Gentle Lies

When Cal Mercer comes home after fifteen years in prison for a bank robbery, Emma Chandler expects gossip and awkward kindness, not fear.

But Cedar Harbor does what it always does: it smiles, it makes room, it pretends the past is finished. Cal takes a quiet corner seat at Brewed Awakening and watches the door like he's waiting for something he can't name. The harbor air is damp, the mornings are warm, and the silence feels practiced.

Then Cal is shot in his rented apartment—and the scene is cleaned as if someone came not just to kill him, but to erase him.