First published 2025
Lucy Mendoza vanishes without a trace. The successful Rhode Island real estate agent leaves her infant daughter in a grocery store parking lot and disappears. The story explodes across national news. Her best friend Michelle faces a terrible dilemma. Lucy had confided a secret that could destroy her reputation forever. She regretted having her child so deeply that she fantasized about staging her own kidnapping to escape. Michelle knows this confession could make Lucy look like a monster to police and the public. She believes Lucy would never truly abandon her daughter. But doubt creeps in. Could Lucy have been desperate enough to fake her disappearance and start over? Michelle must decide whether to protect her friend's secret or reveal the truth that might help find her. Freitas crafts a thriller that examines the unspoken reality some mothers face when parenthood becomes an irreversible mistake.
Genres: fiction, domestic-fiction, mystery, adult, adult-fiction, thriller
Vibes: dark, emotionally-complex, morally-ambiguous, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: dual-perspective, moral-ambiguity, secrets-and-lies, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Rhode Island
Period: 21st-century, contemporary
400 pages · Paperback · Soho Crime
Content warnings: mental-illness