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There is nothing that Simone won't do for her daughter, Lucy. The two have always been close, and with Lucy about to leave home for university, they depart the UK for a vacation to Texas to spend some quality time together. But when Simone awakens on their first morning in the desert, Lucy is gone, missing from their rental cabin. In her place is a cell phone, and a voice on the other line issues a shocking ransom demand. Don't tell the police. Come to this location. And be prepared to do a deal... Though Simone's husband urges her to bring in the authorities for help, she knows she can't take any chances. The kidnappers might kill Lucy if she tells anyone. No mother would take that risk. Instead, that night, she drives to the isolated meet-up. What she finds there changes everything. The mysterious kidnapper doesn't want money. They want Simone to do something. The unthinkable. A catastrophic chain of events is set in motion, with chilling consequences that extend beyond Simone and her family. What follows is a heart-pounding journey through the small towns and punishing deserts of remote Texas, in which Simone's courage—and morality—is pushed to the brink as she discovers what it truly means to be a mother.
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There is a girl in a basement. The door has stopped opening. The light is gone. Stranger is trapped in the dark, with only her imagination and the scribbles on the wall left by long-dead girls to keep her company. Nearly out of food and water, she makes one last attempt to escape. But if the door opens at last, will it mean salvation, or only the beginning of her fight to survive? Audrey is a search and rescue expert who never stopped looking for her ex-best friend, Janie, who disappeared when they were teenagers. Janie used to love the local legend of a forest witch who saves girls from bad men, but Audrey knows now that for every one saved, there's always another one lost. When she stumbles upon evidence in the forest that a teenage runaway might have actually been kidnapped from land belonging to the town's most prominent family, she will have to dig through decades of secrets to reveal the biggest one of all: what happened to the girls before.
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Grant Wilson has never been happier. He has a wife he loves, a home in the country, and a brand-new baby on the way. But all of that shatters when two masked men abduct his wife, Avery, in broad daylight. The instructions Grant receives are bizarre: If he wants Avery back, he must solve a series of riddles that arrive one after another—and the clock is ticking. With every piece of the puzzle more outrageous and complex than the last, Grant knows he's playing a dangerous game. But he's determined to do whatever it takes to save Avery's life ... even if it kills him.
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Beatrice is about to lose everything when a kind stranger offers her a cup of coffee and a job. It seems like a promise of a better life . . . until she wakes up under lock and key in an isolated mansion in the woods. On orders from a shadowy criminal organization, armed jailers make the rules for their captives, enforcing them with unflinching violence. Beatrice has always been a "nice girl," but that won't save her now. Nobody helped her when she lost her job, her car, and her home, and nobody's coming to give back her freedom. The only person she can rely on is herself. And now, several child hostages are relying on her too. When the situation gets more dire—deadly even—Beatrice has to become the hero she and her fellow prisoners need. To escape she'll have to outsmart her captors and do terrible things that would horrify her former self. If she succeeds, there's no telling who she'll be when the ordeal comes to an end.
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Sage and her sister won't make it home from school today. Neither will the other children on Bus 315. But that's only the beginning of the nightmare. New bus driver Jessa blames herself for what happened. She couldn't protect the kids she was supposed to deliver to daycare, just like she couldn't protect her own daughter three years ago. But this time, everything will be different. It has to be. Trapped in a shipping container buried twenty feet underground, Jessa and the children do their best to stay calm. The kidnappers insist that if everyone behaves, they'll be freed when the ransom is paid. But Sage isn't sure they'll last that long. Neither is Jessa. It's dark and cramped, and with every passing minute it's getting harder to breathe. With time—and air—running thin, Jessa and the children must find a way to outsmart their captors, or face an unthinkable fate.
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When a tragic accident sidelines Miley's dreams of Olympic gold, she takes a summer job at a mountain guest lodge. The Frank Church Wilderness is remote, but it's the perfect place to train and recover. Local lore about a staffer who died years ago doesn't scare her. But it should. Miley's plans take a terrifying detour when she's abducted during a morning run. Held captive in a desolate off-grid cabin, she'll have to use her athletic prowess, cunning mind, and courage to survive. But as the nightmare at the cabin escalates, Miley is forced to form an unlikely alliance and attempt a risky escape. Can she outwit her captors and survive the wilderness before it's too late?
