The Ninth Step [Paperback]

Is it true what they say? That we’re only as sick as our worst secret? Because Helen Patrice has one. Last night, she murdered a stranger…

Helen is a recovering alcoholic struggling through a twelve-step program. Now it’s time to make amends for a crime she got away with—a hit and run accident that killed the wife of school teacher Edgar Woolrich. It’s time to face the consequences. When she finally gathers the courage to meet him, the ninth step begins with a lie—the first of many as their relationship grows, and Helen knows it’s far too late to reveal the truth to a man she’s come to love. Then one day, she receives an anonymous note: Does he know you killed his wife?

Now her devastating trail of deceit is about to lead her into the darkest place so far—that of other people’s secrets…Praise for Grant Jerkins

“[Jerkins is] determined to peer into the darkness and tell us exactly what he sees.” —The Washington Post

“Jerkins’s stylish prose and rich characters set him apart.”—Ridley Pearson

“Masterfully Hitchcockian…Brilliant and brutal…Endlessly fascinating.” —Savannah Morning News

“[A] stylish...thriller.”—The New York Times Book ReviewGrant Jerkins lives with his wife and son in the Atlanta area.

1

Goth was over

At two thirty in the afternoon, while teaching his last class of the day, ninth-grade geometry teacher Edgar Woolrich was thinking about the online auction that ended that night. The listing was for a vintl3Ž