All the Missing Pieces

Ridley Sawyer chases cold cases across the country for her true crime podcast. She is still hunting for answers she never got when her own twin sister disappeared years ago. Her newest case brings her to the small town of Shady Cove. Sheriff Colter Brooks wants her gone before her questions stir up trouble he would rather leave buried.

When Ridley's digging puts her in danger, Colt insists she stay under his own roof until the threat passes. Forced proximity wears down the friction between them. An uneasy truce turns into a romance neither one of them planned for.

This is small-town romantic suspense: a grumpy sheriff, a podcaster who won't let a case go cold, and an enemies-to-lovers pull that only softens once shared danger forces them together. The investigation runs alongside the romance rather than behind it.

Grief sits under every interview Ridley records. The missing-persons case she came to cover turns out darker than either of them expected. It opens Cowles's Shady Cove series, a new small-town world from a writer already known for romantic suspense.