Alex Collection Two

Ten cases. Ten shadows. One detective who refuses to break.  She doesn’t chase darkness. But she never walks away from it. From Cincinnati’s riverfront  to the frozen edges of Alaska, Alex Evercrest faces the cases that twist beneath the surface — the ones built on secrets, grief, corruption, and the kind of predators who believe no one will ever stop them.

Across ten relentless thrillers, Alex confronts:

organ traffickers who carve a path through the vulnerable

• a skull‑collecting killer hiding in plain sight

• disappearances that defy logic

• underground fighters

• a moonshiner who chooses to die by her gun.

• a fifty year old grief‑driven crime

• a rogue CIA operative who builds a prison of terror

• a child abandoned on her porch who becomes her daughter

• and a pipeline thief who sparks a chase across half a continent

Each case stands alone. Together, they reveal a woman tested at her limits — morally, emotionally, and physically, yet still unwilling to surrender the idea that justice matters.

Ten books. Ten storms.

One detective who refuses to let the world stay broken.

She doesn’t look for trouble.

Trouble finds her.

From Cincinnati to the Canadian border, from hidden killers to international conspiracies,

Alex Evercrest and her elite team take on the cases no one else can solve,

the ones too twisted, too dangerous, or too politically explosive for anyone but them.

Across ten relentless thrillers,
Alex faces:
killers who vanish without a trace
crimes buried under decades of silence
enemies who study her as closely as she hunts them
and mysteries that force her to risk everything including her team and her life
Each case stands alone.
Together, they chart the rise of a woman who refuses to back down, no matter the odds.
Ten books.
One unstoppable investigator.
The series that readers say they can’t put down.

The Skull Colector

For years, the Skull Collector operated in silence. He is a meticulous predator who buries the bodies of his victims on his parents’ farm. He keep only their skulls and put them on pedestals where he can absorb their exquisite white beauty.

He transforms the third floor of his Mt. Adams home into a private skull museum.

There he displays the bleached skulls of forty‑two women with chilling pride and daily devotion.

When Alex Evercrest is assigned to the case, she uncovers the long trail of disappearances

that lead to his hidden gallery.

The investigation forces her into the mind of a man who believes he honors his victims by putting them in the muesem spotlight where their lovely skulls can be admired.
The confrontation ends with Alex making him Number Forty‑Three.
After the case breaks wide in the news, his Mount Adams house goes up for sale.

Alex buys it for a song.

Its a lovely house purged.

She clears the third‑floor “museum.”

She transforms it into a bright gallery where she displays the Annie's artwork

that was gifted to her
The house becomes a symbol of what Alex does best:

turning darkness into something that can finally breathe in the light.

The Shadow Fighter

Adriano arrives from Italy with one goal: rebuild the Chicago Mafia after the Gulf Cartel wiped out its leadership. With a mole buried deep inside the Chicago Police Department, he’s reclaiming power quickly and he hasn’t forgotten who triggered the massacre.

To him, Alex Evercrest isn’t a hero. She’s an insult. A fluke. A Cincinnati detective who got lucky.
He decides to correct that “mistake.”
Alex is hosting an outdoor art show when the first sniper takes aim.

Trey spots the laser and shoves her into cover, saving her life. The shooter escapes only to try again from a high‑rise overlooking Alex’s bike route. He learns why people call her Cincinnati’s Black Annie Oakley.
The attacks feel eerily familiar, echoing a past case she never fully understood.
Alex calls what is happening the “Groundhog’s Paradox.” She is being targeted for reasons she can’t yet see. But she sees enough to know one thing: a vindictive new Mafia boss is behind it.
When Adriano sends two enforcers to murder Alex’s parents, the ambush backfires.

