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 familyβ
mother, father, and brotherβhad 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 Cynthiaβs past still haunt her, and her
obsession to find the answers threatens to destroy
everything theyβve worked for. For Cynthia, there can be no
closure until she finds out why her family disappearedβand
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, itβs Cynthia who spots the strange car
cruising the neighborhood, hears the untraceable phone
calls, and discovers the ominous βgifts.β And as Cynthiaβs
nerves begin to unravel, no oneβs innocence is guaranteed,
not even her own. By the time the first body is found, itβs
clear that her past is more of a mystery than she ever
imaginedβor 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 killerβs shocking identity,
it will be too late even for goodbye.
No excerpt available.
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