Hold Back the Night

Book excerpt: 4:23 a.m. The phone rings. The officer on the other end says, “It’s a bad one, Darren. Can you come?” Darren McDaniel has worked dozens of homicides in his years as a detective. It’s a dark and gritty business, and he’s prepared to handle whatever it throws at him. Or so he once believed. The pre-teen girl is dead, dressed in a white princess gown, lying on a bus stop bench. There’s a steel chain clamped to her ankle. A cryptic message scrawled across the booth’s dusty glass wall may be the only clue. As McDaniel plunges into the case, he isn’t surprised to discover the girl had been held somewhere horrible before her death. But, his blood chills when the evidence shows she wasn’t alone. Other children were with her. Are they still there? Can McDaniel save them in time? The detective races against the clock, but the closer he gets, the deadlier the chase becomes. Secrets this dark fight back. When those secrets turn their murderous attention on McDaniel’s family, he faces an impossible decision – let the killer walk free or risk losing his own daughter.