Behind the manicured lawns of their picturesque suburban neighborhood, Jeff and Wendy Evans’ world crumbles when their teenage daughter, Kristen, vanishes from school.

While many write her off as just another runaway, Jeff is certain the truth is closer to home and suspects that their neighbor Tim Haston, a man with a checkered past, knows where Kristen is. Police, however, focus on a darker theory: that Kristen may have been lured away by someone she met online and placed straight in the hands of human traffickers.

As the months drag on and the investigation stalls, police and the media move on to other things, leaving Jeff and Wendy alone with grief and fading hope. But before they surrender to despair, an unlikely alliance forms with Tim and his mother Barbara.

But this fragile trust is tested as Tim tries to bury his dark past. Old transgressions collide with new secrets, threatening to destroy his fresh start. When he uncovers vital information that could finally bring Kristen home, Tim is forced to choose between destroying his life or saving Kristen’s.

R.M. Lowery

R.M. Lowery is the award-winning author of When Kristen Comes Home, Laytons Grove, The Gentle Slope, We Kill Our Own, Time Fades Away, and Tough Messes: Eleven Stories of Crime and Desperation. His short fiction has also appeared in Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Workers Write, The First Line, and others. Lowery lives in Colorado with his beautiful wife and their clowder (of cats).

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