Six Degrees from Killing Brian

Occasional feistiness may be a redhead’s prerogative, but stubbornness and principles land Debra Ann Wynn in trouble. Her ungracious exit as the lead investigative journalist for the San Diego Union-Tribune has her working freelance. From his deathbed, her father’s last wish is that she return to their sender a bundle of secretive letters that came errantly to him as they crossed their family’s cemetery plot on the winds of the night. Grief-stricken at losing him but with her finances secured, she welcomes the chance to pay his generosity forward. But the simple task becomes far more complicated when the last letter of the first batch claims that the writer robbed the home of a notorious con man and disgraced doctor, whose stepson has reported his mother missing… again. While in the home, the burglar describes witnessing three people moving a dead woman’s body. In the meantime, police discover the thief’s brutally beaten corpse dumped in an alley downtown. Separately, Debra Ann learns from her friend and hairdresser of a senseless professional hit on their beloved and now-retired high school girls’ basketball coach and Sunday school teacher, Julius Cantor. Her investigations lead to possible answers in one of the cases, and a link, more letters and questions in the other. Her work on these cases exposes Debra Ann to a network of vicious criminals while her methods cross boundaries, fraying Marci’s nerves, her once-close friend and a sergeant on the police force. With the help of an old soul who becomes a new friend, Debra Ann discovers that what she’s up against is a lot bigger than she thought. Though injured and her Uber driver killed, Debra Ann survives the first attempt on her life. But will the frustrated Marci go the extra mile to save Debra Ann from near-certain death when she’s abducted at knifepoint by a known killer? And should she survive, how will she resolve the riddle her sleuthing reveals?