Publisher's Synopsis
A lost girl. A dead journalist. A town full of secrets.
On a cold autumn morning, the mist clings to the cliffs of Rainshadow Bay as a teenage girl stumbles barefoot from the trees-her dress soaked in blood, her eyes vacant with shock. She can't remember where she's been. She doesn't know whose blood stains her clothes. And she has no idea that five years ago, she was declared dead.
Lily Harper vanished without a trace when she was eleven, presumed drowned in the storm-torn waters off Blackwood Bluffs. Now, she's reappeared on the edge of town like a ghost dragged back by the tide. The entire town reels with unease, especially when another discovery shatters the fragile peace: the body of Cora Wilkes, an investigative journalist, is found deep in the woods, her throat slashed, her files burned.
Rainshadow Bay's past is a tangle of folklore and half-buried horrors, and Detective Cassie Adler has only been in town long enough to know that nothing stays buried for long. A former big-city homicide detective, Cassie came to Rainshadow Bay for a quiet life-but that was before Lily Harper emerged from the fog. Before she started digging into Cora Wilkes' last investigation. Before she realized that the people of Rainshadow Bay have been keeping their secrets for generations.
Someone doesn't want Lily to remember where she's been.
Someone is willing to kill to keep those secrets locked away.
Cassie's investigation leads her to whispers of a hidden society known only as the Watchers-a shadowy group tied to decades of disappearances, a secret labyrinth beneath the cliffs, and the eerie belief that the town must pay a blood price to keep its sins at bay. The Watchers have been watching for far too long, and when Lily starts recovering fragments of her missing years, the threats begin. She wasn't supposed to come back. And if the Watchers have their way, she won't survive long enough to tell the truth.
As Cassie pieces together the puzzle, the danger closes in. Someone is watching Cassie's every move. And when Lily vanishes again, Cassie's only lead takes her to the abandoned Ravenwood Lighthouse, where the truth has been waiting for her all along.
Trapped inside during a violent storm, Cassie uncovers a secret prison hidden beneath the cliffs, a ritual that has spanned generations, and a killer who has been waiting in the dark for her to arrive.
Can Cassie unravel the mystery before the storm sweeps them all away?
A riveting, atmospheric mystery packed with suspense, eerie small-town secrets, and unforgettable twists, The Girl in the Drift is the first book in the Rainshadow Bay Mysteries series.
