The Next Victim — Jonnie Jacobs

Enthusiastic fans of Jonnie Jacobs's thrillers know what they're getting in bestseller after bestseller: riveting suspense, knockout writing, and a smart, world-weary heroine who can kick butt and take names when she needs to. Now Jacobs delivers another gripping tale of sex, lies, secrets, and murder whose razor-sharp twists and turns don't let up until the very last page is turned.
A body count that's rising. A lone witness on the run. A killer who'll do anything to buy silence. It's the most dangerous case of attorney Kali O'Brien's career--and it's hitting way too close to home.

The last time Kali spoke to her brother, John, he was desperate to tell her something but too drunk to get it out. Now he's dead, an apparent suicide by overdose. That would be shocking enough, but the cops have more bad news: John was also the lead suspect in the recent double homicide of two women in Tucson. The victims include the wealthy heiress of the corporation John worked for and Olivia Perez, a pretty college coed whose family is determined to make someone pay for the crime, and Kali's at the top of their list--if she can't clear his name first. It's a tricky case that's about to get even trickier.

Kali didn't know her brother very well, and in death, the only clue he's left behind is as damning as it is mysterious. Hidden in the pages of his dictionary is a photo of three attractive young women. One is Olivia Perez. One is a street-tough runaway named Crystal. The third woman--a strip club dancer and porn actress--has just been found in a ditch, the victim of a brutal slaying. As shocking as the woman's death is her connection to Kali's brother. How did they know each other? What was John trying to tell Kali the night he died? And would someone kill to keep him from saying it? Suddenly her brother's suicide is starting to look a lot like murder.

Kali's only hope for solving the case lies in finding the last girl in the picture--a witness who knows far more than she should, maybe too much to live--and Kali has to get to her before the killer does. It's a search that will plunge her into the secrets and lies of her own family and deep into the sex industry's hidden underworld of going-nowhere-fast girls looking for easy money, where fantasies can be had for a price, blackmail is deadly, and silence can be bought with blood. And if Kali isn't careful, she could lead a cunning killer straight to the last target while putting herself in line to be the next victim...