Dawn breaks over the mountains. Not a single part of the girl’s once-beautiful body is free from pain. She prays she’ll slip into a blissful unconsciousness, but the sound of an engine rouses her. Her swollen eyes struggle to focus as she raises a bruised arm and waves from the long grass. A decision that will cost her much more than her innocent little life…With her partner missing, Detective Madison Harper has her work cut out for her juggling the discovery of a body in the murky shallows of Lost Creek and a distraught mother searching for her missing baby boy. She barely has time to eat or sleep. But someone in this small town has lost a loved one, and a child’s life could be in danger. Madison’s sense of duty drives her on, poring over cold case files and interviewing inhabitants of the trailer park near where the headless body was found.Without a face to identify, or teeth to match to dental records, the decapitated victim is almost impossible to name. Then the postmortem reveals a single red rose stem forced down his throat. What monster would do such a thing? What message were they trying to send? It feels like a dead end until Madison returns home to find the photo of a distressed-looking girl on her windshield. Written on the back is a message that grips her with ice-cold fear: Sofia. Day 1. It suddenly becomes clear that someone is holding young girls captive, and Madison can only imagine what for.Now hunting for a missing child, a murderer and a missing girl, Madison is pushed to her limit. As terror chokes the close-knit community, she vows that no more innocent lives will be lost on her watch. But as these cases connect, and she comes face to face with the twisted individual at the heart of it all, will there be anyone left to save?