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Tasha and her older sister Alice may look alike, but they couldn't be more different. Tasha's married with two children and still lives in their hometown near Bristol. Alice is a high-flying scientist who travels the world with her equally successful husband. Yet each sister would trust the other with her life. When Tasha and her husband Aaron need a break and Alice offers to stay in their home with the kids, Tasha knows her family is in safe hands. She couldn't be more wrong. The call from home is devastating. Alice and her husband Kyle have been attacked, leaving Alice in intensive care and Kyle dead. Rushing to the hospital, Tasha finds the police trying to piece events together. She can't think why anyone would attack her sister. Then the note arrives, addressed to Tasha: It was supposed to be you . . . Every family has secrets. Some more deadly than others.
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When Brooke was kidnapped on her way home from work, she thought her life was over. That was ten years ago. She's been held captive in an isolated cabin on the Oregon coast ever since, scrambling to follow her kidnappers' twisted instructions to the letter. Because the price of a mistake is death. But when a new victim shows up, everything changes. Including the rules. And this time, the only way to survive is to break them.
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When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she's not only North Carolina's richest woman, she's also its most notorious. The victim of a famous kidnapping as a child and a widow four times over, Ruby ruled the tiny town of Tavistock from Ashby House, her family's estate high in the Blue Ridge Mountains. But in the aftermath of her death, her adopted son, Camden, wants little to do with the house or the money—and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes. Instead, he rejects his inheritance, settling into a normal life as an English teacher in Colorado and marrying Jules, a woman just as eager to escape her own messy past. Ten years later, his uncle's death pulls Cam and Jules back into the family fold at Ashby House. Its views are just as stunning as ever, its rooms just as elegant, but the legacy of Ruby is inescapable. And as Ashby House tightens its grip on Jules and Camden, questions about the infamous heiress come to light. Was there any truth to the persistent rumors following her disappearance as a girl? What really happened to those four husbands, who all died under mysterious circumstances? And why did she adopt Cam in the first place? Soon, Jules and Cam realize that an inheritance can entail far more than what's written in a will––and that the bonds of family stretch far beyond the grave.
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It's just an average night at the Ink Tank, the tattoo shop in Austin, Texas, where Brynn works as a tattoo artist. After a long shift, all she wants to do is head home, pop a few pills from the fresh bottle of Roxicodone in her jacket pocket, and slip into a nice buzz. Her plans crumble when she's abducted by her convict father, Alan, and forced into the road trip from hell: a cross-country trek to the Rocky Mountains and the shelter he built years ago to protect his family from the monsters living in his head, the monsters he says will erupt from the earth at any minute—the feeders. With each mile he unravels further, thrusting Brynn back into the childhood nightmare she thought she'd escaped forever. Alan is paranoid, and he's definitely dangerous—but is he crazy?
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Twenty years after a baby is stolen from a stroller, a woman is murdered in a care home. The two crimes are somehow linked, and a good bad girl may be the key to discovering the truth. Edith may have been tricked into a nursing home, but at eighty-years-young, she's planning her escape. Patience works there, cleaning messes and bonding with Edith, a kindred spirit. But Patience is lying to Edith about almost everything. Edith's own daughter, Clio, won't speak to her. And someone new is about to knock on Clio's door...and their intentions aren't good. With every reason to distrust each other, the women must solve a mystery with three suspects, two murders, and one victim. If they do, they might just find out what happened to the baby who disappeared, the mother who lost her, and the connections that bind them.
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Your two little girls jump on the train ahead of you. As you try to join them, the doors slide shut and the train moves away, leaving you behind. It's only when you reach the next stop that you truly begin to panic. Because there aren't two children waiting for you on the platform. There's only one. Has your other daughter got lost? Been taken by a passing stranger? Or perhaps the culprit is closer to home than you think...
