After a painful breakup and a career burnout, Elena Varga, a cybersecurity consultant, retreats to the quiet coastal town of Bitter Hollow, hoping to rebuild her life. What she doesn’t expect is to find herself drawn into a local mystery when a body washes up near the old lighthouse. The charming but evasive Detective Adrian Cole is assigned to the case — and while sparks fly between them, their mutual trust issues complicate everything. As they dig deeper, Elena uncovers encrypted files on an abandoned laptop that connect the murder to a series of strange disappearances in town. The book ends on a cliffhanger: the encryption key points directly to someone close to her — someone she’s just started to fall for.