The Cold Beneath Stillwater

Three days of rain. Seven eviction notices. And then the lake gives up a body. Wren Calloway has spent fifteen years building walls between herself and Stillwater, the drowning-slow town where her brother Jonas vanished the summer she turned twelve. But when a long-dead man surfaces in Stillwater Lake clutching a watch engraved with a Calloway family crest, Wren is the only one left who recognizes what has been buried in those black waters. Sheriff Elias Crane calls it an accident. The Calloways, the Vances, and the Pikes call it a closed chapter. Wren calls it a lie. Back in town with nothing left to lose and a studio apartment waiting to be taken from her, she starts pulling threads she swore she would never touch. Margie Hines knows more than she is willing to whisper. Calvin Pike's alibi has too many cracks in it. Dr. Lena Park's autopsy report raises questions the sheriff does not want answered. And every door Wren opens brings her closer to Thea Crane, the sheriff's own daughter, who may hold the key to the night Jonas disappeared. The deeper Wren digs, the tighter Stillwater's founding families close their ranks. Someone killed to keep the lake's secrets where they belonged, and they will kill again to keep them drowned. With nowhere left to run and a killer watching her every move, Wren must choose: exhume the truth that destroyed her family, or let the cold beneath Stillwater take one more secret to the grave.