Someone Else’s Daughter

Book Cover: Someone Else's Daughter

Her husband stole her baby, beat her up, and tossed her out in the snow.

She hunted for her daughter for years.

She came to Atlanta on a vague clue and instead found the dead body of a girl.

Is it her long lost daughter?

Find out now.

Also in audiobook.

Excerpt:

Some women sit around in bars after they get dumped, complaining about the jerks who treated them like yesterday’s dog squeeze. Miranda Steele didn’t go to bars. She didn’t have friends to complain to. But she did have the dog squeeze beat out of her regularly by the jerk she was married to.

That was until one cold wintry day when the jerk decided to dump her and throw her out in the snow.

From the floor where Leon had left her, Miranda lifted a shaky hand to her mouth to stop the blood oozing from her cut lip. “What are you doing?”

“What I should have done the night your bastard was conceived. What I’ve wanted to do for months.” His voice shook with quiet rage.

He jammed the suitcase shut, grabbed her by the wrist again and dragged her back downstairs.

“What are you doing?” Miranda screamed the words this time, as he wrestled the front door open.

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“Purging my house.” He hurled the suitcase into the snow on the front yard. It broke open and her clothes tumbled onto the snowy grass. Then he gave her a hard shove.

She stumbled outside onto the cold concrete porch. Her feet were bare. She was still in her bathrobe.

“Leon,” she begged. “Let me back in. What will the neighbors think?”

“They’re at work. Besides, no one cares about you. They know what you are.” He pushed her again.

She staggered off the stoop and landed with a hard thud on the ground next to her clothes.

He grabbed her purse from a chair and tossed it into the snow beside her. “Take this and go, Miranda. Go away from me.” His voice shook with dark rage. “I never want to see your face again.” He turned and slammed the door so hard, it made her eardrums vibrate. She heard him turn the key.

Her chest heaving, she tried to catch her breath. As she sat on her bruised butt in her front yard in Oak Park, Illinois, dressed in only her PJs and bathrobe, staring up at the cheery, pink stucco two-story she’d lived in for seven years, Miranda didn’t wonder whether her “Lord and Master” had beaten her up and chucked her out because she hadn’t gotten the crease in his police uniform just right. Or because she’d mouthed off when he’d complained his steak was a bit singed last night.

She knew exactly why he’d done it. She had dared to lunge at the great, the powerful, the all-holy Leon Groth, with her nails bared.

And why had she done that? Not because he’d said she was stupid. Not because he’d called her a filthy whore. Not because he’d told her she was tainted, ruined. She was used to that.

Because early this morning, he’d snuck out of the house with her three-week-old daughter and given her up for adoption.

Adoption.

“Don’t worry. They assured me she’d go to a good home. A family who’ll never know her true origin. I’m not a monster, after all.”

Amy. Her baby.

How had Leon pulled it off? He must have forged Miranda’s signature on whatever documents he needed. As a cop, he was connected. He had friends on the force who’d turn a blind eye for a favor owed. He knew court clerks, judges.

The cold seeped into Miranda’s bones. Angry tears welled up in her throat. Amy. Her baby.

Get her back. I want her back.

She’s gone, Miranda. They took her away and neither of us will ever know where she went. You’ll never find her again.

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