The Last Innocent Face: A Romance Suspense Novel (The Then & Now Novels)

Thirty-five years ago, Ricky Kane walked away from the girl on the porch and into a prison cell. He was guilty. He served twenty-two years. He came home as Idris Kane and built Open Gate, a reentry house in the high desert where men coming home get a real bed and a second chance.

Now a young man from his program has vanished, his car abandoned off a desert road with an old gang tag sprayed on the hood. Money is missing from the County contract. And the auditor who walks into his lobby the next morning is Simone Avery: the girl from the porch, whose letters he stopped answering in 1993 without ever telling her why.

Simone has spent her career finding the line that doesn't fit. Idris has spent his life keeping one name out of his mouth. As the evidence leads to a fire, a frame-up and the powerful developer who once called Idris his brother, the only way to save the woman he never stopped loving is to tell the whole truth, whatever it costs him.

A story of guilt, redemption and a love that waited thirty-five years for the porch light to still be on.