J.t. Ellison

It was a murder made for TV: a trail of tiny bloody footprints. An innocent toddler playing beside her mother's bludgeoned body. Pretty young Corinne Wolff, seven months pregnant, brutally murdered in her own home. Cameras and questions don't usually faze Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson, but the media frenzy surrounding the Wolff case is particularly nasty…and thorough. When the seemingly model mommy is linked to an amateur porn website with underage actresses and unwitting players, the sharks begin to circle…

In her showdown with the murderous Pretender, a bullet taken at close range severed the connection between Taylor's thoughts and speech. Effectively mute, there's no telling if her voice will ever come back. Trapped in silence, she is surrounded by ghosts-of the past, of friendships and trusts lost…of a lost faith in herself and her motives that night. When Memphis Highsmythe offers Taylor his home in the Scottish Highlands to recuperate, her fiancé can't refuse her excitement, no matter his distrust of the man. At first, Memphis's drafty and singularly romantic castle seems the perfect place for healing…

It's a hideous echo of a violent past. Across America, murders are being committed with all the twisted hallmarks of the Boston Strangler, the Zodiac Killer and Son of Sam. The media frenzy explodes and Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson knows instantly that The Pretender is back… and he's got helpers. As The Pretender's disciples perpetrate their sick homages - stretching police and FBI dangerously thin - Taylor tries desperately to prepare for their inevitable showdown. And she must do it alone. To be close to her is to be in mortal danger, and she won't risk losing anyone she loves. But the isolation, the self-doubt and the rising body count are taking their toll - she's beside herself and ready to snap…