What The Storm Broke

Myla Miller has spent sixteen years building a carefully controlled life far from home. As a true crime podcaster, she investigates cold cases from a safe distance—helping other families find closure while keeping the world at arm's length. She's good at it. She's had practice.

But Myla Miller isn't her real name.

She was born Alora Jameson in Cedarwood, Oregon, a small farming town she fled the day after high school graduation. She changed her name, disappeared into a new life, and told herself she never needed to know why she ran. She just knew she did.

When the Cedarwood River gives up its secrets—human remains tied to the twenty-six-year-old disappearance of thirteen-year-old Melody Harper—Myla tells herself it's just another cold case. But then a video triggers a violent panic attack and fragments of something buried surge to the surface. A barn. A girl falling. Her own child's voice screaming.

When her mother dies, leaving behind the family's abandoned farm, Myla runs out of reasons to stay away. Returning to Cedarwood means facing a town that never forgot, a former best friend still grieving her cousin, and memories that grow more disturbing the closer she gets to the truth.

But coming home means crossing a line she can't uncross. And someone in Cedarwood has been waiting for her to try.