Six years have passed since Jake Sanders watched Natalie, the love of his life, marry another man. Six years of hiding a broken heart by throwing himself into his career as a college professor. Six years of keeping his promise to leave Natalie alone, and six years of tortured dreams of her life with her new husband, Todd. But six years haven't come close to extinguishing his feelings, and when Jake comes across Todd's obituary, he can't keep himself away from the funeral. There he gets the glimpse of Todd's wife he's hoping for . . . but she is not Natalie. Whoever the mourning widow is, she's been married to Todd for more than a decade, and with that fact everything Jake thought he knew about the best time of his life--a time he has never gotten over--is turned completely inside out. As Jake searches for the truth, his picture-perfect memories of Natalie begin to unravel. Mutual friends of the couple either can't be found or don't remember Jake. No one has seen Natalie in years. Jake's search for the woman who broke his heart, and who lied to him. soon puts his very life at risk as it dawns on him that the man he has become may be based on carefully constructed fiction.

"A car crashes in front of rookie PI Paige Holden's home. And suddenly, she finds one of her pro bono clients dying in her arms-from a gunshot wound. With her last breath, the woman whispers cryptic words into her ear and hands her a blood-smeared flash drive. Five years ago, State's Attorney Grayson Smith put a murderer behind bars. But when Paige Holden shares the flash drive with him, its contents cast doubts on the conviction-and lead him and Paige into a world of blackmail, dark secrets, and a decades-long string of murders. An investigation they'll survive only by trusting each other-and the truth."--P. [4] of cover.

Konrad Sejer must face down his memories and fears as he struggles to determine why the corpses of troubled young men keep surfacing in local lakes. As Sejer begins to feel his age weigh on him, he wonders if he has the strength to pursue the elusive explanations for human evil.