Treacherous Path

A severed life, a silent clue. A golden ring. A woman who vanished into the mountains.When a hunting party delivers a grim discovery to the Oak Ridge sheriff's office, Detective Captain Steven Harlan feels the old familiar pressure at the base of his skull, the one that tells him the night is far from over. The finger belongs to Dr. Natalie Brooks, a physician at an exclusive mountain resort who said her goodbyes, packed her car, and drove away three days earlier. No one had any reason to worry. Until now.Harlan and his partner, Aaron Chase, begin to pull at the threads of Natalie's carefully ordered life and find nothing is as it appears. A letter she never sent. An ex-husband who arrived at the resort the day she left. A severed finger wrapped with deliberate care and placed where it would be found. Someone composed a message in violence, and every detail was chosen. As the investigation deepens, the clean lines between passion and calculation, between grief and betrayal, begin to blur. Organized crime casts long shadows over quiet mountain roads, and the people closest to Natalie guard secrets that refuse to stay buried.In Treacherous Path, nothing is simply good or evil, and no one is merely what they seem. The only certainty is this: someone wants the truth found, but only the version of it they control.The question is whether Harlan and Chase can survive the one they actually uncover.