She moves her flashlight around the dark, empty ward. How could her friends have left her alone in a place like this? But she isn’t really alone. Someone is watching. And he won’t let her leave this place alive…

Shortly before midnight, four teenagers broke into the old abandoned psychiatric hospital on Beacon Hill. Only three came out again. The missing girl – Riley Holt – is the seventeen-year-old daughter of the local police chief and she appears to have vanished into thin air. Called from Manhattan to take over the case, Detective Maria Miller and her partner Frankie Conroy uncover the sinister past of the abandoned hospital, which was once the hiding place of the notorious College Kid Killer, who never revealed the burial site of his final victim.

Then a fresh grave is discovered in the hospital’s old cemetery and Maria expects the worst. But when the remains of two young women are recovered, it appears that neither belongs to Riley. Maria and her team make the connection between the secret grave and the College Kid Killer, but with Riley still missing and her three friends unable to shed any light on her whereabouts, the case gets more complex by the minute.

Maria must delve into the hospital’s tragic past – and into the girl’s own family history – to work out what happened to Riley Holt. While the girl’s father acts the part of the distraught parent, Maria’s instincts tell her that something isn’t right. And the elderly former caretaker of the hospital seems to know more than he’s letting on. As she comes close to the terrifying truth, eyes follow Maria’s every move. She’s about to put her own life on the line but can she find Riley before it’s too late?

Perfect for fans of Karin Slaughter, Mary Stone and A. J. Rivers, this chilling second instalment in the Detective Maria Miller series from the bestselling author Helen Phifer will have you sleeping with the lights on.

Read what everyone is saying about the Detective Maria Miller series:

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