Excerpt & Giveaway: Three Steps Behind (Jeopardy Falls #3) by Dani Pettrey
Book Details:
Genre: Romantic Suspense; Thriller; Action & Adventure
Published by: Bethany House Publishers
Publication Date: September 15, 2026
Number of Pages: 288, Paperback
ISBN: 9780764238505 (ISBN10: 0764238507)
Series: Jeopardy Falls, Book 3
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A suspicious death. A desperate search for truth. With danger hovering, can they uncover the killer's plan?
Private Investigator Deckard MacLeod is thrilled when Harper Grace returns from her humanitarian trip overseas. It's been three months since he's seen her, but when she shows up on his front porch haggard, with a desolate look in her eyes, he knows something has gone very wrong.
Harper, a forensic botanist, needs refuge, and that can only be found with Deckard, who is a protector at heart. But after what she's endured, how can she possibly move forward with a relationship? Deck deserves someone whole, someone present, and her mind is still imprisoned in that desolate land.
She's barely set foot on Deck's ranch when news comes that her dear friend died suddenly. A heart attack in her early thirties? Something feels very off. As clues surface and suspects become evident, Harper trusts her gut to lead her and Deckard forward, but the closer they come to the truth, the closer they get to death. And if they aren't careful, it'll be their own. . . .
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DECEMBER 19
HARPER SLIPPED INTO THE DARKNESS of the rusty shipping container, praying they wouldn’t come, but knowing she was next. Five days and counting. Twenty-two people all gone, save her.
Gunfire echoed through her mind—single shots popping in succession. Never ending. Wailing and pleading had rent the stale night air, but there had been no mercy. None.
Others went by silent measures. Necks slit or torture taken too far. Whimpers had radiated through the metal box before each person was yanked screaming from it, never to return.
Her fate was sealed, and it broke her. God had forsaken her in this godless country. She would die in a land of ghosts. So much death—it rose in the air thick and putrid.
Mounds of fresh basalt littered the harsh scrubland, black volcanic dirt attempting to cover death, but it only showed more. Open pits, not yet full, held bodies tossed asunder. Legs and arms askew.
The stench of death blanketed them—saturating the fibers of their clothes, sticking to their skin like thick lotion. It consumed the abandoned village, seeped between the broken-down trucks and crumbling walls. No more laughter filled the empty homes, no more families together, no more living.
And she was next to be dumped into a gaping hole.
Pain pulsed through her bruises. Her head, jaw, and side—all mottled in black and purple. All from beatings that had stolen her breath, penetrating deep into her marrow. With each kick, each club cracking against bone, she’d feared she wouldn’t survive, but she had—so far. For what? To be tortured and tossed away, becoming one of the faceless. Nameless. No grave marker. No funeral. Just another unknown ghost in this barren Syrian hill country.
Cruel laughter echoed in the dank night air as rain thundered on the metal roof. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around her waist—trying to protect herself from the coming death. But there was no protection. No one to save her. No way to save herself.
The laughter grew louder, bouncing off the walls. The door creaked open and a man—the source of her bruises—smiled wide. The lighted poles silhouetted his husky form, framing him in a halo of light, but he was no angel. Quite the opposite. She’d been left to the demons.
“You’re next, American eahira,” he slurred.
She winced. Drunk again. The worst of the beatings had come then. The desire to holler back “I’m not a whore” rose in her chest, but he’d only beat her worse.
“I’ll miss our time together.” The words ran together, but she still heard the merciless lilt of laughter under his ripe breath.
With one last laugh on a belch, he turned and slid the creaking door back, shutting her in darkness—nearly. The door stopped an inch short. A minuscule shaft of light beamed across the excrement-covered floor.
Hope rose inside. Hope. Something nonexistent for the last five days.
Would the shaft of light remain? Was he so stumbling drunk he’d missed sealing her in the coffin?
Her breath held thick in her chest. She counted the seconds, hope rising.
The inch remained.
Tiptoeing toward the door, she paused at the opening, her breath bursting in her lungs.
She braved a glance through the tiny slit. Rain, so thick it marred the land, bounced off the ground. Puddles dotted the barren hill. No cover. Her hope faltered.
The man—if a human term could be used for the swine—was not in sight.
This was her chance—her only chance. If caught, she’d die, but she was about to die anyway. Better to be shot in the back, racing for freedom, than die by torture for nothing she had to give.
