The Price of Almost

His sister is missing. Strangers are betting on her return.

Sixteen days after Vada Pritchard disappears, an online market is trading on whether she will be publicly confirmed alive by Sunday. Her brother Ronan has bought in too. Money from an early sale is helping to pay for the search.

Reporter Audra Drayton follows the photographs and sightings that keep hope alive. A false lead takes her back to a broker Vada confronted before she vanished. Then buyers start asking about information Audra hasn't published.

When Vada escapes, the men who held her demand that she lie about what happened. Someone who helped find her is in danger. Even the news that she is alive has become something people will pay to release, delay, or suppress.

Ronan wants to keep his sister safe. Audra needs to find the leak inside the newspaper she trusts. And Vada has to fight for the right to decide how much of her life the public gets to own, while Sunday's deadline draws closer.

A tense psychological crime thriller about a missing woman, a compromised newsroom, and the people who profit when hope becomes a market.

The Price of Almost is the fourth standalone novel in Liminal Thriller. No previous books are required.