EVERYONE SAID HE WAS WITH ME: A Psychological Suspense Novel

Anna Mercer knows Daniel Cole was not in her house the night his wife was murdered. Daniel tells the police he was. At first, Anna assumes he is lying because he needs an alibi. Then the people around her begin confirming his story. A neighbor remembers seeing him near Anna's porch. A patrol log places his car outside. A delivery photo seems to show the same vehicle. Even Anna's security cameras were switched off during the exact hour Daniel claims he was there. Everyone remembers the night one way. Anna remembers it another. Soon the police are asking questions about more than Daniel. They want to know whether Anna is hiding an affair, protecting a killer, or simply wrong about what happened inside her own home. Then Anna discovers something that changes the investigation completely. Hawthorn Ridge has a history of convenient memories. For years, neighbors have quietly covered for one another: an embarrassing mistake, a drunken night, a secret relationship, an accident no one wanted reported. Small lies became favors. Favors became debts. Somewhere along the way, helping a neighbor turned into a system where the right people could make an inconvenient truth disappear. Rachel Cole had started uncovering that system before she died. Now Anna has two questions she cannot let go: Why was Daniel given an alibi he never earned? And why was her house chosen for it? The closer Anna gets to the answer, the more dangerous one truth becomes: On Hawthorn Ridge, the most convincing lie is not the one told best. It is the one everyone agrees to remember.