Marcus Crawford doesnāt want to go back to jail. They shouldnāt have sent him there in the first place because it wasnāt his fault. It was an accident. Everyoneāexcept the juryāagreed. The only good thing that came from his incarceration was meeting Crystal. She sent him letters. She supported him. After his release, Marcus, Crystal, and her precious nine-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, Hannah, became a family.
But, before they could marry, Marcus discovered a needle in Crystalās gym bag. Crystal lied about where sheād been. Her makeup failed to cover the blossoming red spots on her cheeks. He attempted to support her the way sheād supported him in prison, but her addiction to drugs won.
She ended their relationship.
Now, months later, a man in a stolen car waits outside an elementary school in Elko, Nevada. Heās waiting in the hot sun for the bell to ring. Heās waiting for a little girl named Hannah to come out.
Heās waiting to abduct her.Ā
Crystalās substance abuse has only gotten worse since the break-up. Sheās not capable of saving Hannah now. Hannah needs someone like Marcus to save her, but thanks to Crystalās meth addiction, heās no longer in Hannahās life.
The school bell rings. Hannah comes out. The man opens the door to his car, and she gets inside.
Buy Now to find out where he takes her.
T.O. Paine writes award-winning psychological and crime thrillers that keep you up all night. Some of it comes from imagination. Some of it comes from the four years his family spent inside a cult ā an experience that lends his fiction an unsettling authenticity readers can feel.
His novels, including The Teaching, The Abduction, and The Crisis, have been honored by the Chanticleer Global Thriller Awards, Literary Titan, BookLife, and Readers' Favorite. He is a member of International Thriller Writers, the Crime Writers' Association, and Sisters in Crime, and holds a master's degree in computer information systems.
When he isn't writing, Paine is usually running ā he has finished a marathon in all fifty states and is working through all fifty a second time, and he has survived an IRONMAN, twice. He lives in Colorado with his wife and shares his office with two rescue dogs he calls his muses. Chaz, a pampered cocker spaniel with strong opinions about cookies, and MuƱeca, a street dog he brought home from Mexico who, he swears, keeps the bad people in his books away from him so he can write.
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