Heather Gudenkauf - One Breath Away

Praise for Heather Gudenkauf

‘Brilliantly constructed, this will have you gripped until the last page …’

Closer

‘Deeply moving and lyrical … it will haunt you all summer.’

Company

5 stars ‘Gripping and moving’

Heat

‘Her technique is faultless, sparse and simple and is a master-class in how to construct a thriller … A memorable read … A technical triumph.’

Sunday Express

‘It’s totally gripping …’

Marie Claire

‘Tension builds as family secrets tumble from the closet.’

Woman & Home

‘This has all the ingredients of a Jodi Picoult novel.’

Waterstones Books Quarterly

‘Set to become a book group staple’

The Guardian

‘A skilfully woven thriller that will keep you hooked to the end’

Choice magazine

‘Jodi Picoult has some serious competition in Heather Gudenkauf.’

Bookreporter

‘Deeply moving and exquisitely lyrical, this is a powerhouse of a debut novel.’

Tess Gerritsen, No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author

‘Fans of Jodi Picoult will devour this great thriller.’

Red

‘The author slowly and expertly reveals the truth in a tale so chillingly real, it could have come from the latest headlines.’

Publisher’s Weekly

‘Heart-pounding suspense and a compelling family drama come together to create a story you won’t be able to put down.’

Diane Chamberlain, bestselling author of

The Midwife’s Confession

‘This haunting psychological thriller lives up to expectation. Jodi Picoult or perhaps Joanne Harris are the nearest comparisons.’

Peterborough Evening Telegraph

‘A great thriller, probably the kind of book a lot of people would choose to read on their sun loungers. It will appeal to fans of Jodi Picoult.’

Radio Times

‘An enchantingly lyrical novel mixed with shockingly menacing overtones’

Newbooks

‘Gripping and powerful, right to the end’

Northern Echo

‘Secrets are slowly revealed by Gudenkauf’s skilled writing.’

NY Metro

‘A real page-turner’

Woman’s Own

HEATHER GUDENKAUF is the critically acclaimed author of the New York Times bestselling novels The Weight of Silence and These Things Hidden . Her debut novel, The Weight of Silence , was picked for The TV Bookclub . She lives in Iowa with her family.

Read more about Heather and her novels at www.HeatherGudenkauf.com

Also available from Heather Gudenkauf

THE WEIGHT OF SILENCE

THESE THINGS HIDDEN

For Alex, Anna and Grace

~My three wishes

As always, enormous gratitude goes to my agent, Marianne Merola, for her wisdom, guidance, attention to detail and her friendship. Thanks also to Henry Thayer for his behind-the-scenes support.

A thousand thanks to my editor, Miranda Indrigo, whose insights and suggestions are always spot on. Thanks also to all the folks at HQ—especially Margaret O’Neil Marbury and Valerie Gray. I’m so proud to call HQ my home.

Thank you to John and Kathy Conway and Howard and Shirley Bohr for opening up their homes and farms to me as I researched the novel. I always enjoy our time together.

Much appreciation goes to Mark Dalsing, whose advice in regard to police procedure and his early readings of the manuscript were invaluable.

A heartfelt thank-you goes out to my parents, Milton and Patricia Schmida, my brothers and sisters and their families, for their generous support and enthusiasm.

Much love and thanks to Scott, Alex, Anna and Grace—I couldn’t do it without you.

I’m in that lovely space between consciousness and sleep. I feel no pain thanks to the morphine pump and I can almost believe that the muscles, tendons and skin of my left arm have knitted themselves back together, leaving my skin smooth and pale. My curly brown hair once again falls softly down my back, my favorite earrings dangle from my ears and I can lift both sides of my mouth in a wide smile without much pain at the thought of my children. Yes, drugs are a wonderful thing. But the problem is that while the carefully prescribed and doled-out narcotics by the nurses wonderfully dull the edges of this nightmare, I know that soon enough this woozy, pleasant feeling will fall away and all that I will be left with is pain and the knowledge that Augie and P.J. are thousands of miles away from me. Sent away to the place where I grew up, the town I swore I would never return to, the house I swore I would never again step into, to the man I never wanted them to meet.

The tinny melody of the ringtone that Augie, my thirteen-year-old daughter, programmed into my cell phone is pulling me from my sleep. I open one eye, the one that isn’t covered with a thick ointment and crusted shut, and call out for my mother, who must have stepped out of the room. I reach for the phone that is sitting on the tray table at the side of my bed and the nerve endings in my bandaged left arm scream in protest at the movement. I carefully shift my body to pick up the phone with my good hand and press the phone to my remaining ear.

“Hello.” The word comes out half-formed, breathless and scratchy, as if my lungs were still filled with smoke.

“Mom?” Augie’s voice is quavery, unsure. Not sounding like my daughter at all. Augie is confident, smart, a take-charge, no one is ever going to walk all over me kind of girl.

“Augie? What’s the matter?” I try to blink the fuzziness of the morphine away; my tongue is dry and sticks to the roof of my mouth. I want to take a sip of water from the glass sitting on my tray, but my one working hand holds the phone. The other lies useless at my side. “Are you okay? Where are you?”

There are a few seconds of quiet and then Augie continues. “I love you, Mom,” she says in a whisper that ends in quiet sobs.

I sit up straight in my bed, wide awake now. Pain shoots through my bandaged arm and up the side of my neck and face. “Augie, what’s the matter?”

“I’m at school.” She is crying in that way she has when she is doing her damnedest not to. I can picture her, head down, her long brown hair falling around her face, her eyes squeezed shut in determination to keep the tears from falling, her breath filling my ear with short, shallow puffs. “He has a gun. He has P.J. and he has a gun.”

“Who has P.J.?” Terror clutches at my chest. “Tell me, Augie, where are you? Who has a gun?”

“I’m in a closet. He put me in a closet.”

My mind is spinning. Who could be doing this? Who would do this to my children? “Hang up,” I tell her. “Hang up and call 9-1-1 right now, Augie. Then call me back. Can you do that?” I hear her sniffles. “Augie,” I say again, more sharply. “Can you do that?”

“Yeah,” she finally says. “I love you, Mom,” she says softly.

“I love you, too.” My eyes fill with tears and I can feel the moisture pool beneath the bandages that cover my injured eye.

I wait for Augie to disconnect when I hear three quick shots, followed by two more and Augie’s piercing screams.