Michelle Apperton, an Australian working on an island in New Zealand’s rugged Marlborough Sounds, did not have any choice about relinquishing her freedom
An Australian graduate, Michelle Apperton, disappears while working on a conservation assessment of two islands in New Zealand’s rugged Marlborough Sounds. Ben Arthur, a New Zealand university lecturer, has to defend his innocence of any crime and convince the police she was abducted by tuatara smugglers.
Michelle’s nightmare is just beginning. She finds out she will be a consolation prize for a visiting Singaporean collector of rare and endangered wildlife, and that she will be murdered by the smugglers once he leaves their Wairarapa farm.
Frustrated in every desperate attempt to resist her captors, her only hope of survival lies with Keith Shandler, an ex-con, but his help has a price.
Ben, quite prepared to risk his life for Michelle, follows a lead to her whereabouts, but by then she is on the run with Keith. Pursued, Keith makes a succession of fateful decisions that lead to he and Michelle becoming trapped on a Cook Strait ferry.
One life will be forfeit, and the other will never be the same.