A time to fear....

Grace Hart seemed to have it all: a bright, beautiful daughter, a successful career as a judge, and a lovely home in an Ohio suburb. But beneath the placid veneer, darker truths lie waiting. Her fifteen-year-old, Jessica, is teetering on the cusp of drugs and delinquency. And someone is stalking the troubled teenager. Someone who has already violated their home and stolen their peace of mind.

A time to love....

Now the police are involved. Grace is relieved--and worried. Is Jessica in danger from a drug dealer who wants to silence her? Detective Tony Marino is on the case. He's too close for comfort, asking disturbing questions, probing into her long-buried past, igniting feelings Grace has tried to suppress. In Tony's strong arms, Grace finds comfort, protection--passion--as he tries to shield them from the evil lurking just beyond their door....

Light from the hall spilled over the tumbled bed, leaving the rest of the room deep in shadow. Grace Hart didn't even bother to switch on the overhead light. Her tall, thin figure cast an elongated shadow across the pale rose carpet for no more than an instant. Then she moved. Three quick strides brought her to her daughter's bedside. She yanked the covers clear to the foot of the bed just to make sure, but she already knew what she would find: nothing.

Jessica was not curled up in a tight little ball beneath the primrose comforter. A hasty glance around confirmed that Jessica was not in the tweedy pink armchair in the corner, or at her white-and-gold desk, or sprawled out with a pillow on the carpet. Grace didn't even have to check to know that Jessica was not in the connecting bathroom, or downstairs in the kitchen. . . . or, in fact, anywhere in the house.

Her fifteen-year-old daughter had snuck out.

Again.

Oh, God, Grace thought, staring blindly at the empty bed, what am I going to do?

There was no one but God to ask. She and Jessica lived alone. Grace loved her daughter more than life itself--but lately she had grown terrified that she was losing her. This was the third time in the past two months that she had been awakened--by what? a stealthy sound? a bad dream? she didn't know--and risen from her bed to check on Jessica, only to find her daughter gone.

It was Monday night--no, Tuesday morning now. A school day. Jessica had to be up at 6:45 a.m. She had a Spanish test first period. Just before bedtime, Grace had spent an hour listening to her daughter conjugate verbs. The test counted double, and a good score could bring her C in that class up to an A, which would be enough to get her on the honor roll. They had both agreed that making the honor roll in high school was important, and Grace, at least, had been psyched about Jessica's chances. But how was she going to do on the test with no sleep?

Of course, Grace realized even as the question formed in her mind, that was the least of her worries at the moment.

The overriding one was, where's Jessica?

She had a pretty good idea who her daughter was with, if not where she was. Now four weeks into her first year of high school, Jessica had fallen in with a new crowd, a "cool" crowd, she said, whose acceptance made her popular. The girls all wore flared jeans, midriff-baring tops, platform shoes, and neon-striped hair. (Talk about déjà vu all over again: Grace had worn the same kind of thing, minus the Day-Glo hair streaks, when she was in high school. But as Jess pointed out, the seventies were hot again.) Anyway, as far as Grace was concerned, this particular gaggle of girls was bad news rushing headlong toward a bad end. It scared her to realize that Jessica, her own sweet Jessica, was going to find that bad end right along with them if Grace couldn't manage to stop her.

So far, in the war for Jessica's allegiance, the score was dishearteningly lopsided. Mom had lost every battle.

A rattle followed by a soft whirring sound made Grace jump. She glanced around.

"Jessica?"

There was no answer.

It took only a moment for Grace to identify the source of the sound: Godzilla in his exercise wheel. The fat golden hamster whose cage sat atop Jessica's bookshelf was running busily, oblivious to the absence of his mistress or her mother's distress.

"Where is she, buddy?" Grace asked.

Godzilla ran blithely on. Grace grimaced at herself. Talking to a hamster was sad, she thought, and having nothing but a hamster to talk to at a time of crisis like this was even...

 

"One of the most popular voices in women's fiction."

 

"[A] terrifying tale of obsessions and vengeance. The Midnight Hour delivers both chills and thrills."

 

Karen Robards is the author of twenty-two historical and contemporary romances, including her most recent national bestsellers The Senator's Wife, Heartbreaker, and Hunter's Moon. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with her husband and their three sons.

From the Hardcover...