A Dark and Distant Home

The last six months have not been great for Waverly Jones.

The settlement conference for the defamation suit against her approaches—though she has no intention of settling.

The Crossroads Butcher case is considered "closed"—even though she knows the police are wrong about the killer.

The love of her life is gone—and it's her fault.

When an American man approaches her agency for help locating the son he just found out about, who was "rehomed" to a couple that crossed the border years ago, Waverly feels a spark of interest in her that has been dormant since she lost everything in the fall. No one is looking for the boy despite what seems to be a situation of child trafficking to her, and a difficult, complicated case might be exactly what she needs to feel more like herself again.

Sure, she's stretched thin from breaking in a new assistant, babysitting her little brother again, and trying to keep her agency going as a one-woman operation. But even with her only backup in the form of the hallucination of her dead sister, catfishing people within the online child adoption "rehoming" industry shouldn't be that hard for someone with her skills.

And it can't possibly be dangerous…