Secrets to the grave - Tami Hoag

When Marissa Fordham, a reclusive artist, is found brutally murdered, the town of Oak Knoll is horrified. Left to rot, the body might not have been found for days but for a call to 911: a child's voice saying 'Daddy hurt me'.

The police find Marissa on her kitchen floor, her body slashed and mutilated. Lying with her head on her mother's bloody breast is Fordham's four-year-old daughter, Haley, barely clinging to life herself.

To protect their fragile witness, the police call in Anne Leone, child advocate. Anne not only works in the justice system, she's about to become star witness in the trial of the man who tried to make her his fourth victim in the See-No-Evil murders. As soon as Anne sees little Haley, alone and terrified, her heart is hers.

But it will be no easy task to unravel the secrets of Haley's young life or those of her mother. Haley is a deeply traumatised little girl. Meanwhile, the cops begin to peel back the layers of Marissa Fordham's life only to discover that she seems never to have officially existed.

It looks as if Marissa Fordham may take her secrets to the grave until one loose thread begins to unravel the shroud of lies to reveal a truth more terrible than anyone could have imagined. A truth that will put Anne and Haley directly in the sights of a killer.