One of the hundred books a year I read:

Twelve-year-old Easter and her six-year-old sister Ruby go to foster care after their mother’s untimely death. Their only hope of staying together are grandparents in Alaska they’ve never met, far from their North Carolina home. Until their father, Wade Chesterfield, reappeared one day.

Wade was a minor-league baseball player who abandoned the girls and their mother years earlier. He wants to take custody of the girls, but he had relinquished parental rights long before. When he realizes he’ll never get them back, he convinces them to runaway with him. He funds their escape with a suitcase of cash.

That cash belonged to Tommy Broughton, a small-time crime boss who stole the money in an armored car heist. Incensed with Wade’s thievery, Tommy hired hitman Bobby Pruitt to recover the treasure and dispatch Wade. Pruitt’s long history with Wade made the hunt personal, and he didn’t care if the little girls got hurt.

Ex-cop Brady Weller is the girl’s guardian ad litem. He’s frustrated that the police and FBI are more interested in nailing Tommy Broughton than the fate of the girls, so he tries to track down Wade and the girls before Pruitt catches them.

P.S. – Though we’ve never crossed paths, Mr. Cash and I both grew up in Gastonia NC and went to the same high school, albeit he went 15 years after I did. This story is set primarily in Gastonia and it was fun knowing so many of the landmarks he used in the tale.