Lydia Gallows has spent her life watching. She watches the people who enter the Forestview, the restored hotel she built from the remains of a harder life. She notices what others overlook-the hesitation before an answer, the hand that lingers too close to a pocket, the person who studies every exit before sitting down. Watching helped Lydia survive. It also taught her how to recognize powerful people who profit from the suffering of others-and how to uncover the secrets capable of making them run. But Raymond, the first person who ever watched Lydia's back, is gone. As she scatters his ashes and removes the silver firebird he once gave her, Lydia feels the unsettling certainty that someone else is now watching her. Mari learned from Lydia. She knows how to wait, how to confirm what she sees, and how to find the weakness hidden beneath a carefully constructed life. Lydia has always believed she taught Mari the most important rule of their work: nobody dies. Yet when a wealthy stranger arrives at the Forestview carrying a locked black case, Lydia and Mari discover that someone may already be moving ahead of them-and may not share Lydia's rules. Tito chose a different path. Now a police officer determined to protect people the city too often overlooks, he begins following a trail involving vulnerable workers, rented motel rooms, and an abandoned warehouse. When the investigation becomes painfully personal, the evidence leads him toward the two women he trusts most. The closer Tito comes to the truth, the more he must question whether watching over someone means protecting them-or refusing to look away from what they have done. As grief, loyalty, and suspicion tighten around the Forestview, Lydia must confront the consequences of everything she taught Mari and everything she has kept hidden from Tito. Someone has taken the methods Lydia used to frighten dangerous people and turned them into something far more deadly. To protect the life she built, Lydia will have to determine who is hunting, who is being hunted, and how much truth the people she loves can survive. Watchers is the gripping conclusion to the Firebird and Watchers duology-a character-driven suspense novel about power, justice, chosen family, and the dangerous line between protecting others and controlling their fate. In a world where everyone is watching someone, the most important truths are often hidden in plain sight.
