By Nora Roberts

This was a hard book to start. Nora Roberts writes her characters so well that I felt as if I were the fifteen-year-old girl hiding in the bathroom while her friends were shot down in the mall theater. Simone Knox kept her head and dialed 9-1-1, her early response saved lives.

Reed Quartermain was home from college working at the mall and hoping to get a date with the girl at the sunglasses kiosk when all hell breaks loose. Two guys come into the mall and start shooting people. He rescues a kid and hides out in the same kiosk with the girl’s blood pooling at his feet.

A young female police officer is one of the first responders. She takes down JJ Hobart in the theatre. Her quick response and caring changes lives. It makes a huge impact on the college kid, Reed, who because of that night, because of Essie, he decides to join the police force.

Simone doesn’t know how to live. She just wants to forget. Mi-Hi Jung wants her life to mean something, both mourn the loss of their friend, Tish. It is her one constant, her grandmother CiCi, who sees what she really needs and helps her to find it once she is ready to start living her own life.

Cici, a renowned artist, gives Simone the tools to find her own path. Even as she battles her parents and sister, their relationship strained at best, Simone begins to find herself.

As one thing leads to another, Reed makes detective and becomes partnered with his mentor and friend. He is constantly seeking information about that night. He’s always felt there was something missing.

Things heat up when he realizes the three boys were not the masterminds behind the mall shooting, and someone is finishing off the survivors from that night.

Roberts ratchets up the tension as more people start dying and Reed tries to build his case. When he becomes a target, he knows those he cares about could be hurt as well.

As the newly hired chief of police of Tranquility Island, he hopes to stand his ground. When lives are on the line, a simple mistake could be a costly one.

Will they catch a psychopath before other innocents die or will Reed be too late?

A fantastic story that kept me on the edge of my seat.