The Trade

Some homes don't just hide the truth. They bury it.

Marlowe Birch, a certified nurse-midwife, is running from a career-shattering mistake. Seeking isolation and a place to hide from her own guilt, she books a home exchange in the sun-baked hills of Santa Fe, New Mexico, expecting two weeks of absolute anonymity.

But the sprawling adobe house isn't empty.

The supposedly absent owner has left fresh milk in the fridge, damp towels in the bathroom, and a phone charger still warm in the wall. And living in the casita out back is Nolan, a charming, helpful man claiming to be the owner's brother.

Trained to read bodies in crisis and analyze environments for danger, Marlowe's clinical eye begins cataloging the terrifying inconsistencies of her new sanctuary. The defensive scar on Nolan's hand. The midnight prowling. The packed suitcase locked in a hallway closet. And the dark, recently disturbed soil beneath the massive cottonwood tree in the garden.

As Marlowe meticulously documents the chilling truth—that she hasn't traded homes with a stranger, but stepped into the aftermath of a domestic murder—she realizes she is sleeping thirty feet from a killer. To expose him and bring a missing woman justice, she must stop running from her own past and face the ultimate test of her instincts.