The Secrets We Carry

Rylee didn't leave Fairhaven because she wanted a fresh start.

She ran.

With her young son, Koda, Rylee disappears from the life she once knew and begins hiding in Huntington, Tennessee, hoping distance will give her room to breathe. She has a new home, a new routine, and a carefully guarded life that depends on one thing:

Tyson cannot find her.

He doesn't know where she is.

Rylee intends to keep it that way.

For the first time, she begins to experience something she almost forgot existed—normal.

A job she cares about. People she can slowly learn to trust. Quiet evenings with her son. A stubborn little dachshund she never expected to love. Small moments that feel like living.

And then, unexpectedly, something else begins finding its way into Rylee's life.

Something she never planned for.

Something that makes the future feel a little less empty.

But Rylee knows better than to believe the past stays buried forever.

There are things she left behind in Fairhaven she hasn't told anyone. Questions she has carried. Memories she has tried not to revisit. And a history that may hold more secrets than Rylee ever realized.

Because sometimes running from someone means running from more than the person themselves.

Sometimes the truth is waiting right behind you.

As Rylee builds a life worth protecting, the line between the past and present begins to blur. The safety she's fought for feels fragile, and the secrets she thought she could leave behind may not be finished with her.

Rylee has spent years learning how to survive.

Now she's learning how to live.

But when your entire new life depends on staying hidden, how much can you afford to trust?

And how long can secrets remain buried before someone starts digging?

Where the Secrets Are Buried is the first novel in The Secrets We Carry, a three-novel suspense series filled with secrets, danger, unexpected connections, buried truths, and the fight to protect the life Rylee has finally begun to call her own.

Rylee Schmidt knows the past isn't finished with her.

She's already learned that some secrets can survive years of silence, distance, and even the life she built to escape them. But now Rylee has something she never had before: a reason to stop running.

With Kenzie beside her and Koda at the center of the life they've built together, Rylee is determined to protect the peace they've finally found. Yet the closer she gets to the truth about her past, the more she realizes that the story she thought she understood may have only been the beginning.

Old connections begin resurfacing. Questions that were never answered demand attention. People from Rylee's past carry pieces of information she never knew existed, and some of those pieces don't fit together the way she expected.

The deeper Rylee digs, the more complicated everything becomes.

What really happened before she left Fairhaven? Who knew the truth? Which secrets were kept to protect her, and which were kept to protect the people who betrayed her?

And how much of the past has followed her into the future she's worked so hard to build?

This time, Rylee isn't running.

She's searching for answers.

But answers come with consequences.

Because uncovering the truth doesn't always bring peace. Sometimes it opens doors that were meant to stay closed—and forces you to face what has been waiting on the other side.

Rylee thought surviving her past was the hard part.

Now she has to live with what she discovers.