THE HOUSE GUEST

Quiet. Polite. Always paying cash in advance. Then I found the box hidden beneath her floorboards..."e;Three years after my wife Vivian drowned in the icy waters of Lake Oakhaven, my eight-year-old daughter Maya and I were barely holding our lives together. To keep the mortgage paid, I listed our detached lakeside carriage house for rent.When Evelyn Ward arrived in the pouring rain, she felt like an answer to our prayers. She claimed to be a quiet botanical illustrator looking for four months of solitude to sketch the hemlocks and water lilies.Then the chilling details began to emerge.Late at night, I see her standing motionless at the upper studio window, sketching not plants-but my daughter's bedroom. In the dark hours before dawn, Vivian's favorite Chopin nocturne drifts across the lawn from the locked cottage piano-played with the exact same flawed, haunting cadence only my late wife possessed.Desperate for answers, I search the carriage house while Evelyn is in town. Hidden beneath a loose floorboard in her closet, I discover an antique steel lockbox.Inside are dozens of surveillance photographs of my family taken through telephoto lenses six years ago... and a copy of Vivian's autopsy report marked with four terrifying words in red ink:HE DROWNED HER HERE.Now a monster autumn storm has cut the power lines and washed out the only road off the mountain. My daughter is asleep upstairs, Evelyn is standing on our dock in the rain, and the local retired detective who investigated my wife's death is speeding toward our home with a shotgun on his front seat.They think I'm just a grieving widower trapped in their crosshairs. But none of them know the secret I buried in the lake three years ago...***An utterly unputdownable, atmospheric psychological thriller packed with paranoia, dark family secrets, and a series of shocking twists that will keep you guessing until the final, breathless page. Perfect for fans of Freida McFadden, Lucy Foley, and Colleen Hoover.