She slid the door open another inch. Singing in Arabic over-powered the sound of gushing rain. She inched the door a bit wider and held again—her heart hitting the wall of her chest so hard she feared he’d hear and come running, but the singing grew distant.
Inch by inch she slid the door open. Almost enough to slip through.
A creak echoed.
Save me, Lord! she prayed to the God who’d abandoned her. Rain thudded, thunder cracking.
The man didn’t come.
Her lungs begged for air, but she refused to gasp—to make any noise. Lights gleamed in the distance, their shape marred by the rain into glowing balls. She crept out, then slithered her way to the side of the container.
You can do this. You have no choice. Die now or die worse.
Her chest squeezed tight. She struggled for air, her body trembling.
Peering around the edge of the metal box, she spotted the man standing past the last light, peeing with his back to her.
Crouching low, she headed over the barren landscape—the thin scrub good only for noise if she stepped on it.
Once beyond the edge of the camp, she broke into a run, her weak legs seeming to move without her control as if God were carrying her. But it must be the fear driving her forward.
Cold rain soaked through her ripped pajamas, sticking to her skin.
Was she free? Hope radiated through the fear—the two sparring for control.
The ground shifted beneath her feet, tossing her forward. Her chin collided with the loose stones, her body splayed out.
Noise emanated behind her, and light swathed the hill. A high holler rent the sage-infused air.
He was coming.
Scrambling to her feet, she pushed her body beyond its limits—barreling forward and tripping over crinkling scrub.
Light passed by again, and she hit the ground. Thorns scraped her face, tearing her bruised skin. She bit back a yelp.
The light bounced farther away, sweeping a dozen yards to her right.
Getting to her knees, she pulled the thorns from her bloody palms and crawled forward, skittering like a bug over rippling water.
Voices joined his—Arabic filling the hill.
Don’t stop. Push past the pain. Freedom lies ahead.
Adrenaline burned her limbs, the mud-slick ground slipping beneath her.
Time evaporated and somehow stalled at the same time. Was she even making forward progress?
Flashlights shone near her as she hit a grove of olive trees.
Cover. Thankfulness rippled inside.
Low walls—crumbling but freestanding—covered the land as far as she could see in the thick streaking rain and mist rising from the ground.
She bolted through the copse and tangled vines—one grabbing her hair and tugging her back. No. No. No.
Voices grew closer.
She tugged her hair, the vine refusing to let it go. Yanking hard, she broke free—a clump of wet hair remaining in the mass of vines.
Dogs barked in the distance.
She squeezed her eyes shut for the briefest moment—a flash of dogs devouring her skin passed through her mind. Blinking and sweeping away the rain clinging to her lashes, clouding her vision, she broke into a run, tumbling down into the valley below.
Reeds towered over her. “Thank you,” she murmured out of habit. How could she thank the God who’d allowed men to rip her from her bed in the middle of night—tearing her from safety and pummeling her with their fists, then throwing her into a container to wait to die?
A reed shifted, rustling. She powered forward, her feet hitting a narrow stream. Icy water swirled around her ankles as she slipped deeper into the surging water of the Yarmouk River gorge. Adrenaline infused her exhausted limbs.
Safety—if she could make it—lay on the other side.
Howling pierced the air, rising over the gurgle of the raging river, as she plunged deeper still into its seemingly never-ending depths. The freezing water pricked at every part of her, stealing what breath remained in her lungs. Flailing her arms, she worked to burst free of the swift current’s icy grip. The other side lay so near.
Reach it and you’re safe.
Grappling forward, she reached the shore, crawling onto the riverbank as a light landed on her from the border crossing ahead. She braved one glance back. The men held on the other side of the river, unable to cross into Jordan. She wanted to smile, but she feared she never would again.
Dani Pettrey has sold more than a million copies to readers eager to read her next release. She is the bestselling author of the Jeopardy Falls series, Coastal Guardians series, Chesapeake Valor series, and the Alaskan Courage series. A three-time Christy Award finalist, Dani has won the National Readers' Choice Award, Daphne du Maurier Award, HOLT Medallion, and Christian Retailing's Best Award for Suspense. She plots murder and mayhem from her home with her husband in Florida. She can be found online at DaniPettrey.com.
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Thanks so much for sharing!