Christmas Eve arrives in Everpine wrapped in quiet reverence—and ends in blood. On the outskirts of town, near the edge of the forest, the Reddings are found dead inside their home: a widowed mother, her adult son, and a grandmother the town once praised as gentle and devout. To the public, they were respected. Protected. Untouched by scandal. To Avie Grace Ford, they are something else entirely. The crime scene is deliberate. Ritualized. Ornaments placed with intention. Candles arranged not for light, but for meaning. It’s the first time Avie can no longer dismiss what she’s seeing as coincidence. The patterns she sensed before are no longer whispers—they’re instructions. As Everpine braces for Christmas morning, Avie begins tracking the timeline. The dates. The order. The way the town’s buried sins are being unearthed one family at a time. Each victim shares a past the town chose not to remember. Each death feels less like murder and more like judgment. Small towns are good at keeping secrets. They are even better at deciding which ones deserve protection. With the cold tightening its grip and the season demanding peace, Avie is forced to confront a terrifying possibility: the killer isn’t improvising. The ritual is the point. And Christmas Eve was only the beginning. Because in Everpine, the coldest nights don’t come from winter. They come from what the town chose to forgive—and what someone has decided it’s time to punish.