Sun Shy

When aging widower Harold Higgins took in a battered young woman named Lori, he saw a chance to change his life and save hers. But when Harold wakes up in a dry stream bed, bound with barbed wire and finding Lori gone, his life descends down a dark trail peopled with drug dealers, abusers and psychopaths who stand between him and the woman he thought he’d already saved. Sun Shy is set in the rural town of Rochford, Montana. Harold Higgins had lived alone for over twenty years after the death of his wife, sinking further into the alcoholic lifestyle that precipitated her suicide. Harold was shunned by the townspeople, who believed that he had had a hand in his wife’s death. Living in solitude in a cabin on the outskirts of town, Harold was content to watch his remaining days slide away in a haze. When Harold stumbles across Lori Coughlin in the woods near his house, he sees that she has been horribly beaten. She tells him that her boyfriend, Jason, inflicted the wounds. Harold and Lori become fast friends, and later, when she shows up with more bruises, Harold insists that she move in with him. Not long after the move Harold wakes up in a dry stream bed, badly beaten and with his eyes injured and horribly sensitive to light. After escaping his bonds he returns home to find Lori gone. Harold takes it upon himself to locate her (not trusting the police, who were never totally satisfied that he didn’t kill his wife), and the only lead he has is Jason, the abusive ex-boyfriend. But when Harold finds out that Jason wasn’t the one beating Lori, they will have to team up to track down her real abductor, a shadowy man with ties to Harold’s past.