Prequel-The Last Confession

Where it All Began

Long before the first confession, there was the first girl they silenced.

When Evelyn uncovers the ledger they never meant her to see, the truth doesn’t set her free—it makes her the next target.

Before Evelyn Hale ever stepped into St. Bartholomew’s, another girl tried to tell the truth—and the town buried her for it.
In 1965, seventeen-year-old Eliza March walked into the church with a list of names, a bruise forming on her jaw, and a story no one wanted to hear. By sunrise, the town called her “hysterical.” By nightfall, she was dead—labeled a tragic accident rather than a warning.
Decades later, Evelyn Hale—a single mother juggling the diner, the church ledgers, and a daughter too smart for her own safety—finds the same pattern repeating when Emily Carter, a terrified seventeen-year-old with a duffel bag and a bruise of her own, walks into the diner whispering, “He said no one would believe me.”
When Emily disappears, the town shrugs. The police dismiss her. The church smooths the edges. But Evelyn finds something they didn’t expect: proof.
Hidden funds. Missing girls. A house near the quarry no one talks about. And a paper trail that traces all the way back to Eliza.
Evelyn is done being reasonable.
If no one else will say the truth, she will—even if the men who built Eldridge intend for her to vanish next.
Perfect for fans of Karin Slaughter, Gillian Flynn, and Jessica Knoll.