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Informationen zum Autor Karen Robards is the New York Times , USA TODAY , and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of more than fifty books and one novella. Karen published her first novel at age twenty-four and has won multiple awards throughout her career, including six Silver Pens for favorite author. Karen was described by The Daily Mail as “one of the most reliable thriller...writers in the world.” She is the mother of three boys and lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Klappentext THE ELECTRIFYING NATIONAL BESTSELLER PARADISE COUNTY Left bankrupt after her billionaire father's sudden death, Alexandra Haywood returns to Shelby County, Kentucky -- that bit of Southern splendor known as Paradise County -- to sell the family's magnicent horse farm. Part of her mission is to re Joe Welch, the sexy, stubborn farm manager who worked hard for the Haywoods while raising his children. But Joe refuses to be red, and he and Alex clash. They also fall for each other -- hard. Just as their attraction ares, a shocking murder with ties to the past rocks the county -- and cuts close to home when Joe's teenage son, Eli, and Alex's wild-spirited younger sister, Neely, vanish. Now, the evil that lurks beneath Paradise County raises its gruesome head -- and Alex is targeted as the next victim. Chapter One The instant he stepped inside the dark barn, Joe Welch knew he'd found the source of his urgent sense that something was wrong. Someone was in the barn. Someone who had no business being there. The thoroughbreds were restless, moving agitatedly about in their stalls, not quiet like they should be so late at night. One -- he thought it was Suleimann -- whinnied to him softly. There was an indefinable heaviness in the air: the weight of an unseen presence. He could feel it, tangible as the scent of smoke that still lingered outside from the burning of a pile of brush that afternoon. Standing in the rectangle of moonlight that streamed through the wide door he had just rolled partly open, squinting down the long row of stalls, Joe searched the shadows for an intruder. At the same time, his fingers slid along the sanded-smooth planks, groping for the light switch. He found it, flipped it -- and nothing happened. Figured. The lights were out, which wasn't all that unusual. The wind had been up earlier, and sometimes, out here in the county, that was all it took to knock down a power line. Or maybe a fuse was blown. That happened sometimes too, when too many lights were turned on at once. Lots of lights were on up at the Big House tonight; he'd seen them as he'd walked across the field. So it was probably a fuse. Damn. His gaze continued to search the darkness as his hand dropped to his side. After a moment he found what he was seeking: a darker, denser, human-shaped shadow that seemed to be sitting on the soft raked sawdust of the floor. The figure's back rested against the left-side wall. Its legs were stretched straight out in front of it, solid black logs against the pale umber of the sawdust. In the darkness, Joe might have missed it entirely, except that it was the one shadow that remained motionless amid all the other shadows that shifted and danced just beyond the reach of the moonlight. Suleimann -- he was sure it was the big roan now -- called to him again, anxiously. "You there! Identify yourself, please!" His challenge was peremptory, but not altogether rude, on the off-chance that it might be his employer or one of his employer's guests sitting there on the ground. No answer. No movement. Nothing. Joe took a deep breath, steadying himself as his muscles tensed. Billionaires and their pals didn't sit in barn shavings as a general rule, so he thought he could pretty much rule out that possibility. Which left -- what? A couple of these horses had been purchased just a few months before at Keeneland's July sale fo...
