The Fear That Chases Me: K-9 Search and Rescue Book 2

Some fears keep you safe. Others keep you small. And one has been chasing Jessica Chamberlain her whole life.

Private investigator and K-9 search-and-rescue handler Jess Chamberlain thought moving to Virginia's Tidewater region with her German shepherd Luke would give her the fresh start she desperately needed. New clients. New SAR team. New distance between herself and the people who know her too well.

What she gets instead is a deep dive and a case that should have been simple.

A grieving man believes his brother's suicide was staged. The evidence Jess uncovers points to the brother's seductive widow and a detective with something to hide. But when Jess gets close enough to the truth to matter, someone runs her off a rain-soaked road in the dark. Luke is injured. Her evidence-containing camera disappears. And weeks later, her house burns to the ground while she and Luke are out on a search.

Homeless, nearly broke, and living in a by-the-week motel, Jess is running out of options. She is also running out of excuses to ignore the dying woman who wants to hire her.

Miss Lottie Thomas has terminal cancer, an empty refrigerator, and one prayer she has carried for twenty years: that someone would find her daughter Tamara, who vanished without a trace on September 9, 2001, two days before the 9/11 attacks that killed Jess's father.

Jess knows better than to take a case this cold. She takes it anyway.

When a wealthy and charming Norfolk real estate developer hires Jess to locate his missing wife, all three cases begin moving toward the same terrible destination. Is the missing wife Tamara? Is the "loving husband" a kidnapper and abuser?

The trail leads Jess north along Virginia's Eastern Shore, through a wildlife refuge, and into the path of a hurricane that has just shifted west. In the flooded darkness of Assateague Island, chasing the runaway wife, Jess is stabbed and left for dead. The only witnesses are a herd of wild ponies.

And something else. Something she cannot explain but will never forget.

What readers will find inside:

A fast-paced Christian suspense thriller that doesn't slow down once it starts;

A fully realized cast of characters, including the unforgettable Nate Tanner, Jess's one-legged SAR mentor and spiritual anchor and FBI agent Scott Cooper, whose own trauma from a mass shooting incident has left him searching for answers he wasn't trained to find;

A partnership between Jess and her German shepherd Luke that drives the story forward and makes the SAR world feel completely authentic. And running underneath all of it, a question that refuses to stay quiet: what happens when perfect love meets a woman who has spent her entire life learning how to run?

Themes include: domestic abuse and coercive control, grief and loss, PTSD recovery, faith under pressure, the healing power of animals, and the courage required to stop protecting yourself long enough to let someone in.

Perfect for fans of: DiAnn Mills, Terri Blackstock, Dee Henderson, Lisa Harris, and Lynette Eason. If you love suspense novels featuring strong female protagonists, authentic K-9 and search-and-rescue detail, romantic tension with integrity, and a faith thread that earns its place in the story rather than sitting on top of it, this book was written for you.

The Fear That Chases Me is Book 2 in the K-9 Search and Rescue series. It can be read as a standalone novel, though readers who begin with Book 1, All That I Dread, will have a richer understanding of Jess, Nate, and the world they share.

The fear that has been chasing her is about to catch up. That will change everything.