Tahoe Heat — Todd Borg

When young Ryan Lear's business partners are murdered, his life is threatened, and someone plots to take over his fast-growing bio-tech company, Ryan calls Tahoe Detective Owen McKenna. McKenna is on the job only a short time when Ryan's piano tuner neighbor dies just after tuning his piano. McKenna discovers that hidden in the tuning is some kind of message encoded in the vibrations of the strings. The case takes McKenna on a deadly chase that leads to information about a scientific breakthrough at a high-altitude lab on a mountain above Lake Tahoe. McKenna further learns of a wild Mustang that roams Tahoe's forests, far from the safety of its native desert. The locals name the Mustang Heat for its habit of searching out areas where the hot sun shines through the forest canopy. McKenna can't figure out the piano tuning code or the reason why the Mustang has come so far from his home. But McKenna realizes that both are connected to a vicious killer who is planning the ultimate revenge...