{"product_id":"perfect-nightmare-isbn-9780345467324","title":"Perfect Nightmare","description":"\u003cb\u003eIf you open your house to strangers, who knows who might come in. And what they might  be after. Or whom. Now, ponder the unthinkable and surrender to your darkest dread,  as sinister storyteller extraordinaire John Saul weaves a heart-stopping tale of  lurking terror and twisted intent.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Every parent’s nightmare becomes reality for  Kara Marshall when her daughter, Lindsay, vanishes from her bedroom during the night.  The police suspect that the girl is just another moody teenage runaway, angry over  leaving behind her school and friends because her family is moving. But Lindsay’s  recent eerie claim–that someone invaded her room when the house was opened to prospective  buyers–drives Kara to fear the worst: a nameless, faceless stalker has walked the  halls of her home in search of more than a place to live.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Patrick Shields recognizes  Kara’s pain–and carries plenty of his own since he lost his wife and two children  in a devastating house fire. But more than grief draws Patrick and Kara together.  He, too, senses the hand of a malevolent stranger in this tragedy. And as more people  go missing from houses up for sale, Patrick’s suspicion, like Kara’s, blooms into  horrified certainty. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Someone is trolling this peaceful community–undetected and  undeterred–harvesting victims for a purpose no sane mind can fathom. Someone Kara  and Patrick, alone and desperate, are determined to unmask. Someone who is even now  watching, plotting, keeping a demented diary of unspeakable deeds . . . and waiting  until the time is ripe for another fateful visit.Perfect Nightmare is John Saul’s thirty-second novel. His first novel, Suffer the Children, published in 1977, was an immediate million-copy seller. His other bestselling suspense novels include Black Creek Crossing, Midnight Voices, The Manhattan Hunt Club, Nightshade, The Right Hand of Evil, The Presence, Black Lightning, Guardian, and The Homing. He is also the author of the New York Times bestselling serial thriller The Blackstone Chronicles, initially published in six installments but now available in one complete volume. Saul divides his time between Seattle, Washington, and Hawaii.Chapter One\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e      Kara Marshall glanced surreptitiously at her watch and wondered if there  were any way—any tactful way—to get Claire Sollinger to eat just a little  faster. But of course there wasn’t; everyone in Camden Green knew that if  you had lunch with Claire, it was going to be at least a two-hour event.  Not that Kara minded. She and Claire had known each other ever since  Claire had turned up as a volunteer for her project to restore the old  town square to the park it had been before succumbing to the  “modernization” of the post–World War II era when Camden Green, along with  a dozen other towns along the north shore of Long Island, had decided to  pin their future to the automobile and ripped out the old square in favor  of a parking lot. The plan hadn’t worked: ten years after the lot went in,  so did the mall on the southern edge of town, and parking lot or not,  Camden Green’s downtown had gone the way of dozens of others. At least it  had until she and a few of her friends decided to change things, and  organized a committee to rebuild the square in an effort to revitalize the  town.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Claire Shields Sollinger had shown up at that first meeting. A silence  fell over the room when she walked in, for no one expected anyone from the  huge mansions in the Flinders Beach area along the shore to come to the  meeting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Give money, yes. But not come to the meetings, let alone do any actual  work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But there Claire had been, and after looking around at the shocked faces,  she’d raised a sardonic eyebrow and spoken directly to Kara. “It seems my  husband has traded me in for his secretary, which means I have a lot of  time on my hands. I’m a good gardener, and I don’t mind getting my hands  dirty. So how can I help?” By directly confirming the gossip that had been  running through the town for weeks, she utterly disarmed everyone in the  room, and she’d proven as good as her word, showing up at every work party  in the square, helping Kara find (and paying for) a landscape architect to  re-create the square as it had looked decades earlier, and generally  making herself useful. Except that the lunches tended to drag on, and even  after ten years, neither Kara nor anyone else had worked up the courage to  tell Claire Shields Sollinger that they had other things they needed to do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Now, Claire’s head was cocked and she was frowning, and Kara knew she’d  been caught glancing at her watch. “I’m keeping you,” Claire said, making  it a statement rather than a question. As Kara searched for an answer that  wouldn’t be offensive, Claire signaled the waiter for the check. “Haven’t  we known each other long enough for you to tell me when I’m dragging lunch  on too long, Kara?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “You’re not—” Kara began, but Claire cut her off.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Of course I am—I always do. After all, it’s not like I have much else to  do, do I? And it’s all your fault, you know.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “My fault?” Kara echoed. “Claire, what are you talking about?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Your committees,” Claire said as she dropped her credit card on the  waiter’s tray without so much as a glance at the check. “You haven’t  formed a new one in months, and I have to tell you, I’m getting bored. And  when I get bored, I keep everyone at lunch too long.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Kara took a deep breath, deciding she might as well come clean with Claire  now, rather than put it off any longer. “Well, I’m afraid you’re going to  have to start organizing things yourself, then. I have an appointment with  a real-estate agent.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Claire’s eyes widened. “You’re moving?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “To the city. Steve and I just don’t have enough time together, and—” Kara  cut herself off, remembering the circumstances a decade ago that had left  Claire Sollinger with too much time for lunch.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “And you don’t want your marriage to end the way mine did,” Claire  finished for her. “Well, we’ll miss you. At least I will.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Kara tilted her head. “That’s it? Not going to try to talk me out of it?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Claire shook her head. “Not after what happened to me. If you love  Steve—which I know you do—you need to be with him. At least, if he wants  to be with you, which I assume he still does. Unlike Phillip Sollinger.”  The waiter returned with Claire’s credit card, and she added a generous  tip and signed the voucher, still without checking the figures. “What  about Lindsay?” she said as she stood and picked up her purse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “She’ll get used to the idea,” Kara replied. They left the restaurant and  stepped out into the bright spring afternoon. “She’ll have to.