Emma In The Night by Wendy Walker

 

When Mrs. Martin opened the door, she couldn't believe her eyes.  There stood Cass Tanner, her daughter who had disappeared three years before.  Cass' older sister, Emma, had also disappeared that night and neither had been heard from since.  Cass had been fifteen and Emma seventeen.  Had they run away?  Been kidnapped?  Murdered?  The case had caught national attention and was in the headlines for weeks as reporters and talking heads tore apart their lives. 

The girls lived most of the time with their mother, Judy Martin and her second husband along with his son from his first marriage, Hunter.  Their preference would have been to live with their father and their half brother Witt, but their mother was in control of everyone and easily defeated their father's wishes.  Now Cass is back and she has a story to tell.

Cass says the two girls ran away because Emma was pregnant.  They were helped by an older couple who took them to an island and sheltered them until Emma gave birth.  Then things started to change and the couple took the baby from Emma and kept the sisters on the island where they all had hidden as prisoners.  Cass had found a way to escape and wants nothing more than for Emma and the baby to be found.  But is she telling the whole truth?

There is an obvious motive behind Cass's story and she has reasons for keeping some things to herself.  Their mother, Mrs. Martin, never mom or mother, was a narcissist who had made the girls' lives miserable as she tried to garner every male's attention in her orbit and who controlled the girls' every movement.  Was she the reason Emma got pregnant?  Was there still more of the story to tell?

This was one of the best psychological thrillers I've read.  It was suspenseful and surprising with each chapter having another twist or turn and another secret revealed.  There is a shocking ending that explains everything and that has sent this author to the top of my psychological thriller genre list.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.