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One year ago, Isabelle Drake's life changed forever: her toddler son, Mason, was taken out of his crib in the middle of the night while she and her husband were asleep in the next room. With little evidence and few leads for the police to chase, the case quickly went cold. However, Isabelle cannot rest until Mason is returned to her—literally. Except for the occasional catnap or small blackout where she loses track of time, she hasn't slept in a year. Isabelle's entire existence now revolves around finding him, but she knows she can't go on this way forever. In hopes of jarring loose a new witness or buried clue, she agrees to be interviewed by a true-crime podcaster—but his interest in Isabelle's past makes her nervous. His incessant questioning paired with her severe insomnia has brought up uncomfortable memories from her own childhood, making Isabelle start to doubt her recollection of the night of Mason's disappearance, as well as second-guess who she can trust... including herself. But she is determined to figure out the truth no matter where it leads.
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By the time Laura and Olivia notice the headlights tailing them through the hills, it's too late. What seems, at first, like a case of road rage quickly unfolds into a heart-pounding chase—and a battle for survival. Who are the men in the truck? What do they want? And can Laura and Olivia outrun—and outsmart—them long enough to call for help, even if it means taking their chances in the hills on foot? As their situation grows more perilous, the girls realize that the real terror has only just begun. But flight won't save them from their pursuers. If they're going to make it home alive, they'll have to fight.
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Amelie has always been a survivor, from losing her parents as a child in Paris to making it on her own in London. As she builds a life for herself, she is swept up into a glamorous lifestyle where she married the handsome billionaire Ned Hawthorne. But then, Amelie wakes up in a pitch-black room, not knowing where she is. Why has she been taken? Who are her mysterious captors? And why does she soon feel safer here, imprisoned, than she had begun to feel with her husband Ned?
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#3 in the Billy Harney Series
As Chicago PD's special-ops leader, Detective Billy Harney knows well that money is not the only valuable currency. The filthy rich man he's investigating is down to his last twenty million. He's also being held in jail. For now. Billy's unit is called in when an escape plan results in officers down and inmates vanished. In an empty lot, Billy spots two Kevlar vests. Two helmets. Two assault rifles. And a handwritten note: Hi, Billy Are you having fun yet?
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Marissa Irvine arrives at 14 Tudor Grove, expecting to pick up her young son Milo from his first playdate with a boy at his new school. But the woman who answers the door isn't a mother she recognises. She isn't the nanny. She doesn't have Milo. And so begins every parent's worst nightmare. As news of the disappearance filters through the quiet Dublin suburb and an unexpected suspect is named, whispers start to spread about the women most closely connected to the shocking event. Because only one of them may have taken Milo - but they could all be blamed . . .
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#8 in the Tracy Crosswhite Series
Returning from an extended leave in her hometown of Cedar Grove, Detective Tracy Crosswhite finds herself reassigned to the Seattle PD's cold case unit. As the protective mother of an infant daughter, Tracy is immediately drawn to her first file: the abduction of a five-year-old girl whose parents, embattled in a poisonous divorce, were once prime suspects. While reconstructing the days leading up to the girl's disappearance, Tracy is brought into an active investigation with former partner Kinsington Rowe. A young woman has vanished on an isolated jogging trail in North Seattle. Divided between two critical cases, Tracy has little to go on except the treacherous deceptions behind a broken marriage—and now, the secrets hiding behind the closed doors of a deceptively quiet middle-class neighborhood. To find two missing persons, Tracy will have to follow more than clues, which are both long cold and unsettlingly fresh. Given her own traumatic past, Tracy must also follow her instincts—to whatever dark and dangerous places they may lead.
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Marin had the perfect life. Married to her college sweetheart, she owns a chain of upscale hair salons, and Derek runs his own company. They're admired in their community and are a loving family—until their world falls apart the day their son Sebastian is taken. A year later, Marin is a shadow of herself. The FBI search has gone cold. The publicity has faded. She and her husband rarely speak. She hires a P.I. to pick up where the police left off, but instead of finding Sebastian, she learns that Derek is having an affair with a younger woman. This discovery sparks Marin back to life. She's lost her son; she's not about to lose her husband, too. Kenzie is an enemy with a face, which means this is a problem Marin can fix. Permanently.