Alex and Trey stop the attack cold, ending the threat before it reaches the family inside.
Desperate, Adriano makes one last attempt. He gives orders to one more sniper to kill Alex, unaware she’s an undercover police officer working for the same people Alex trusts. She’s ready to "come in from the cold," the criminal world, and Alex gives her the perfect exit:

a staged “death” on Lake Michigan that frees her from Adriano’s reach forever.
When Adriano finally stands in court, he expects Alex to be there, gloating triumphantly.
She isn’t !
And in that absence, he realizes the truth: He never understood her. He never saw her coming. To him, she is something more than a detective.
She is an invisible Shadow Fighter.

Grief's Trajectory

A picnic meant to celebrate love and a new beginning erupts into a violent clash between three young Black friends and a truckload of hard‑drinking white men.

In the chaos, a wallet goes missing — and a jealous best friend, Guy, seizes his chance.

By nightfall, Dale is dead, hanging from an oak limb in what the town accepts as an unsolved lynching.

Fifty years later, Dale’s daughter brings the story to Alex Evercrest.

The case is cold, the witnesses elderly, and the truth buried under decades of silence.
But a single mark on Dale's exhumed skull, the unmistakable signature of a plasterer’s hammer, pulls Alex into a past shaped by jealousy, resentment, and a love triangle that never healed.
As she interviews the last surviving witnesses and walks the quiet fields of Guy's prosperous cattle farm, Alex senses a story too polished to be true. Her instincts lead her back to a simple wooden post beside a chicken house, where a long‑forgotten tool waits to speak.
Guy reaches for it turns to kill Alex but meets his long awaited punisment.
What she uncovers is not just a murder.
It is a lifetime of guilt preserved in a hidden room: a rope, a photograph, and a will written to the woman at the center of it all.
Some secrets don’t fade !
They wait for the one person who can finally see them.

The Nine Towers of Ku

Deep in the peaceful forests of the central Ohio Valley stands the Nine Towers of Ku, a serene property hiding a nightmare. Liam, a CIA operative gone rogue, has transformed the towers into a secret prison.

He chains young drug distributors inside as part of a twisted plan to build his own covert network. Those who refuse to join him are executed. Those who comply are promised freedom.
He releases the West Coast recruits, convinced they fear him enough to obey.

But when he travels east to gather his next batch, everything changes. As he returns to the property, Alex Evercrest and her team, acting on a tip, are already there, uncovering graves.

Liam murders the East Coast recruits and dumps their bodies in a ravine before fleeing.
At the very start of his scheme, Liam assassinated the CIA’s top leader, a man later confirmed to be leaking secrets to the Russians. The Agency quietly verifies the betrayal… and then chooses silence. They don’t care about the bodies. They don’t care about the victims. They only want Liam erased and the scandal buried.
Alex refuses to stand down!
With Johnnie’s unmatched hacking skills, her team stays one step ahead of the CIA

and tracks Liam from Ohio to New Orleans to St. Louis.
Each time she closes in, he slips away but is caught and at the time of arraignment,

he escapes again and heads west, convinced he can rebuild his operation in Mexico.
But the drug world hasn’t forgotten him. 

In San Diego, the uncle of a young drug dealer Liam murdered takes him prisoner.

What follows is brutal, personal retribution delivered with a roofers nail gun.
Death is slowly delivered by the very people Liam once chained and terrorized.

Elisa, one of his former captives, uses the nail gun to claim her own measure of justice.
Alex arrives too late. She finds Liam’s body covered by nails with what must have been the final one in the forehead.

She experiences a truth she never wanted to face.

For the first time in her career, she believes a killer earned the fate he received.
The case ends not with triumph, but leaves Alex with the haunting question of why she feels no remorse for how he met his fate.

Northern Lights

Alex reluctantly travels to the remote Arctic, stepping into a world of snow, silence, and danger. Her investigation barely begins before she is shot  while pushing Ignirtoq’s forest‑ranger niece out of harm’s way. Her instant return fire forces the shooter to flee, and the chase begins.

Grayson runs south through Alaska, into Canada, and  south into the United States.

He leaves a trail of gunfights and narrow escapes.

