Gentle Lies: Cedar Harbor Cozy Mysteries, #4

Cal Mercer survives fifteen years in prison for Cedar Harbor's secret—and less than a week as a free man.

He returns with an active appeal, coded carbon slips, and proof that the official bank-robbery story stopped exactly where powerful men needed it to. Cal plans to speak at Brewed in the Morning. Instead, he is murdered, his evidence disappears, and a threat targets Lily Ward—the young café worker whose family once gave him refuge.

Emma Chandler follows hidden money, altered newspaper records, and witnesses who learned to call silence protection. The old robbery reaches into respectable businesses still profiting from Cal's conviction, and the same careful machinery is moving around Lily now.

Every gentle lie in Cedar Harbor sheltered someone. One of them sheltered a killer. Emma must expose the difference before the next warning leaves another chair empty.