Protecting the innocent comes at a cost, and what seems to be a sleepy, quiet town is anything but.
"A compelling story that touches on powerful social issues" Bookbub Reviewer
NY Times & USA Today bestselling author Lorhainne Eckhart brings you the first book in a new crossover series! The social worker and the cop, an unlikely couple drawn together on a small, secluded Pacific Northwest island where nothing is as it seems.
Billy-Jo McCabe never expected to become a social worker, considering the broken system nearly destroyed her. Shortly after she takes a job on a remote Pacific Northwest island, she gets a call about a missing girl.
Meanwhile Roche Harbor detective Mark Friessen is called in to investigate the disappearance, but instead of working with the newly appointed social worker, he ends up butting heads and clashing with her every step of the way. Billy-Jo becomes the rival he does his best to avoid, considering the only conversations they have involve her pointing out his shortcomings and arrogance.
But when Billy-Jo finds herself in over her head, she's forced to team up with the man who has the uncanny ability to bring out the worst in her and together, they come up against close-mouthed locals, island secrets that hit too close to home, and the realization that their case about finding and helping a young girl has turned into something far more sinister.
Billy-Jo McCabe Series
The social worker and the cop, an unlikely couple drawn together on a small, secluded Pacific Northwest island where nothing is as it seems. Protecting the innocent comes at a cost, and what seems to be a sleepy, quiet town is anything but.
The Social Worker
Billy-Jo McCabe wants only to help children overcome their troubled lives, as she herself struggles to forget the childhood nightmare she survived. She took sociology and prelaw at the insistence of her adoptive father, Chase McCabe, and learned how to use power tools from her adoptive mother, Rose. She loves reading in the backs of bookstores before tucking the book back on the shelf and slipping out without paying. She has a fondness for peanut butter and dill pickle sandwiches, has a three-legged cat named Harley, hates running (because that was all she did as a kid), and secretly binges on brownies and red wine on the sofa in front of her TV every Friday night.
She's never been married and has dated only twice. She visits Chase and Rose when summoned and shows up dutifully for every holiday with her family, but she has no siblings to speak of, and she feels a growing resentment for the mother who abandoned her in foster care. Despite proudly maintaining the same prickly attitude that nearly landed her behind bars as a kid, she has yet to speak up to Chase, who interferes in her life too frequently, ready to fix every problem, whether she wants him to or not.
One thing no one knows about Billy Jo is that she moved to Roche Harbor because it's the only clue she has about the last known whereabouts of the woman who abandoned her.
The Cop
Mark Friessen, son of Jed and Diana Friessen, has landed accidently in the role of small-town detective, a position in which he's going nowhere. Nearly married once, and broken-hearted three times, he's sworn he'll stay single forever, and he keeps his tattoo of a former girlfriend as a reminder that only fools fall in love. He's tall, attractive, and stubborn, and he refuses to live in the shadow of his two older brothers, Chris and Danny.
As Roche Harbor's youngest detective, he sleeps with a gun under his pillow. He has a stray dog that won't leave, and he swears that the only two food groups that exist are meat and potatoes. His favorite drink is black coffee in the morning, sugared coffee in the afternoon, and a shot of whiskey in his coffee at night to keep him warm.
