Nicole Trope

Every family has secrets, and on the hottest day of the year, the truth is about to come out. As a tragedy unfolds behind closed doors, the dawn chorus is split by the wail of sirens....

Megan wartet vor der Schule auf ihren sechsjährigen Sohn. Der Schulhof leert sich und Panik macht sich in ihr breit, als sie Daniel nirgendwo finden kann. Ihr geliebtes Kind ist spurlos verschwunden.

Alle wollen in der der hübschen, von Bäumen gesäumten Hogarth Street wohnen. Die frisch zugezogene Familie West passt perfekt hierhin. Katherine und John wirken wie ein harmonisches und verliebtes Paar, und ihre fünfjährigen Zwillinge spielen ständig lachend in ihrem makellosen Vorgarten.

It’s the phone call every mother dreads. "I only went upstairs for a second," she says through her sobs. "She’s gone." When the police turn up, Shelby’s story starts to unravel. Where is my three-year-old? Then I get a message....

I stare at the photo of my beautiful daughter. Her hair is shining and her face is lit up with a smile. The man with her looks so happy too. But my mother’s instinct is screaming. I know something is terribly, terribly wrong. And I know what I have to do…

Caroline twitches aside her curtains to see the new family moving in. A mother – beautifully dressed in expensive clothes – and two young children. Where is her husband, she wonders?

Her chest tightens, her heart speeding up. The kitchen is chaos. She steps on something hard, and looks down. Toy dinosaurs are scattered everywhere. But her son is nowhere–her baby boy is gone....

In their holiday home, a stone’s throw from the beach, Elizabeth dials the police with trembling hands. "My little boy, he’s missing." As she looks into the garden, where he was playing just moments ago, her heart feels like it has been ripped from her chest....

She has my husband. She has my child. She has my life....

I am cooking spaghetti, his favourite, while he plays in the garden. But when I look up, he’s gone. I call the police, my hands shaking so much that I hit the wrong digits twice. "My son is missing." When the police turn up, I’m trapped in the web of my lies....

Where is he? Where’s my beloved child with his father’s blue eyes and a halo of golden curls? My little boy is out there on his own. Please keep him safe, I silently beg. Please, please just keep him safe....

They find her just as the sun is beginning to rise in the early morning mist. They had begun at dawn, the group of searchers keen to get going. A missing child spurred everyone on. In the end, it was a flash of color, a bright neon pink that caught her eye. They had been looking for pink....

When I wake up in the middle of the night, it’s not a sound that disturbs me. It’s a feeling. Silently, I creep to my daughter’s room, breathing a sigh of relief when I see her sleeping, her night-light twirling, butterfly shapes moving their pink wings. Quickly, I lock the door....

I will not think about it anymore. I won’t think about her. My lost little sister with her beautiful smile, her chestnut-colored eyes. My sister who I couldn’t protect....

Megan waits at the school gates for her six-year-old son, Daniel. As the playground empties, panic bubbles inside her. Daniel is nowhere to be found....

In the middle of the night, Claire wakes up to discover that her beloved daughter, Julia, is dead - and life, as she knows it, is over....

A moment of distraction, an unlocked car and a missing baby. How on earth could this happen? Find out....

The terrible secrets of a marriage, the love that can turn to desperation, the refuge and heartbreak of being a parent, the fragile threads that cradle a family....

From the queen of white-knuckle suspense and searing family drama comes a harrowing glimpse into the real world behind the headlines....

The baby sleeps peacefully, filled with milk and contentment. The man on the bed breathes his way into the darkness, filled with rage....