Karen Robards Collection - Vanished & Shattered

VANISHED
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.



SHATTERED
The past is never over. It just gets dusty. Lisa Grant was a rising star in a prestigious law firm in Lexington, Kentucky, when the firm went bankrupt and she lost her job. With an ailing mother to care for, she takes the first job she can find: research assistant to District Attorney Scott Buchanan. Scott is as disagreeable as he is sexy, and Lisa suspects the only reason she got the job was Scott’s fond feelings for her mother, who treated him well when he was just a farmhand on the Grants’ large horse farm while Lisa was growing up. After she misses an important court date, Lisa doesn’t get any special treatment from Scott. As punishment, he sends her to organize cold-case files in the basement of the courthouse. What Lisa expects to be a mind-numbingly boring task turns into anything but that when a missing-persons case draws her attention. The details of the case are engrossing: an entire family—father, mother, and two children—disappeared without a trace more than twenty-eight years ago. Except that’s not all: the mother in a photo Lisa finds could be her own twin. Before Lisa can learn more, a series of catastrophes strikes close to home, and she realizes that finding the photo has put her in terrible danger. Determined to uncover the truth, she confides in Scott, and their relationship develops into something beyond that of employer and employee. Together they unravel a terrifying web of criminal connections that could shatter what Lisa knows of her past. And it’s clear someone will go to shocking lengths to make sure certain secrets stay hidden.