When The Pines Push Back

The town thought the silence would hold.

It was wrong.

When an abandoned car is found at the edge of the pines, Deputy Clay Rainer knows it isn’t just another missing person case. The woman tied to it—Marlene Hightower—has already been erased from the system. No report. No record. No questions allowed.

As Clay digs deeper, doors quietly close. Files change. Evidence disappears. The town that once trusted him begins to push back—not with threats, but with pressure.

The deeper Clay goes, the clearer it becomes: the pines don’t just hide secrets.

They protect them.

When the Pines Push Back is a tense, atmospheric crime novel about silence, loyalty, and the cost of knowing too much. In this second installment of the Clay Rainer series, truth doesn’t come clean—and survival doesn’t mean justice.

Some things stay buried for a reason.

And some towns will do anything to keep it that way.