Wounded, he seeks treatment on a Utah reservation, then slips away again, convinced he can lose his pursuers by returning to the Alaskan wilderness he knows better than anyone.
Alex refuses to let him vanish into the trees.
When she learns he is flying back north, she finds a faster route and reaches his destination before he does
She makes the arrest, sees him locked  up in custody,
and returns to Cincinnati believing the case is finally over.
It isn’t.
Grayson escapes.
Then Alex receives a call from Ignirtoq, the man once believed dead.
He tells her he is going after Grayson himself and will call when it’s done.
The next call comes soon after.
Grayson is no more.
And Ignirtoq tells her to enjoy her weekend.
Under the shimmering Northern Lights, justice takes a shape Alex never expected —
swift, final, and delivered by the man who refused to die.

Body Parts

A mutilated body. A missing woman. A black market pipeline no one wants to acknowledge.

When Alex uncovers a trafficking ring dealing in human organs she realizes the victims aren’t random they’re being selected with chilling precision.

The deeper she digs, the clearer it becomes that someone is running an operation built on fear,

silence, and disposable lives.

A busines more lucrative than the drug trade !
To stop it, Alex must step into a world where people are treated as parts inventory

shipped  to desperate people seeking any means to stay alive.

The Vanishing

The high school hallways were supposed to be safe. Three bullies turn them into a gauntlet.

They targeted young women Intimidated anyone who stood up to them.

They ruled the space between classes with fear.

Jesse was one of the few who pushed back and he paid for it every day.

One evening, on his way to buy the basketball shoes he’d saved for.

Jesse sees the three bullies attacking a young woman. His shouts gave her the chance to escape.

He becomes their new target. They chased him down and beat him mercilessly and threaten his sister and mother if they see him again. A police siren scatters them.

Bloodied, shaken, and terrified of what might happen to his mother and sister if the bullies came after them next, Jesse makes a desperate choice: He vanishes.
He flees Cincinnati for the East Coast. He ends up in Virginia Beach, where he builds a new life. He earns a diploma, becomes an IT programmer.

He finally  feels the time has arrived to reconnect with his family. He returns home only to discover they are gone.
What he doesn’t know is that Alex Evercrest has taken on a missing‑person case with his name on it. 

As she follows the trail he left behind, she uncovers more than a runaway teen.
The three bullies aren't  just tormentors, they are part of a high‑school drug network run by a local dealer.

Alex’s search for Jesse becomes a mission to dismantle the entire operation.
The dealer runs.
Alex and her team follow.
The dealer doesn’t survive the chase.
In the end, justice lands where it should: the bullies in prison, their boss gone, and Jesse reunited with his mother and sister during a fishing trip Alex hosts to bring them back together.
The Vanishing is a story of escape, pursuit, and the quiet courage it takes to come home again.

Moon Shine

Hillary built her moonshine empire the same way she lives her life: quietly, efficiently,

and with a deep love for the mountains she calls home Her operation runs smoothly, her books are open, and her still operators trust her.

All but one. The man running the still down the trail is a heavy drinker, a cheat, and

a growing threat.

When he tries to kill her, Hillary fights back.

With the help of her lover, she drags his body down the mountain.

They send sent him to the bottom of the Ohio River wrapped in chains.
She believes the river will keep her secret forever.
Then a once‑in‑a‑century storm hits.
A massive tree tears loose upstream, snags the body, and carries it straight into view of a Cincinnati riverside restaurant.

There Alex and her team are having lunch.

Trevor spots the corpse tangled in the branches, and the investigation begins.
With only a belt buckle and a pair of shoes to go on, Johnnie traces the clues to West Virginia.
Alex and team follow the trails up the mountain, through Hillary’s network of coordinated stills, and into the shadow of the one death Hillary could never outrun.
When Alex reaches the fateful still,

a shot rings out.
Hillary is ready to fight.
But Alex isn’t eager for bloodshed
Johnnie’s drone flanks Hillary from behind, forcing her to surrender.
Facing a long prison sentence, Hillary escapes custody
She knows she won’t survive confinement.

