Synopsis:  Checked is the first book in a new trilogy.

Callie spends countless hours staring at appliances to make sure they are really unplugged. She wastes obscene amounts of time checking for murderers in various corners of her house and entire sleepless nights performing pointless checking rituals. Then every spare minute is filled with inspecting doorknobs, chairs, floors, etc. for minuscule traces of germs. Oh, and she does all of this as she counts to three over and over again in her head. She does this every day. Without fail. Dr. Blake just doesn’t fit into her schedule. Until he does. Until Callie begins to trust him. Until she starts to need him. And want him. And . . .

Excerpt:

“Calista.” That quiet voice pulls me around yet again.

I freeze. He’s looking at me. Sorrowful eyes…heavy…inconsolable. A tragedy in blue.

I can’t look away. I begin to feel a dull ache in my left side. {Damien Rice fills my head with “The Blower’s Daughter.”}

His eyes hold mine. They are relentless. The sharpening pain in my side weighs me down, cementing my shoes to their place on the floor. My lips part slightly as my body tries to remember to breathe.

In slow motion almost, he releases me, closing his eyes and clenching them shut. The blue eyes that open back up to me are hard, stony.

He swiftly spins his chair to grab the box of tissues on his bookshelf. Without meeting my eyes, he turns back around and holds the box out to me.

“To help you out of here,” he says in an almost inaudible voice. What?

“Th-thank you,” I stammer. I clutch my purse and take six slow steps toward his desk. Three steps at a time. One two three. One two three.

He stares past me, blankly looking at the door. I pull three white tissues from the box he’s holding and turn back to his point of focus. When I get to the silver doorknob, I quickly cover it with the three tissues spread out in my left hand.

And I’m out.

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