Embers of Evidence

By Miles Ashbourne

Every fire leaves a trace. This one leaves a target.

At first glance, the tragic blaze at an Appalachian farmhouse looks like an unfortunate accident. But when Dr. Cassian Holt arrives at the scene, the meticulous forensic investigator spots what the local authorities missed. The burn patterns are wrong. The chemical residue is far too precise. Someone has deliberately engineered a fatal fire to look like a simple tragedy, and they are counting on the small town to keep their deadly secrets buried in the ash.

Enter ATF Agent Jonah Briggs and his highly trained K9 partner, Sig. Jonah operates on field instincts and hard-earned experience. His approach immediately collides with Cassian's cold reliance on evidence, science, and procedure. Their methods could not be more different, yet the mounting evidence keeps forcing the two men into the same smoke-darkened spaces.

As they uncover a false paper trail and investigate another suspicious shelter fire that the local department is eager to ignore, the true scope of the danger emerges. The arsonist is escalating a ruthless campaign hidden deep within the quiet rural valley. Fresh fires are igniting. Witnesses are falling suddenly silent. The investigation strips away the layers of a dangerous conspiracy, placing a target squarely on the investigators.

With the threat intensifying, professional friction transforms into a slow-burn connection neither man anticipated. Shared risk forces Cassian and Jonah to rely on one another to survive. To expose the killer before the next blaze consumes everything in its path, they must learn to trust each other as deeply as they trust the evidence.

In this gripping MM romantic suspense thriller, two rival investigators must risk their hearts and their lives to stop a serial arsonist in an Appalachian town built on deadly secrets.