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The Barnes & Noble Review
New York Times¿¿¿bestselling author Karen Robards delivers an action-packed, adrenaline-laced thriller in this story of Sarah Mason, forced to relive her worst nightmare -- the kidnapping of her young daughter, Lexie, seven years ago. It starts when Sarah, who works in the county prosecutor's office, gets a call for help from a young child who sounds just like her daughter Lexie when she was five. Is Sarah finally cracking up? The only one to believe her story about the call is her best friend, Jake Hogan, a P.I. Their investigation into the call and what really happened to Lexie unearths some dangerous secrets in the town and kicks off a passionate romance between Jake and Sarah. As usual, Robards knows just how to keep the heart pounding and the pages turning. Ginger Curwen

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Ten years ago, Sarah Mason's six-year-old daughter vanished during an outing at a local park in Beaufort, South Carolina. Despite a furious search, little Lexie was never found, and Sarah was left to pick up the pieces of her shattered life and go on as best she could.

Then, on one hot July night, she returns home from work to hear the phone ringing. When she picks it up, a child's terrified voice whispers, "Mommy, help, come and get me . . ." The call is cut off, but not before Sarah's heart goes into overdrive: the voice belongs to Lexie. Six-year-old Lexie. Though ten years have passed, she sounds exactly the same.

Frantic, Sarah turns to the police, the FBI, family, and friends, none of whom can help. Out of desperation, she approaches Jake Hogan, once a detective assigned to Lexie's case. Jake is now a P.I., and though he is skeptical, the attraction he feels for Sarah pushes him to help her. Ben is convinced someone is deliberately tormenting the grief-stricken mother, and the continued tension of sketchy and unpredictable clues forces them to rely only on each other. Together they're caught in a nightmare search for Lexie, who might just still be alive-if only Jake and Sarah can hang on.

About the Author:Karen Robards is the author of more than twenty-one novels, including the New York Times bestsellers Superstition and Bait.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Robards (Superstition) opens her latest romantic thriller with a bang by placing her heroine, assistant district attorney Sarah Mason of Beaufort County, S.C., in the midst of a convenience store robbery gone wrong. A cashier is shot to death, Mason is wounded in the head and a young girl, who was hiding in the store during the gunplay, vanishes. Mason, who has thrown herself into her work with a vengeance since the disappearance of her five-year-old daughter, Lexie, 10 years earlier, becomes obsessed with finding the missing girl. The action rarely lets up, except for the many sexually charged scenes devoted to Mason's initially platonic relationship with PI Jake Hogan, "the closest thing to family" she has left, who worked as a detective on Lexie's case and who routinely comes to her rescue during this new case. The plot, with its suggestions that the holdup was not a random act and eerie phone calls apparently from a Lexie who hasn't aged, will keep readers turning the pages. Author tour. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

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