by Nancy Bush
First published 2013
Liv Dugan steps back into Zuma Software after a routine lunch break and discovers a bloodbath. Every colleague lies dead from gunshot wounds. Only her timing saved her life. Liv believes the massacre connects to her past and a mysterious package from her deceased adoptive mother. Someone is tracking her movements. She forces a stranger to drive her to safety, and he becomes her unexpected ally. Together they dig into her adoption, her birth family, and buried childhood trauma. A deadly secret from Liv's history has surfaced, one that someone will kill to protect. Meanwhile, Detective September Rafferty receives her own second grade artwork in the mail, now marked with bloody words. A killer from her past has returned, targeting her old classmates. September investigates Jake Westerly, someone she once knew, but trust could prove fatal. The killer remembers every childhood slight and plans his revenge. In a third case, September faces a vigilante executing suspected sexual predators, including her own stepbrother Stefan. Three interconnected stories of violence rooted in the past converge around secrets that refuse to stay buried.
Genres: suspense, mystery, crime, thriller
Vibes: dark, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Zuma Software
Period: present-day
1139 pages · Kindle Edition · Zebra
Content warnings: murder, violence