The Peripheral Shadow

For seven years, Bex Harlow has been haunted by a ghost. The ghost of her sister, Cassidy, who vanished from a desolate Arizona highway, leaving behind only an abandoned car and a case grown cold. Each year, Bex performs the same ritual, drinking a shot of tequila for the sister she believes she failed. But this year is different.

A cryptic text message from an unknown number shatters the fragile peace, pointing Bex toward a hidden clue in her sister's case: an SD card the police never found. This single breadcrumb pulls Bex from her grief-stricken life and throws her onto a dangerous path her sister walked years before.

Joining forces with the equally driven sister of another victim, Bex uncovers a conspiracy far more sinister than a simple disappearance. Cassidy wasn't just a journalist; she was part of an underground network fighting a powerful human trafficking operation that uses official channels to source its victims. This network, run by a wealthy and influential family with deep connections in law enforcement, doesn't just silence threats-it erases them.

Now, hunted by the same shadowy forces that took her sister, Bex must follow the trail of secrets Cassidy left behind-a trail that leads from dusty impound lots to a hidden operations center in the heart of the desert. To survive, she must learn to operate in the periphery, in the spaces between the law and the lawless, and trust the son of the very man she is trying to destroy.

The closer Bex gets to the truth, the more she realizes she isn't just solving a cold case. She's inheriting a mission-and a war. And in this war, the only way to honor the dead is to finish their fight.