The Orchard Files

A body in the ditch. A missing girl. A commune that calls itself a refuge. Detective Mara Voss expects a rural homicide; instead, she finds a hidden world built on fear, obedience, and names that aren't really names. When another death points toward the Covenant, a secluded religious community on the edge of Blackthorn Ridge, Mara uncovers a pattern that stretches back years and across provinces: vanished witnesses, rewritten histories, and a leader who has turned devotion into a weapon.
But the deeper she digs, the more the dead begin to speak through ledgers, recordings, and testimony that someone was willing to burn. As the case widens into a web of murder, coercion, and buried truth, Mara must stop a killer who has spent years learning how to survive exposure. And to do that, she'll have to prove that the most dangerous thing in Blackthorn Ridge isn't the faith itself, but the story someone built around it.