She needed the job. She ignored the feeling.

Worn down by the loss of her husband and bills she can't keep up with, Cynthia agrees to homeschool two teenage girls. One is a sweetheart. The other unsettles her.

At first, she blames her unease on nerves, on guilt, on the pressure of raising her young daughter alone. But something about the second girl isn't right. The way she watches. The stories that don't add up. The way even the dog keeps his distance.

Then a man from the past reappears—someone with ties to terrible things. And suddenly, Cynthia's fragile home doesn't feel safe anymore.

Her instincts are screaming. But if she's wrong, she could ruin a child's life. If she's right, her daughter's safety may already be slipping through her fingers.

Instinct is a taut psychological thriller in the When Bad Things Happen series—gripping, emotional stories about ordinary women caught in extraordinary, often harrowing turns of fate.