Cory Johnson came home alive and haunted. Six months after the ambush that killed his platoon, the only thing louder than his nightmares is the whispers in town. When his former therapist, Dr. Marcus Reed, is found dead in the Whispering Sequoias, Cory wakes to a different kind of nightmare: his own name braided into the evidence. Detective Rachel Morgan is tasked with piecing together a murder that wasn't committed where it was found. A blood-streaked dress glove, a matching DNA hit, and multiple witnesses who heard Cory explode at the VA point to an open-and-shut case-yet each new clue pulls Rachel into a deeper tangle where grief, politics, and memory collide. As the town rallies for closure and a vice president uses the moment as theater, Cory must navigate blackout memories and the people who profit from his guilt. If he can't find who planted the proof and why, he'll lose more than freedom-he'll lose his life.