Philadelphia, PA—1997

It was nearly nine in the evening when I got the call. I’d been sitting by the pool, on the veranda of our Tudor Revival home in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia, sipping my third gin and tonic and sucking on a cigarette, when Thomas finally rang.

“I’ve lost her,” he said. “She just…disappeared.”

Sniveling idiot, I thought. I’d paid him thousands of dollars to track my sixteen-year-old daughter Kelsey across the United States only to have him lose her in a little hole in the universe called Nihla, New Mexico. Who’d ever even heard of Nihla anyway?

I stubbed out my cigarette, stood up, and walked to the water’s edge. The pool, a multi-tiered monstrosity large enough to service a community center—my late husband’s idea, not mine—rippled in the moonlight. I heard laughter coming from a neighbor’s yard, and I smelled the remnants of someone’s barbeque. Warmer weather brought people together—except in our house. I glanced around at the historic mansion, the manicured gardens, the damn pool. Why would she have wanted to leave all of this?

I could hear my private investigator breathing on the other end of the line. Finally, Thomas said, “What do you want me to do, Mrs. Foster?”

What could he do? He knew as well as I did that if Kelsey wanted to be invisible, she would be invisible. Kelsey always got what she wanted, and if she didn’t, she made everyone around her suffer. When she’d first threatened to run away, I told her I would disown her if she left. She didn’t care—she went anyway. I had no doubt she knew she was being followed, but for Kelsey, that would have been half the fun. I could picture her perfect little mouth grinning in delight every time she slept with a man or got stoned or created some big, ugly scene. She lived to torture me, and she would relish the reports Thomas would send back to Pennsylvania.

But now she’d vanished. In Nihla, of all places.

I adjusted the cordless phone, holding it between my shoulder and cheek while I lit another cigarette. “Keep searching.”

“There’s more,” Thomas said.

I waited.

“There have been some abductions in and around Nihla. Even some…murders. Young women. Girls Kelsey’s age.”

I inhaled, then released the smoke in concentric rings, watching the gray dissipate into the night air. “Are you saying you think my daughter could be a victim?” The words felt odd in my mouth. Kelsey as a victim? All those children leaving our home in tears, never to return. The irate calls from her private school, the house staff who left without explanation. My Kelsey was the doer, not the victim. How the tides may have turned.

“I’m saying the timing doesn’t look good, Mrs. Foster.” He hesitated. “What do you want me to do?”

I smashed my cigarette into the crystal ashtray. “Send me everything you have. Then stop searching. You’re done.”

“I’m sorry I lost her—”

I clicked off the phone. I’d leave for New Mexico in the morning. If Kelsey was playing a game of hide and seek with me, I’d find her. I’d win this time. And if she was the victim of some psychopath, I’d find him. I should have followed Kelsey myself in the first place. Leave it to a woman to get the job done.

I started to head back inside when the cascading pool water caught my eye. Such excess. I’d grown up poor. My family hadn’t owned so much as a plastic kiddie pool, the kind you can buy at Kmart for less than ten bucks. This pool had custom mosaic tiles, a swim-up bar, a center heated spa with colored lights, even a waterfall. How could my daughter have walked away from all of this?

And even more maddening—how did she have the audacity to simply disappear?

Little Red House
Genre: Domestic Thriller
Release: December 2022
Purchase Link

Twenty years isn’t enough to erase the sins of the past—but the future is even more terrifying in this thrilling read perfect for fans of Megan Collins and Julia Heaberlin.

In 1997, Eve Foster’s daughter, Kelsey, runs away to New Mexico and vanishes without a trace. Eve is convinced that she’s the victim of a serial killer who’s been hunting women in the region—but Kelsey’s body is never found.

Years later, Eve dies, leaving everything to her adopted twin daughters. The majority of the wealthy estate in Vermont goes to Lisa, the “good daughter,” while Connie inherits only a small stipend and a property in New Mexico. Connie, often the target of Eve’s cruelty, suspects this was another of her mother’s vindictive games.

Connie arrives in New Mexico to find a small, dilapidated red house in the desert, and the home’s mysterious caretaker, Jet Montgomery, living in a shack on the property. She learns there’s been a string of women murdered in the area—murders that no one will talk about.

About the author
Liv Andersson is an author, lawyer, and former therapist whose background inspires her thrillers and mysteries. As Liv Andersson, she writes thrillers, including Little Red House. As Wendy Tyson, she is the author of several mystery series, including the Amazon-bestselling Greenhouse Mystery Series, and her short fiction has appeared in literary journals and crime anthologies. Originally from the Philadelphia area, Liv lives in the Green Mountains of Vermont with her husband, sons, and three dogs.

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GIVEAWAY: Liv has generously offered to give away one print copy of Little Red House. To enter, please leave a comment below. One entry per person and the giveaway is limited to U.S. residents only. Giveaway ends December 19, 2022. Good luck everyone!