The Overnight Guest

by Heather Gudenkauf

What lay before them was no animal. It was a little boy, frozen to the ground.

Less than eight hours later, William and Lynne Doyle were dead, and Ethan and Becky were missing.

If he had run the license plate, he would have seen that Brock Cutter had a suspended license and a bench warrant for a failure to appear for a court date related to a harassment case over in Kossuth County.

Sixty minutes later, Deputy Levi Robbins was summoned to the bloodiest crime scene in Blake County history.

It isn’t the dark you should be afraid of, the girl thought, it’s the monsters who step out into the light that you need to fear.

“The man who is after us will do anything to get us back.”

Homes were supposed to be safe havens, meant to protect. It was supposed to be a shelter from the elements, a fortress to keep out evil, and her home had betrayed Josie in the worst possible way.