When true-crime host Maren Ashford crawls from a wreck at Mile 42 with airbag dust in her lungs and one word inked on her palm-START HERE-she learns the cruelest rule of her life: if she can't stop her best friend Lucy from disappearing, the week snaps back to Monday at 12:00. Same ravens. Same messages from "Unknown." Same city that shrugs off its own corruption.Enter Detective Kai Mercer-methodical, lock-picking, aggravatingly principled. He believes in evidence the way Maren believes in momentum. Together they follow a paper trail no one wants them to read: shell invoices, a secret "Short Month Bonus," and a quiet enforcer who treats witnesses like calendar entries. Each near-miss resets the clock-and cranks the chemistry. Trust is risky. Not trusting might be fatal.To break the loop, they have to do more than catch a culprit-they have to rewrite the story the city keeps telling itself. That means stings in ferry gatehouses, storage units full of excuses, and a final, public accusation where it hurts the powerful most.Part romantic thriller, part civic mystery, this is a race against a weaponized week: twisty, propulsive, and shot through with a slow-burn connection that survives on gallows humor and stubborn hope.If you love high-stakes cat-and-mouse, sharp banter, and a fierce heroine who's useful first and loud when it counts, you'll tear through this until the second hand finally moves.A friend to save. A city to expose. A love to risk.Can one sentence spoken in a hospital room stop Monday?