When Molly Clarke was driving home after a long day, thinking over how her family had been indifferent to her, at best, and cruel, at worst, she wasn’t paying all that much attention to how much gas she had. But she had been determined to drive home, despite the coming storm. She was just trying to make it to the Gas’N’Go before her car gave out, but she didn’t quite make it.

The previous night, her husband had pretended to be asleep when she’d come up to bed. He couldn’t even talk to her. That morning, she’d gotten into an argument with her oldest daughter Nicole. Words were said, words designed to make Molly feel small and hurt. It had worked. Then, when Molly had driven all the way to her son’s boarding school to watch his game, he’d acted like he hadn’t even seen her, turning away to go to the locker room with his friends.

So it’s understandable that she’d been too distracted to notice her gas gauge. But Molly made it to the side of the road, only about 30 feet from the gas station. And the rain was only starting, so she could run along the highway and get there all right. But when she does, she finds the station closed down for the storm. Molly doesn’t know what to do. And then she sees the headlights.

A man and his young daughter in a truck stop to check on her. He offers her a ride to the local inn, so she gets in the car. But as soon as he hits the door locks, Molly starts to feel uneasy. Even when his 9-year-old daughter Alice talks to her and tries to put her at ease, Molly still feels in her gut that something is wrong.

Nicole gets a phone call from a woman in Hastings, the small town where Molly’s car had been found almost 2 weeks ago. Nicole had spent several days there after her mother had gone missing, searching the empty fields with the police and the volunteers from the town, but there had been no sign of her. Then, something was found in a local hotel room—the clothes Molly had been wearing that night. The room had ben charged to her credit card. There was also a note. Molly asked her family to let her go, not to look for her.

The police figured she’d walked away from her family, from her life, from the guilt that had been eating her alive ever since the car accident that had killed her youngest daughter and split the family apart.

But Nicole couldn’t believe her mother would do that. She had to keep looking. She had to check every potential clue, every crazy who had called in a tip, looking to get a piece of the reward money. But the harder she looks, the more questions she has. The more people in town she talks to, the more lies she is told. Will she be able to uncover the truth in time to save her mother, or at least, to save herself?

Wendy Walker’s latest thriller, Don’t Look for Me, is a chilling story of a family’s disintegration, a mother’s disappearance, and a daughter’s determination to find the truth. It’s a story of strong women and the lengths they would go for their family.

I struggled with this one. There is one story line that was particularly difficult for me to read about, so I resisted. But at the same time, I kept getting drawn further and further into the story, into the characters, and I couldn’t stop until I got to the end. The end makes it all worth it, but it’s a troubling journey to get there. Don’t Look for Me is not for the feint of heart!

Egalleys for Don’t Look for Me were provided by St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley, with many thanks.