Kimberly Belle - Three Days Missing - A nail-biting psychological thriller with a killer twist!

Those closest to us are often the most dangerous...

It’s every parent’s worst nightmare: the call that comes in the middle of the night. When Kat Jenkins awakens to the police on her doorstep, her greatest fear is realized. Her nine-year-old son, Ethan, is missing—vanished from the cabin where he’d been on an overnight class trip. Shocked and distraught, Kat rushes to the campground, but she’s too late; the authorities have returned from their search empty-handed after losing Ethan’s trail in the mountain forest.

Another mother from the school, Stef Huntington, seems like she has it all: money, prominence in the community, a popular son and a loving husband. She hardly knows Kat, except for the vicious gossip that swirls around Kat’s traumatic past. But as the police investigation unfolds, Ethan’s disappearance has earth-shattering consequences for Stef, as her path crosses with Kat. As the two mothers race against the clock, their desperate search for answers reveals how the greatest dangers lie behind the everyday smiles of those they trust the most.

Also By Kimberly Belle

The Last Breath

The Ones We Trust

The Marriage Lie

Three Days Missing

Kimberly Belle

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © Kimberle S. Belle LLC 2018

Kimberle S. Belle LLC asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 9781474081795

Praise for the novels of Kimberly Belle

“You need to check out The Marriage Lie. This domestic thriller will keep you reading into the wee hours of the night to find out how it all ends.”

—Redbook

“This delicious, serpentine thriller starts from a simple premise: what if your husband was not who you thought he was... . A good, old-fashioned page-turner, with a poisonous sting in the tail.”

—Daily Mail

“Fans of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train will eat up Belle’s latest novel. The pace is relentless, and the plot never runs in a straight line... . This one is a true brain twister!”

—Bookreporter.com

“With plot twists around every corner, Belle isn’t afraid to keep her readers guessing until the very last page of this heart-pounding story of one woman’s desperate search for answers.”

—Booklist

“[A] compelling domestic thriller.”

—BuzzFeed

“The suspense builds rapidly... . A compelling adventure.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Belle’s Three Days Missing is her best book yet. And that’s saying a lot. This one is vividly written, emotional, and engaging, with real, three-dimensional characters who will always keep you guessing... . This one’s a winner!”

—David Bell, New York Times bestselling author of Somebody’s Daughter and Bring Her Home

“A missing child, a desperate mother, and enough twists and turns to keep you guessing—Three Days Missing has all the right stuff for an engaging, suspenseful read.”

—Wendy Walker, author of Emma in the Night and All Is Not Forgotten

“The Marriage Lie is the definition of a page-turner... . We don’t know who to trust, who to root for, who is dangerous, and the effect is dizzying. A pulse-pounding good book.”

—Kate Moretti, New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Year

“[A] suspenseful, layered and emotionally gripping novel. Belle steers a twisting course that will have readers breathlessly turning the pages.”

—Sophie Littlefield, bestselling author of The Guilty One

“A surprising and fast-paced read.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Three Days Missing is a taut, intelligent, heart-pounding thriller... . Belle weaves a spellbinding tale of suspense and family drama that twists and turns until the final pages.”

—Karen Katchur, author of The Secrets of Lake Road and The Sisters of Blue Mountain

“Kimberly Belle’s Three Days Missing is exactly what you want in a thriller—riveting, edge-of-your-seat storytelling... . Absolutely unputdownable.”

—Mindy Mejia, author of Everything You Want Me to Be

“The Last Breath will leave you breathless. This edgy and emotional thriller will keep you guessing until the very end.”

—Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times bestselling author of The Weight of Silence

“Perfectly paced, highly suspenseful, and heart-rending, The Marriage Lie kept me enthralled right up to the shocking final twist.”

—A.J. Banner, bestselling author of The Good Neighbor

“The Marriage Lie explores what makes people ‘tick,’ squints at the blurring of lines between good and bad, crime and human nature... . A beautifully written, perfectly populated, edge-of-your-seat story.”

—Susan Crawford, author of The Pocket Wife

For my parents, who always believed.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

KAT

KAT

KAT

STEF

KAT

KAT

STEF

KAT

KAT

STEF

KAT

KAT

STEF

KAT

STEF

KAT

STEF

STEF

KAT

STEF

KAT

STEF

KAT

STEF

KAT

STEF

KAT

STEF

KAT

STEF

KAT

STEF

KAT

STEF

KAT

STEF

KAT

STEF

KAT

STEF

KAT

ETHAN

Acknowledgments

Questions for Discussion

A Conversation with Kimberly Belle

About the Publisher

KAT

My phone is already buzzing with work email as I rush Ethan through his morning routine. Get up. Get dressed. For the love of God, brush your teeth and hair. In none of his eight short years has my son ever been a morning person, and I’ve never been the most patient of mothers, not even when I didn’t have a boss clocking the second I step off the elevator.

Not that stay-at-home moms don’t have plenty of stress, but at least then Ethan and I were united in it, members of the same team tiptoeing around the eggshells Andrew left lying all over the house. But this is the habit we’ve fallen into these past six months, ever since the separation. Ethan dallies and I nag.

“Come on, baby, we gotta go.”

His hair is still sticking up where it was pressed against his pillow. His T-shirt is stained and wrinkled, which means he probably plucked it from the dirty pile on the floor. My son is an unapologetic slob. He’s uncoordinated and more than a little awkward looking. His ears are too big and his curls are too fickle and his glasses, constantly clouded with fingerprints, never seem to sit straight on his nose.