Synopsis
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL?
In the middle of a fierce snowstorm in Gun Creek, Nevada, a
teenage girl disappears without a trace.
The second girl in as many years.
Identical cases. Identical conditions. Only last time, the
girl was found. Dead, floating face-down in the creek that feeds the town's
water supply.
The killer was never found.
As the small town mobilises and searches for newly vanished
Jennifer Thomas, one suspect comes to the fore. But did he do it? Or is there
something else at play? Something nobody could have anticipated?
For Jennifer's classmate Cassie Carlino, the worst is yet to
come. As she pins MISSING posters to store windows and joins the search, she
begins to suspect that Jennifer's disappearance might be much closer to her
than she could have ever imagined.
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iBooks: http://apple.co/1TjEHqn
RELEASE DATE: June 27th, 2016
Excerpt
Cassie
I brew coffee downstairs, being careful not to make too much
noise. He hates it when I’m loud. He likes to wake up gradually. I trudge
upstairs, my bare feet freezing on the threadbare carpet.
I bring the coffee and I set it beside him. I pull one
curtain open, just the way he likes it. It’s been snowing again. It’s so
beautiful out there. So empty.
“Good morning,” he says. I turn away from the snow, my
retinas pulsing and blind in the center of my vision from the stark white burst
of light outside.
Sometimes, if I can get on his good side when he first wakes
up, he’ll be nice to me for the rest of the day. Lately that happens less and
less, but I still try.
“Sleep well?” he asks, sipping his coffee. He hands it to me
and I take a sip. I don’t like coffee the way he has it, but he insists on
sharing with me, probably to ensure I don’t poison him. He’s a smart man.
Thinks of everything.
I ache between my thighs. I’m reminded of the night before.
Of the guy who crept into my bedroom and fucked me until I hurt.
“Like the dead,” I reply. I had to check and make sure he
was in a deep sleep before I showered the evidence away last night. I couldn’t
risk him waking up and hearing me.
He smiles lazily, his eyes still puffy from sleep. The smile
that could dazzle the entire female population has a hard edge to it. “I can
see the cogs turning in your brain, Cassandra. What are you daydreaming about?”
I sit on the edge of the bed. My legs are tired and my head
hurts.
“I remembered what a sociopath is.”
“Oh, yeah?” He props himself up on one elbow, the coffee
finished, the cup discarded somewhere on the dresser beside him. “Enlighten
me.”
“Somebody who’s empty inside. Somebody who needs to take
from everybody else to fill them up. Because they were born wrong. Because
there’s nothing inside them.”
He smiles; his lazulite eyes crease up ever-so-slightly at
the edges. I imagine how beautiful he would have looked as a young child; how
his mother would have melted whenever he smiled up at her. Because his eyes
deceive. They don’t look empty. They’re beautiful, full of the souls of
everyone else he’s sucked dry and left in his quest to find that something,
that perfect thing to fill him up.
I can see myself in his eyes. My soul. He’s taken it from
me.
“Do you feel empty?” I whisper.
He rests a hand on my upper thigh, all trace of his smile
gone as he matches his fingers to the bruises he left on me in the night, in
the dark. “Not when I’m inside you.”
The man I’ve been fucking for the past year, or rather, the
man who’s been fucking me — his eyes gleam in the harsh sunlight that casts a
brightness over the bedroom, bathing it in some macabre stage lights that
scream: Action! But this isn’t make-believe, and the curtains won’t fall at the
end of our grotesque little act, and after we’re done here, I won’t be able to
peel my mask off and toss it on the ground as I exit the stage.
I swallow thickly. I wish he’d get tired of me.
“I heard you in the shower last night,” he says, his fingers
squeezing into my flesh. “After I left you, you thought you could just wash me
off like nothing happened, huh?”
My cheeks burn as I try to twist away from him; He sits up
in bed and reaches for my throat, crushing my windpipe as he pulls my face to
his.
“You need to learn,” he says, “that I know everything about
you, Cassie. I know what you think. I know where you are. I know where you’re
going. I know more about you than you know about yourself, darlin’.
I choke.
“Say sorry,” he says, loosening his grip.
“I’m sorry!” I wheeze, my throat burning as tears stream
down from my eyes.
“Not like that. Show me how sorry you are. Apologize.”
He pulls the covers back and fists a hand in my long hair,
wrenching me down into his lap.
I do what I’m told. I show him just how sorry I am. I’m not
sorry for washing him off me last night, though. I’m sorry that he ever came to
this godforsaken town and ruined our lives.
About the Author
Lili writes dark, disturbing romance. Her #1 bestselling
Gypsy Brothers series was created in a serial format – quick, intense episodes
released frequently with some wicked cliffhangers. The Gypsy Brothers series
focuses on a morally bankrupt biker gang and the girl who seeks her vengeance
upon them. The Cartel series is a prequel trilogy of full-length novels that
explores the beginnings of the club, to be released in 2015 by HarperCollins.
Lili quit corporate life to focus on writing and so far is
loving every minute of it. Her other loves in life include her gorgeous husband
and beautiful daughter, good coffee, Tarantino movies and spending hours on
Pinterest.
She loves to read almost as much as she loves to write.
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