Grace Larkin knows Willow Creek's rhythms better than anyone: the library hush, the cider stall chatter, the festival ceremony that comes around every October like clockwork. So when Tom Ackerman's pumpkin boat capsizes and the town calls it a tragedy, Grace notices the details everyone else wants to miss-the wrong time on the schedule, the ribbon wound too neatly around the boat, the people who stop talking the moment she walks by.
What begins as a quiet search for answers soon exposes a tangle of resentment, ambition, and something far more calculated than a festival dispute. The deeper Grace digs, the more the town's familiar comforts feel like cover for something rotten beneath the surface.
In Willow Creek, everyone notices everything. But when everyone is protecting something, what does it take to make the truth stay visible?