A boy is taken.

A family is taunted.

And the clock is running out…

A boy vanishes from a park at dusk, and the phone starts to ring. But the voice on the other end doesn't want money. Is it all just a sick tease?

Christmas in Austin turns cold and cruel at the same time. The family at the center of it is a house of mirrors—every person grieving, every person lying, and not one story that survives a second telling.

Alex has her sister Ivy beside her, an expert at finding lost children. But Ivy is unraveling by the hour. Whatever she buried twelve years ago is clawing its way out—and it will cut deeper than anything the kidnappers can do.

Across town, Ozzie is closing in on a thief. Ozzie's new partner knows the black market cold, and she leads him straight to a legend—the man behind one of the most notorious heists in American history. But it takes a thief to know a thief. Ozzie learns that the hard way. And when he finally gets his suspect in the crosshairs, the man hands him the last thing he expected: a way to save the boy.

The hours bleed away. Every answer opens a worse door. But when the real demand finally lands, it lands with an impossible deadline and the cold certainty that paying it changes nothing.

Alex will get to the truth in time.

But nothing will prepare her for the final, shocking act.

DEAD RINGER is a chilling, twisty, holiday thriller about the lies families bury to survive—and the ultimate price one boy is forced to pay.

Dead Ringer is book 8 in the Alex & Ozzie, Dark Horizon Series, and can be read as a standalone book.