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When former journalist Rain Winter was twelve years old, she narrowly escaped an abduction while walking to a friend's house. The abductor was eventually found and sent to prison, but years later was released. Then someone delivered real justice--and killed him in cold blood. Now Rain is living the perfect suburban life, spending her days as a stay-at-home mom. But when another criminal who escaped justice is found dead, Rain is unexpectedly drawn into the case, forced to revisit memories she's worked hard to leave behind. Is there a vigilante at work? Who is the next target? Why can't Rain just let it go? Introducing one of the most compelling and original killers in crime fiction today, Lisa Unger takes readers deep inside the minds of both perpetrator and victim, blurring the lines between right and wrong, crime and justice, and showing that sometimes even good people are drawn to do evil things.
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#9 in the Will Trent Series
On a hot summer night, a scientist from the Centers for Disease Control is grabbed by unknown assailants in a shopping center parking lot. The authorities are desperate to save the doctor who's been vanished into thin air. One month later, the serenity of a sunny Sunday afternoon is shattered by the boom of a ground-shaking blast—followed by another seconds later, an act of domestic terrorism that rocks the city. One of Atlanta's busiest and most important neighborhoods has been bombed—the location of Emory University, two major hospitals, the FBI headquarters, and the CDC. In the newest installment of the Will Trent and Sara Linton series, medical examiner Sara Linton and her partner Will Trent, an investigator with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, rush to the scene—and into the heart of a deadly conspiracy that threatens to destroy thousands of innocent lives. When the assailants abduct Sara, Will goes undercover to save her and prevent a massacre—putting his own life on the line for the woman and the country he loves.
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Meet Aimee Sinclair: the actress everyone thinks they know but can't remember where from. Except one person. Someone knows Aimee very well. They know who she is and they know what she did. When Aimee comes home and discovers her husband is missing, she doesn't seem to know what to do or how to act. The police think she's hiding something and they're right, she is—but perhaps not what they thought. Aimee has a secret she's never shared, and yet, she suspects that someone knows. As she struggles to keep her career and sanity intact, her past comes back to haunt her in ways more dangerous than she could have ever imagined.
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Best friends in small-town New Hampshire, Jon and Chloe share an intense, near-mystical bond. But before Jon can declare his love for his soul mate, he is kidnapped, and his plans for a normal life are permanently dashed. Four years later, Jon reappears. He is different now: bigger, stronger, and with no memory of the time he was gone. Jon wants to pick up where he and Chloe left off—until the horrifying instant he realizes he possesses strange powers that pose a grave threat to everyone he cares for. Afraid of hurting Chloe, Jon runs away, embarking on a journey for answers. Meanwhile, in Providence, Rhode Island, healthy college students and townies with no connection to one another are inexplicably dropping dead. A troubled detective prone to unexplainable hunches, Charles "Eggs" DeBenedictus suspects there's a serial killer at work. But when he starts asking questions, Eggs is plunged into a shocking whodunit he never could have predicted.
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On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets caught in a fierce blizzard in the mountains of Colorado. With the roads impassable, she's forced to wait out the storm at a remote highway rest stop. Inside are some vending machines, a coffee maker, and four complete strangers. Desperate to find a signal to call home, Darby goes back out into the storm . . . and makes a horrifying discovery. In the back of the van parked next to her car, a little girl is locked in an animal crate. Who is the child? Why has she been taken? And how can Darby save her? In this locked room mystery, there is no cell phone reception, no telephone, and no way out. One of her fellow travelers is a kidnapper. But which one? Trapped in an increasingly dangerous situation, with a child's life and her own on the line, Darby must find a way to break the girl out of the van and escape. But who can she trust?
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The night they go missing, high school seniors Nicole Cutty and Megan McDonald are at a beach party in their small town of Emerson Bay, North Carolina. Police launch a massive search, but hope is almost lost--until Megan escapes from a bunker deep in the woods...A year later, the bestselling account of her ordeal has made Megan a celebrity. It's a triumphant story, except for one inconvenient detail: Nicole is still missing. Nicole's older sister, Livia, a fellow in forensic pathology, expects that one day soon Nicole's body will be found and her sister's fate determined. Instead, the first clue comes from another body--that of a young man connected to Nicole's past. Livia reaches out to Megan to learn more about that fateful night. Other girls have disappeared, and she's increasingly sure the cases are connected. Megan knows more than she revealed in her book. Flashes of memory are pointing to something more monstrous than she described. And the deeper she and Livia dig, the more they realize that sometimes true terror lies in finding exactly what you've been looking for...
