Eighteen-year-old, mystery-loving Birdie's new job at a historic Seattle hotel leads her and her co-worker, Daniel, to a real mystery about a reclusive writer who resides there.

Nora Brown teaches high school English and lives a quiet life in Seattle with her husband and six-year-old daughter. But one November day, moments after dismissing her class, a girl's face appears above the students' desks -- ''a wild numinous face with startling blue eyes, a face floating on top of shapeless drapes of purples and blues where arms and legs should have been. Terror rushes through Nora's body -- the kind of raw terror you feel when...

J. P. Beaumont's in an Arizona alcohol rehab center and none too happy. His roommate is a sleazy teenage drug dealer. The kid turns up shot dead with Beaumont's own .38. The local law comes after the recovering PI. The people responsible for killing the kid don't just want to frame J.P. for the murder, they want him to be the next victim.

Lee Gulliver never thought she'd find herself living on the streets-no one ever does-but when her restaurant fails, and she falls deeper into debt, she leaves her old life behind with nothing but her clothes and her Toyota Corolla. In Seattle, she parks in a secluded spot by the beach to lay low and plan her next move-until early one morning, she sees a sobbing woman throw herself into the ocean. Lee hauls the woman back to the surface, but instead...