He surfaced two years ago. Then he disappeared.

But Detective Angie Pallorino hasn’t forgotten the violent rapist who left a distinctive calling card—crosses etched into the flesh of his victims’ foreheads. When a comatose Jane Doe is found in a local cemetery, sexually assaulted, mutilated, and nearly drowned, Angie is struck by the eerie similarities to her earlier unsolved rapes. Could he be back?

Then the body of a drowned young woman, also bearing the marks of the serial rapist, floats up in the Gorge, and the hunt for a predator becomes a hunt for a killer. Assigned to the joint investigative task force, Angie is more than ready to prove that she has what it takes to break into the all-male homicide division. But her private life collides with her professional ambitions when she’s introduced to her temporary partner, James Maddocks—a man she’d met just the night before in an intense, anonymous encounter.

Together, Angie and Maddocks agree to put that night behind them. But as their search for the killer intensifies, so does their mutual desire. And Angie’s forays into the mind of a monster shake loose some unsettling secrets about her own past. How can she fight for the truth when it turns out her whole life is a lie?

Loreth Anne White is the Amazon Charts, Washington Post, and Bild bestselling author of The Maid’s Diary, The Patient’s Secret, Beneath Devil’s Bridge, In the Deep, In the Dark, The Dark Bones, and A Dark Lure. With more than three million books sold around the world, she is an ITW Thriller Awards nominee, a three-time RITA finalist, an overall Daphne du Maurier Award winner, an Arthur Ellis Award finalist, and the winner of multiple other industry awards. A recovering journalist who has worked in both South Africa and Canada, she now calls Canada home. She resides in the Pacific Northwest, dividing her time between Vancouver Island, a ski resort in the Coast Mountains, and a rustic lakeside cabin in the Cariboo. When she’s not writing or dreaming up plots, you’ll find her in the lakes or ocean or on the trails, where she tries—unsuccessfully—to avoid bears. For more information on her books, please visit her website at www.lorethannewhite.com.

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“A nicely paced thriller that will keep readers entertained and on the edge of their seats.” —RT Book Reviews

“Tense and mesmerizing, and not for the faint of heart.” —Omnivoracious

“A superbly plotted, intense romantic thriller.…Strongly recommended for fans of edgy heroines and gritty romantic suspense.” —All About Romance

“It’s a race against time that will pull you in, have you guessing until the end, and have you wanting to bite your nails to the quick.” —Night Owl Reviews, Top Pick