The Castle Pines Catastrophe (Detective Lauren Gabriel Mysteries Book 7)

A Quiet Town Hiding a Deadly Pattern

Detective Lauren Gabriel arrives in Castle Pines, Colorado, already unsettled by a vivid and unsettling vision she can’t explain. When a promising teenage athlete is found murdered, the shock ripples through the tight-knit community. But the tragedy doesn’t end there. A suspicious suicide and a brutal hit-and-run soon follow, forming a pattern too deliberate to ignore.

As Lauren investigates, it becomes clear that something far more sinister is unfolding beneath the town’s calm surface. Each victim is connected by secrets, hidden pressures, and lives that were not as simple as they seemed. The clues are fragmented, the witnesses unreliable, and the truth obscured by grief and fear.

Working without her usual support system, Lauren faces mounting personal struggles alongside the case. With her closest ally out of reach and her personal life unraveling, she must rely on her instincts to track a killer who may be hiding in plain sight—or worse, more than one.

Blending crime thriller tension with psychological and paranormal elements, The Castle Pines Catastrophe is a gripping addition to the Detective Lauren Gabriel Mysteries series, where every answer leads to deeper questions and every step forward risks becoming the last.

Step into Castle Pines and uncover the truth before the next victim falls.

Excerpt from the book

LAUREN FOUND HERSELF in the silent corridors of Castle View High School in Castle Pines, Colorado. The lights overhead flickered, throwing long shadows across the lockers. The silence was not comforting—it pressed down like an anchor, each second heavier than the last.

Somewhere ahead, a locker door slammed. Then another. One by one, the metal doors banged shut in an ear-splitting cadence until the hallway became a thunderous drumbeat of steel. Lauren flinched, spinning her wheelchair 360 degrees, but she saw no one.

When the final locker closed, one remained ajar, glowing faintly from within.

“Detective Gabriel.”

The voice was soft, almost ethereal. She turned. Ethan Kimber stood at the end of the hallway, barefoot, wearing the same wrinkled hoodie he wore in most of the previous dreams, his long black hair flowing out from the hood, down his chest. A descendant of Ute Native Americans, Ethan’s eyes were wide and black, holding mysteries that a boy his age should not have seen. His tanned, acne-laced face was fixated on the detective.

“You hear them too,” Ethan whispered. “The ones who aren’t seen.”

Lauren’s throat tightened. “Who, Ethan?”

He pointed toward the glowing locker. “The invisible one. The one who hides in plain sight. You walk past them every day. We all walk past them.”

Lauren moved forward, her hand trembling as she reached for the handle. The metal burned cold beneath her fingers. She pulled, and inside lay a rainbow-colored scarf, soaked through with fresh, dripping blood. Beneath it was an ID card, but the face and letters were smudged and unreadable.

The floor shifted. Blood fell from the locker like a waterfall, racing down the hallway, covering the wheels of Lauren’s chair, seeping upward as if the school itself bled.

Ethan’s voice rose above the bloody river: “The rainbow bleeds. The coin is in the air, Lauren—you must call it. Who is the predator? Who is the prey? Heads or tails?”

Lauren spun toward Ethan, but his image was already fading, dissolving like mist.

“Don’t wait, Detective. The predator is clever,” he whispered, his voice echoing now from the mountain peaks. “Or more will vanish.”

Lauren jolted awake in her apartment, drenched in sweat, recalling every detail of the dream: The one who hides in plain sight.

Reaching out of habit to the empty spot next to her in bed, Lauren slapped the cool pillow where Ren’s head had rested for many months. A long, deep, meditative groan emerged from Lauren’s mouth as she wiped the sleep from her lips.

The Murder Whisperer picked up her iPhone and saw three missed messages and texts from Lieutenant Pippa Cannone.

“Here we go,” Lauren mumbled to herself. “Duty calls.”