Murder List (Buchanan-Renard-MacKenna, 4)

When Chicago detective Alec Buchanan is offered a prime position with the FBI, he takes it as the perfect opportunity to leave the Windy City and follow in his brothers€ footsteps to the top echelons of law enforcement. But first he must complete one last assignment: acting as a glorified bodyguard to hotel heiress Regan Hamilton Madison. The gorgeous exec has become entangled in some potentially deadly business: Someone has e-mailed her a graphic crime-scene photo - and the victim is no stranger. Regan suspects that the trouble started when she agreed to help a journalist friend expose a shady self-help guru who preys on lonely, vulnerable women. In fact, the smooth-as-an-oil-slick Dr. Lawrence Shields may have been responsible for the death of one of his devotees. Hoping to find some damning evidence, Regan attends a Shields seminar. At the gathering, the doctor persuades his guests to partake in an innocent little €œcleansing€ exercise. He asks them to make a list of the people who have hurt or deceived them over the years, and poses the question: Would your world be a better place if these people ceased to exist? Treating the exercise as a game, Regan plays along. The experience is all but forgotten - until the first person on Regan€s list turns up dead. Shock turns to horror when other names from the list start to surface as corpses, and a harrowing tango of desire and death is set into motion. Now brutal murders seem to stalk Regan€s every move - and a growing attraction to Alec may compromise her safety, while stirring up tender emotions she thought she could no longer feel. Yet as the danger intensifies and a serial killer circles ever closer, Regan must discover who has turned her private revenge fantasies into grisly reality.