriller series, cowritten with J.T. Ellison. Coulter lives in Sausalito, California, with her Übermensch husband and their two noble cats, Peyton and Eli. You can reach her at ReadMoi@Gmail.com or visit Facebook.com/CatherineCoulterBooks.