A Well Worn Path

A Well Worn Path by DC Rivera

When seventeen-year-old Trinity Dow dies by suicide just weeks after her engagement to her childhood sweetheart, she leaves behind a cryptic message written in her own blood: He nos Y. Her engagement ring and diary are missing, and in a small town built on lifelong friendships and carefully kept appearances, the truth seems just out of reach.

Desperate for answers, Trinity’s family hires seasoned private investigator Jacklyn “Jack” Bixby. As Jack begins to unravel the circumstances surrounding Trinity’s death, she discovers a quiet community layered with secrets. The men closest to Trinity—her fiancé Tristan, his special needs brother, her protective father, and her devoted performance partner—each hold fragments of a story that doesn’t quite align.

What first appears to be a tragic choice made in isolation soon reveals a deeper web of manipulation, betrayal, hidden illness, and fractured loyalties. When a key witness turns up dead, the investigation shifts from heartbreaking to dangerous, and Jack uncovers a calculated scheme that pushed Trinity toward despair. At the center lies a young woman overwhelmed by family secrets, romantic doubt, and a devastating medical diagnosis—believing her sacrifice would spare the people she loved.

A Well Worn Path is a tense, emotional coming-of-age crime mystery that explores grief, obsession, and the fragile line between protection and control. With layered characters and a haunting small-town atmosphere, DC Rivera delivers a story about the choices that define us—and the truths that refuse to stay buried.

Discover the secrets behind Trinity’s final message and follow Jack Bixby as she pieces together a mystery where love, loyalty, and betrayal collide.

Excerpt from the book

“Tristan, get up!” the voice yelled. “Now!”

This Mom’s voice was not the you’re-late-for-school voice—the one that seventeen-year-old Tristan often ignored, even as his mother wrestled the covers away and warned of detentions for being tardy. That Mom’s voice would huff in annoyance when he rolled over and smacked the snooze button one more time.

“Tristan!” This was the panicked Mom’s voice. Tristan felt a shove at his shoulder and saw lights bursting across his pillow like the high beams of his beloved Honda Civic. “Tristan!

The police are at the Dow’s house!”

Shocked from his stupor, Tristan noted the clock pulsed 3:07 a.m., and he ripped back the curtain. Tristan’s bedroom window faced the backside of Trinity Dow’s house, so he saw the cruisers’ red and blue prisms puncturing the darkness, and the budget-conscious Dow home had every lamp burning. “What’s going on?!”

“Your dad is over there now trying to find out. You go too!”

“Todd’s heart?” Tristan speculated, bounding down the stairs two at a time.

“What else could it be?” Todd Dow, patriarch, only forty years old, had flunked his last stress test.

“My phone!” Tristan’s cell phone was charging beside his bed. Mom tossed it to him from the second floor. “She didn’t call. Trinity didn’t call me,” he scanned his messages.

“No one called here either—not the house phone or our cells. The Morrisons’ Akita kept barking and woke me up. That’s when I saw the police cars over at Todd and Rayne’s. It’s something bad, or they would’ve called us!”

“I’ll let you know what’s going on,” he assured her. He knew she was as scared as he was, but she was unwilling to leave because Tristan had two younger siblings in the house under the age of six. Even though the Dows’ home was right down the path, his mom would not leave her children in the dead of night. Not even an emergency next door would prevent her from protecting her babes from imagined roaming pedophiles and serial killers.

They had not known that the real danger didn’t come from meandering strangers, but rather, it came from the people you thought you knew best.