Vanished

by Karen Robards Narrated by Joyce Bean

Overview

Seven years ago, Sarah Mason's five-year-old daughter vanished during an outing at a park in Beaufort, South Carolina. Despite a frantic search, little Lexie was never found, and Sarah was left to pick up the pieces of her shattered life and go on the best she could.

Then, one hot August night, Sarah comes home to hear the phone ringing. When she picks it up, a child's terrified voice whispers, “Mommy, help, come and get me....” The call is cut off, but not before Sarah's heart goes into overdrive: she is sure the voice belonged to Lexie. Five-year-old Lexie. Though seven years have passed, she sounds exactly the same.

Frantic, Sarah turns to the police, the FBI, and her co-workers at the County Prosecutor's office, none of whom takes the call seriously. The only person she can count on to help her is Jake Hogan, her closest friend in the world, the man who has provided a strong shoulder for her to lean on throughout the long search. A former FBI agent, Jake is now a P.I., and though he is skeptical about the authenticity of the call, the attraction he feels for Sarah pushes him to help her. He is convinced someone is deliberately tormenting the grief-stricken mother.

Their long friendship explodes into a romance as they try to figure out who, and why-and what happened to Lexie. When the torment escalates to murder, Jake is the only one who can keep Sarah safe. Together, they are caught up in a nightmare search for Lexie that just might end with Sarah's death.

Editorial Reviews

bn.com

The Barnes & Noble Review
New York Times–bestselling author Karen Robards delivers an action-packed, adrenaline-laced thriller in this story of Sarah Mason, forced to relive her worst nightmare -- the kidnapping of her young daughter, Lexie, seven years ago. It starts when Sarah, who works in the county prosecutor's office, gets a call for help from a young child who sounds just like her daughter Lexie when she was five. Is Sarah finally cracking up? The only one to believe her story about the call is her best friend, Jake Hogan, a P.I. Their investigation into the call and what really happened to Lexie unearths some dangerous secrets in the town and kicks off a passionate romance between Jake and Sarah. As usual, Robards knows just how to keep the heart pounding and the pages turning. Ginger Curwen

Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Robards (Superstition) opens her latest romantic thriller with a bang by placing her heroine, assistant district attorney Sarah Mason of Beaufort County, S.C., in the midst of a convenience store robbery gone wrong. A cashier is shot to death, Mason is wounded in the head and a young girl, who was hiding in the store during the gunplay, vanishes. Mason, who has thrown herself into her work with a vengeance since the disappearance of her five-year-old daughter, Lexie, 10 years earlier, becomes obsessed with finding the missing girl. The action rarely lets up, except for the many sexually charged scenes devoted to Mason's initially platonic relationship with PI Jake Hogan, "the closest thing to family" she has left, who worked as a detective on Lexie's case and who routinely comes to her rescue during this new case. The plot, with its suggestions that the holdup was not a random act and eerie phone calls apparently from a Lexie who hasn't aged, will keep readers turning the pages. Author tour. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

(See Prepub Alert, LJ 12/05) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172320873
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	04/25/2006
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos