The Devil's Daughter By Katee Robert Sneak Peek
THE DEVIL’S DAUGHTER
by Katee Robert
FBI agent, Eden Collins is going home... to catch a killer. Fans of Audey Harte’s It Takes One and Kendra Elliott's Bone Secrets series, will devour The Devil’s Daughter, the fast-paced and suspenseful first book, in the Hidden Sins series by NYT and USA Today Bestselling Author Katee Robert.
Title: The Devil’s Daughter
Author: Katee Robert
Series: Hidden Sins #1
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Release Date: January 24, 2017
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Print Length: 316 pages
Format: Digital and Paperback
ISBN: 1503940918
Synopsis:
Growing up in a small town isn’t easy, especially when you’re the daughter of a local cult leader. Ten years ago, Eden Collins left Clear Springs, Montana, and never once looked back. But when the bodies of murdered young women surface, their corpses violated and marked with tattoos worn by her mother’s followers, Eden, now an FBI agent, can’t turn a blind eye. To catch the killer, she’s going to have to return to the fold.
Sheriff Zach Owens isn’t comfortable putting Eden in danger, even if she is an elite agent. And he certainly wasn’t expecting to be so attracted to her. As calm and cool as she appears, he knows this can’t be a happy homecoming. Zach wants to protect her—from her mother, the cult, and the evil that lurks behind its locked gates. But Eden is his only key to the tight-lipped group, and she may just be closer to the killer than either one of them suspects…
EXCERPT
“Martha.”
Her mother’s eyes lit up and
she half pushed to her feet. “Eden. I admit, when Abram told me you were back
in town, I could hardly believe it.”
“I’m not back.”
Her smile dimmed, and Eden
called herself an idiot ten times over for wanting to do something to bring it
back. Manipulation, that’s all it is.
Martha motioned to the cups in front of her. “I got your favorite.”
There was nothing else to do
but take the empty seat and get this over with. She took a sip—sweet with lots
of cream—and didn’t bother to tell Martha she’d switched over to drinking her
coffee black a few years back. It would serve no purpose, and her entire goal
was to get out of here with the least conversation possible.
“It’s been a long time.”
She shifted, not sure how to
take the searching look her mother was giving her, as if she was trying to
memorize Eden’s features—or, possibly, was comparing them to the ones she’d had
ten years ago. What was there to say? I
hated the life you created and forced me into, so I left. You won’t change, and
neither will I. This will never be what you want it to be. She couldn’t
force the words past her closed throat, so she took another drink of coffee.
Martha hesitated, and then
mirrored the motion. “A lot is different from when you were last home.”
Not nearly enough, she’d
wager. But if her mother was offering information, she’d be a fool not to get
everything she could from Martha. “Oh?”
“Our community has grown.
It’s flourishing.” She gave a small self-deprecating smile. “But, then, you
didn’t come back to talk about Elysia. How have you been?”
Over the years, she received
phone calls from Abram, demanding information at odd times in that quiet
terrifying way of his. He never asked more than a few questions, and she never
offered more than strictly necessary for those forced check-ins—whatever it
took to get him off her back. She didn’t want to now, either. “I’m still
working for the government.” Safe enough to admit, since her mother already
knew about it.
Sure enough, Martha’s lips
thinned. “The FBI.”
“Using the skills I learned
from you.” She knew better, but she couldn’t help the dig.
“I’m sure I have no idea what
you’re talking about.”
Of course she didn’t. Because
Elysia most certainly wasn’t a cult.
Right. She didn’t roll her eyes, but it was a near thing. “You might like to
pretend otherwise, but I know for a fact that Elysia has been on the FBI watch
lists for years, so you’re not fooling everyone.”
“Eden Magdalene, you might be
a woman grown, but that doesn’t mean you can take that tone of voice with me.”
Or speak too many truths,
apparently. Eden stared at her coffee cup, suddenly exhausted. “I don’t suppose
you know anything about a photograph showing up in my email yesterday?” It had
all the hallmarks of one taken for an official police investigation, but that
didn’t explain how it had found her.
She’d had a friend in the tech department try to trace it, but it had been
routed through several IP addresses before disappearing into the
Internet-ether. Call her paranoid, but her first instinct was that her mother
had something to do with it. How was
the question, though.
Martha cocked her head to the
side, frowning. “I’m not sure what you’re speaking of.”
Of course she wasn’t, though
Eden was at a loss to decide if that was truth or because she didn’t want to
admit to somehow being the leak in a murder investigation. She sighed. “What am
I doing here, Martha? You know very well we couldn’t sit in the same room
without going for each other’s throats when I was eighteen, and it would seem
nothing’s changed since then.”
“I want what I’ve always
wanted, baby. I want you to come home.”
There’s
no home for me to come to, not now. Not ever. No matter how much I wish that
wasn’t true. She cleared her throat. “I—” Think. Think fast. A hard no would just
have Martha digging in her heels, and she wasn’t sure yet if Zach would change
his mind. “I’ll think about it.” The lie rolled off her tongue with the ease of
long practice. She wasn’t going back. She’d set herself on fire before she
willingly walked through the gates of Elysia and put herself under her mother’s
control again. The only reason she was here was to make sure no other girls
turned up dead.
“It would mean so much.”
Martha’s smile brightened, and a traitorous part of Eden brightened in
response. It was how it always was with her mother. She rarely had to take the
stern role when she could manipulate much more effectively with a soft word and
a particular look. And when that wouldn’t work? Well, she wasn’t above getting
her hands dirty, either.
Did
you do it? Did you see that girl killed?
Eden couldn’t ask. The
sheriff had already refused her help, and she’d have to be a special kind of
stupid to go investigating on her own. There was nothing she could do without
the power of the law on her side. If she tried…
Well, if she tried, there
were plenty of unmarked graves in Elysia. What was one more?
New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Katee Robert learned to tell her stories at her grandpa’s knee. She found romance novels at age twelve and it changed her life. When not writing sexy contemporary and speculative fiction romance novels, she spends her time playing imaginary games with her wee ones, driving her husband batty with what-if questions, and planning for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. Connect with Katee at: Website | Facebook | Twitter| GoodReads | Instagram |
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