She needs freedom, even if it comes at the highest price.
She drives to Cincinnati, steps into the open in front of Alex’s home,

and fires a shot meant to miss.
She counts on Alex’s reflexes.
She counts on Alex’s reputation
She counts on Cincinnati’s Black Annie Oakley.
Hillary chooses her ending.

Alex delivers it.

The Magic Touch

Three celebrations unfold along the Ohio River, each lit by the same city glow but carrying its own heartbeat. At the Lager House, the Evercrest  crew gathers to roast Alex for closing yet another impossible case.

But the jokes boomerang when Trey points out the obvious: none of it, Not the breakthrough,

Not the timing, Not the double‑case takedown. Would’ve happened without Johnnie.
His on line sleuthing work, His instincts, His quiet brilliance.
The table erupts, and suddenly Alex's roast becomes a tribute.
Johnnie blushes, Alex Smiles, and Trey raises a glass to the man who cracked the code twice.
Just upriver, Zia and Fiona sit tucked into a corner booth at a small restaurant overlooking the water. They’ve only known each other a short time, but the connection hit them like a river current fast, undeniable, and deep. Tonight they celebrate the thirty‑year sentence handed down to Fiona’s ex.
Justice delivered. Fear lifted. A future finally possible. Their hands stay linked across the table, knuckles brushing, eyes bright with relief and something new.
And on the Riverfront walk, Ava and Ezra stroll slowly, fingers intertwined, the city lights shimmering on the water like a promise. They survived the chaos, exposed the truth, and found each other in the wreckage. Their steps are unhurried, their smiles soft.

The case is closed, but their story is just beginning.
Three victories. Three new beginnings.
One night on the Cincinnati waterfront where; Justice, Love, and Hard‑earned peace finally meet.

Abandoned

Bento, his wife Janaina, and their daughter Aurea flee Brazil under the shadow of a drug empire Bento once served. They come to the United  States hoping for a clean start.

Cincinnati gives them exactly that, school, libraries, weekends at the Riverfront Park,

and a childhood Aurea never imagined.

Her teachers praise her.

She thrives.

For the first time, life feels safe.

Then, before dawn one morning, everything shatters.
Her parents wake her, whisper that they love her, and leave her on Alex's porch in Hyde Park with her belongings and an envelope with all the money they have.
Alex takes her in, feeds her, shelters her, and enrolls her in school.

She falls in love with her.
She gets Mary to take care of her after school.
As Aurea tries to settle into her new life, she feels the shift: adults speaking softly,
teachers watch her with worry, and the growing fear that she will be handed over to the Child Welfare System.
Alex refuses to let that happen.
Her investigation into the missing parents uncovers the truth.
Bento stole cartel money to escape Brazil, and the drug ring sent a collector to retrieve both the cash and the family.
But the case stalls. The parents’ bodies cannot be found.

The forest service searches the woods around Cincinnati and comes up empty.
Then Johnnie, leaning back in his chair with that half‑grin, suggests they’re looking in the wrong place. “Don’t search the forest,” he says. “Search where the vultures circle.”
Trevor laughs and promises him lunch if they solve the case by vulture.
A few days later, the forest service calls Alex. They’re standing beside what they believe is a grave.
The truth breaks open. The bodies are found.
The collector is identified. And Alex knows how justice can be done.
But justice isn’t enough. Aurea needs a future.
Alex travels to Brazil, confronts the cartel’s enforcer Christiano in a gunfight.
Justice is delivered !
She then she secures the grandmother’s signature on the adoption papers.
The Future is delivered !
The a new path to the future opens.
Back in Cincinnati, Alex and Matt tell Aurea the words she has been terrified to hope for:
You are loved ! You are wanted ! You are ours !
A judge signs the adoption order and Friends gather for a celebration.
And in that moment, Aurea’s life, once shaped by fear, flight, and loss becomes something new.
A family.
A future.
A home where she will never be abandoned again.