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Not necessarily,” Claire said as they walked to the parking lot tucked  well out of sight a block south of the village, which, after a decade of  ministrations by Kara Marshall, Claire Sollinger, and a dozen other women,  now looked much as it had a century earlier. The last trace of “modernism”  had vanished last year when the electric street lamps were replaced with  replicas of the old gas fixtures. “At Lindsay’s age, a year is a long  time, especially when it’s your senior year. I remember when Chrissie—”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Now it was Claire who fell silent, but Kara didn’t finish her thought, as  Claire had finished her own a few minutes ago. It had only been a few  months since her niece died in a fire at the Shields’s ski cabin in  Vermont, and Claire still found it difficult to talk about it. “I’m going  to miss you,” Claire sighed, just as the silence seemed to stretch on too  long. “Anyone else would have tried to find the right thing to say when  there is no right thing to say.” As they came to their cars, Claire laid a  hand on Kara’s arm. “If I can help you out with anything, just call, all  right?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Don’t you think I’ve called you enough over the last ten years?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “That was for the ‘common good,’ ” Claire replied, emphasizing the last  two words just enough to make both women smile. “This is for you. Anything  you need, you just call. Just keeping your house straight so it can be  shown will be a full-time job, and since I hire people to take care of my  own house, I might as well help take care of yours. As long as it’s not  windows.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I’ll keep that in mind,” Kara said. “And thanks.” She got into the car,  started the engine, and pulled out of the lot, but instead of turning left  on the most direct route home, she found herself turning right and driving  through the streets of the town she’d lived in for so many years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The town she’d help to make what it was today.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The trees were leafing out, and the flowers in the square were coming into  bloom. In another month the tourists who had begun discovering Camden  Green over the last few years would begin to wander around the street that  no longer looked like just another Long Island town full of strip malls  and shopping centers, but more like the main street of one of the small  New England villages in rural Vermont or New Hampshire that time seemed to  have forgotten. In a few years, perhaps, it would become overrun with  tourists, and be well on its way to being ruined again. But for right now,  it was exactly what Kara had always wanted it to be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    A charming little town, where everyone got along with everyone else, the  kids didn’t have drug problems, and the streets were safe at night.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The kind of small town that Ronald Reagan had always talked about, but  hardly existed anywhere at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And now she was going to have to leave it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And move to the city.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Kara hated the whole idea of it. Hated having to sell her house, hated  having to find an apartment, hated the thought of moving to the city.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But she knew it had to be done, so she would do it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She and Lindsay both.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And the family would survive.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Lindsay Marshall did her best to control the anger that had been building  in her since breakfast, but even so, she jerked open her locker to throw  her books inside, then slammed it loudly. Her parents were ruining her  life, and until she was eighteen and out of school, she had to do what  they wanted her to do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But it wasn’t fair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    How could her mother have been so casual about it? “I’m meeting with an  agent today,” she’d said, like it was no big deal. “Your father and I are  thinking of selling the house and moving to the city.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Lindsay had stared at her mother in openmouthed astonishment. “Just before  my senior year?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “It’ll be fine,” her mother said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It’ll be fine? It’ll be fine? Lindsay hadn’t been able to think of  anything else all day. The phrase kept going through her head and she  couldn’t stop it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It’ll be fine. Life as she knew it was about to be ripped out from  underneath her, and no matter what her mother said, it would not be fine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Now she sat on the bench in the locker room, adjusting her sports bra and  putting on her white socks and Nikes, unable even to listen to the rest of  the girls. Their chatter usually cheered her up, but today it seemed  totally frivolous in the face of the disaster that had struck at breakfast.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Hey, Linds.” Dawn D’Angelo opened the locker next to hers, threw her  backpack inside, and pulled out her practice clothes. Dawn’s big chestnut  eyes—the same color as her long wavy hair—were a perfect contrast to  Lindsay’s blue eyes and blond hair. But though the two girls had opposite  coloring, that was the end of their differences—they’d been best friends  since kindergarten.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Hey,” Lindsay sighed, making no attempt to mask her mood from Dawn.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    One of Dawn’s brows lifted. “What’s up with you? You feeling all right?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I’m okay.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Dawn looked doubtful. “I hope it isn’t the flu. My brother’s got it. He  puked all last night.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Not the flu,” Lindsay said as she finished lacing up her shoes. The  coach’s whistle blew from the gym, and she lifted herself off the bench to  follow the rest of the cheerleaders out of the locker room, eager to work  off some of her anger.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The varsity squad was just back from Florida, where they’d come in second  in the regional championships held at Daytona. Until this morning, Lindsay  had dreamed of being on that team next year.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Now that was simply not going to happen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Inside her head, the endlessly repeating chorus of It’ll be fine turned  into What’s the use? and her anger dissolved into hopelessness. In another  two weeks the graduating cheerleaders would choose next year’s squad  and—most important—name the head cheerleader, but what did it matter now?  Even if she performed perfectly today, with the entire varsity squad  watching, it wouldn’t matter. Her dream of trading in her black JV uniform  for the red varsity uniform had been thoroughly crushed at breakfast this  morning.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Her mother had been a cheerleader—she should understand how important this  was! How could she have been so casual about it? Like it just didn’t  matter?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Lindsay tried to concentrate on the exercises, but kept losing count and  getting off rhythm. Even worse, she was finding it impossible to finish  with the grand gesture and big smile that was as important as the stunts  themselves. Smile, girls, the coach always said. This isn’t just a  cheerleading practice, it’s smile practice, too!New York Times bestseller; Author of Black Creek Crossing","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304172310757,"sku":"NP9780345467324","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345467324.jpg?v=1767734656","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/perfect-nightmare-isbn-9780345467324","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}