In Patrick Lee's Runner, Sam Dryden, ex--Special Forces, lives a quiet life in a small town on the coast of Southern California. While out　on a run　in the middle of the night, he encounters a young girl on the seaside boardwalk. Barefoot and terrified, she’s running from a group of heavily armed men with one clear goal: to kill her. Dryden learns that the twelve-year-old can only remember the past two months, during which she’s been kept in a secret prison by forces within the government. Beyond her own name, Rachel, she knows only that she has a skill that makes her very dangerous to these men and those in charge of them.

　 Dryden, who lost his wife and young daughter in an accident, agrees to help Rachel try to unravel and make sense of her own past, and to protect her from the people who are moving heaven and earth to find them both. Although Dryden is only one man, he has extraordinary skills and experience—as a Ranger, a Delta, and five years doing off-the-book black ops with an elite team. However, as he slowly begins to discover, the highly trained forces on their heels are only part of the danger they must face. Because there’s something in Rachel’s past—and it’s more dangerous, and deadly, than Dryden can even imagine…