Before the Lights Go Out

In Lafayette Parish, secrets don't stay buried. They're buried alive.

When Elena Ward vanishes during the Summer Lights Festival, her husband Cal becomes the prime suspect within hours. The last time he saw her, she stood forty feet away beneath the lantern lights - and nine minutes later, she was gone. Her planner is found open to June 14th, marked with a single chilling line:

"The hour is almost here."

Cal knows Elena didn't wander off. Elena planned. Elena executed. Elena uncovered things she never should have touched.

Three weeks before her disappearance, Elena learned the truth about a boy the town pretended never existed - Jacob Fontenot, a sixteen‑year‑old who vanished twenty years earlier. A file buried in the school archives, mislabeled and quietly closed by a young deputy named R. Broussard, revealed a cover‑up that reached into the most powerful family in the parish.

"Inside: a single incident report... countersigned... by a young patrol officer named R. Broussard."

Elena spent weeks building a case against the Delacroix family and the police chief who protected them. She created secret files, mapped out the festival's lantern release, and prepared to expose the truth in front of the entire town. But someone was watching her - someone who sent threats aimed not at her, but at Cal.

"You should think very carefully about your husband's health insurance before you do anything foolish..."

When Elena disappears, Cal begins following the trail she left behind - a trail meant only for him. A burner phone. A hidden flash drive. A storm shelter on the old Fontenot property. And a text message referencing a private memory only Elena could know.

As Cal digs deeper, every alibi in town begins to crack. Every motive sharpens. And every truth points toward the same impossible revelation:

Jacob Fontenot is alive. And Chief Roy Broussard has Elena.

What follows is a race through storm‑soaked fields, buried evidence, and twenty years of corruption - culminating in a rescue that exposes the town's darkest secret and shatters the Delacroix legacy forever.

"Elena lay curled against the shelter's far wall... alive, unmistakably, gloriously alive."

Before the Lights Go Out is a tense, atmospheric psychological thriller about small‑town power, buried crimes, and the people who refuse to stop digging. Perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell, Karin Slaughter, and slow‑burn mysteries where every chapter tightens the noose.