Tahoe Trap

Tahoe detective Owen McKenna receives a call for help from a young boy named Paco who had just witnessed the murder of his foster mother and is hidden in the back of the murderer's pickup truck and Owen races to find Paco before the murderers can find him.

When Tahoe Detective Owen McKenna answers his phone early one morning, a young boy named Paco cries out, “Help me!” McKenna talks to Paco and discovers that the boy is trapped in the back of a speeding pickup somewhere in Tahoe. In the front of the truck are two men who have just murdered Paco's foster mother. The men want the boy, but they don't yet know that the boy witnessed the murder and that he hid in their truck. As McKenna races to find Paco, he learns that the two men are contract killers from Las Vegas. They've killed before, using electronic stun guns to immobilize their victims prior to asphyxiating them with plastic wrap. While McKenna doesn't have a clue why the killers are after the boy, he knows that if he does nothing, the killers will keep coming for Paco. So McKenna plans to set a trap for them using Paco as bait. McKenna's plan carries a huge risk. If it goes wrong, he will be handing the boy to the killers....

00 Forest defoliators of the Spruce Budworm complex are the most extensively studied moths in the world, yet taxonomic relationships among western populations have been poorly understood. This work distinguishes species groups using a three-dimensional definition-reproductive isolation through intraspecific recognition (pheromone chemistry and correlated behavior), ecological separation (larval hosts), and morphometric analysis of adults--where traditional study of museum specimens failed. Forest defoliators of the Spruce Budworm complex are the most extensively studied moths in the world, yet taxonomic relationships among western populations have been poorly understood. This work distinguishes species groups using a three-dimensional definition-reproductive isolation through intraspecific recognition (pheromone chemistry and correlated behavior), ecological separation (larval hosts), and morphometric analysis of adults--where traditional study of museum specimens failed.