THE AFTERLINE BUREAU

A missing child. A ticking clock. A predator who measures life in minutes.
The Afterline Bureau returns in their most haunting case yet.

When ten-year-old Amelia Brock vanishes on her walk home, a countdown timer appears on her bed-marking exactly 72 hours until the next child disappears. For Danielle "D.C." Carter and Tahlia Greene, it's the signature of one man: Quentin Summers, a disgraced paramedic obsessed with "last-hour survival." Each abduction is a test. Each test ends the same way.

Unless the Bureau can break his pattern.

As the investigation widens, Carter and her team-Bria Collier, Zariah Peoples, Tessa Nguyen, Niko Tanaka, Kendra Sawyer, and Naomi Pike-push through abandoned train yards, flooded reservoirs, and the darkest corners of Summers' past. Joining them are three new specialists:
Detective Malik Hunter, missing-persons expert;
Lila St. James, forensic audio prodigy;
and Dr. Rhea Mendez, child trauma psychologist with a zero-bullshit approach.

But when Summers doubles his ritual and takes three children at once, the Bureau descends into a subterranean maze where every minute counts-and every mistake costs a life.

What they rescue in the dark will change the Bureau forever...
especially the unnamed boy who chooses Carter as his only safe place.

With Summers in custody and the children finally free, the Bureau faces one final turning point:
Omar Rafiq's quiet retirement-and a new case calling them back into the fire.

Raw, emotional, and grounded in reality, The Lost Hours delivers the strongest Afterline Bureau thriller yet-where survival isn't measured by strength, but by who refuses to let go.