After a nasty fight with her parents, 14-year-old Cynthia
Bigge wakes up the next morning to find her house empty;
her parents and brother gone. Thinking they are still angry
with her from the night before, Cynthia gets ready and goes
to school as usual. But when her brother never shows for
class, she races home knowing something is terribly wrong.
Cynthia's family doesn't return that day or the next...or
ever. They have vanished without a trace.
Fast-forward 25 years. A married woman with a young
daughter of her own, Cynthia still lives in the same town,
in a house not far from the one she grew up in, afraid to
leave. Afraid that if they come back, she should be close
by so they can find her.
Cynthia agrees to take part in a reality crime show. One of
those where the crime is re-enacted and the public is asked
to come forward if they have any new information. Her
husband, friends and family think she should have put the
events of the past behind her by now. But she needs to
know. How could they have just left her behind without a
word, without a note, without any contact? She's been
waiting for closure and now she feels like it's finally
within her grasp; like the answers are coming. And they
are. Someone who knows something has seen the program.
Someone is planning on coming back to give some closure to
Cynthia. The events of a quarter century ago are coming
home with a vengeance. Answers are at hand. But after all
this time, can Cynthia handle the truth, but more
important, can she survive the truth?
This is a carefully plotted, tricky and sometimes downright
scary thriller. Cynthia's fear rolls off the pages in
waves. Her isolation and confusion are palpable. The lines
between reality and paranoia become confused and
realistically so. This is a young woman who's emotionally
suffered a lot. Cynthia's truth comes at a high price and
it's a roller coaster ride for her, and the reader, to get
there.
The house was deathly quiet. That was the first sign that
something was terribly wrong. Fourteen-year-old Cynthia
Bigge woke that morning to find herself alone. Her family—
mother, father, and brother—had vanished without a word,
without a note, without a trace. Twenty-five years later,
Cynthia is still looking for answers. Now she is about to
learn the devastating truth.
From critically acclaimed author Linwood Barclay comes a
new suspense thriller that strikes to the core of our most
primal fear. What if you woke one day to find your entire
life had changed? If everyone you loved had disappeared
overnight without so much as a chance to ask why?
Cynthia and Terry Archer still live in Milford,
Connecticut, not far from the old Bigge house on Hickory
Street. With a solid marriage and a young daughter, the
Archers seem on track for a successful future. But the
questions raised by Cynthia’s past still haunt her, and her
obsession to find the answers threatens to destroy
everything they’ve worked for. For Cynthia, there can be no
closure until she finds out why her family disappeared—and
how they could have left her behind.
Terry thinks the segment on the popular TV crime-stopper
program Deadline is a mistake. But his wife hopes that
someone watching will have a lead to her missing family.
Sure enough, it’s Cynthia who spots the strange car
cruising the neighborhood, hears the untraceable phone
calls, and discovers the ominous “gifts.” And as Cynthia’s
nerves begin to unravel, no one’s innocence is guaranteed,
not even her own. By the time the first body is found, it’s
clear that her past is more of a mystery than she ever
imagined—or may ever survive.
Someone has returned to this Connecticut town to finish
what was started twenty-five years ago. And by the time
Terry and Cynthia discover the killer’s shocking identity,
it will be too late even for goodbye.
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