Instead of allies, Vern finds resistance at every turn. His once-steady grandparents are evasive and erratic, the lead investigator seems determined to frame him, and time is bleeding away with every false lead. Then comes Lee Danforth—a sharp, determined attorney-turned-investigator assigned to his case. She is his only chance at finding Katie… and the last person he wants peeling back the layers of his ruined life.

But as pressure mounts, their guarded trust twists into a volatile attraction, and one that feels as dangerous as the killer stalking them.

As Lee Danforth and Vern Matheson dig deeper into Angela Matheson’s double life and trail of drugs, secrets, and betrayal, they uncover something far darker: a calculating killer who has been stalking this family for months, orchestrating every piece of their destruction. With a hurricane bearing down on the South Carolina coast, Vern and Lee must race to find his daughter before the storm—and the man hunting them—brings everything crashing down.