Heinz Siegfried Pestner

Some people never need to lie. They only need to make you believe you discovered the truth yourself. When caregiver Lena Sörens accepts an unusually well-paid live-in position with the wealthy Vollmann family, it seems like the answer to all her problems. Her patient, Margarethe "Grete" Vollmann, suffered a severe stroke eight months earlier. She can barely speak, the right side of her body is impaired, and the tension between Grete and her family is impossible to ignore.
Grete communicates in fragments. AFRAID. MONEY. KONRAD. NOT ACCIDENT. Soon Lena begins to suspect that the death of Grete's husband was not as straightforward as the family claims. But the deeper she looks, the less anything makes sense. Keys appear where they should not be. Messages seem to come from people who never sent them. Memories no longer match the evidence. And then a member of the Vollmann family dies.
Another death follows. Then another. And somehow, more and more of the evidence begins pointing directly at Lena. As the police start questioning her version of events, Lena realizes that the most dangerous question is no longer who she can trust. It is:Who made her trust them in the first place?THE SILENCE IN THE NEXT ROOM is a psychological thriller about manipulation, guilt, loyalty, and the terrifying power of the stories we build from incomplete truths.
Because sometimes the person you are determined to protect is the person you should have been protecting yourself from.