Where the Water Lies

Seven years ago, Evelyn Voss vanished from Blackwater Isle.

No body was ever found. Only a bloodstained coat, a locked lighthouse, and a family willing to call it an accident.

Mara Voss has spent seven years refusing to believe the island's version of what happened to her sister. When she inherits the Drowning House, a storm-battered mansion joined to an abandoned lighthouse, she returns to Blackwater determined to uncover the truth.

But the house is not empty.

Footsteps move through the halls after midnight. The fog bell rings even though it was removed years ago. Old photographs seem to change when no one is watching. And someone has begun leaving signs meant only for Mara.

Then a man connected to Evelyn's disappearance turns up dead in a tide pool.

Detective Gideon Cross is the first person in seven years to treat Evelyn's disappearance like a crime instead of a tragedy. But Gideon has his own history with Blackwater Isle, and the closer he gets to Mara, the more dangerous the investigation becomes.

Together, they follow a trail through hidden passages, falsified drownings, buried records, and secrets the island has guarded for generations. But every answer forces Mara to question another memory, another witness, and everything she thought she knew about the sister she never stopped searching for.

Because Blackwater Isle does not wash its secrets away.

It keeps them beneath the water.

And some things do not stay buried.