The Blue Ridge Witness

When coder Amanda Lewis stumbles onto a cartel’s live automation scripts, she becomes the one loose thread they can’t afford to leave dangling. Deputy Jason Walker arrives expecting a routine breach call and instead finds a woman who refuses to shut down her system mid-trace—even as trackers close in on her location. Forced into the rugged Blue Ridge backcountry, the two strangers must outrun drones, blackouts, and a relentless pursuit that follows them from remote cabins to abandoned ranger stations.

As nights grow colder and danger tightens, Amanda’s quick code and Jason’s hard-won field instincts become their only defense. Yet every shared meal and near-miss reveals cracks in the armor each has built: her fear of being used, his terror of losing another partner. With the cartel closing in and a captured ally’s life on the line, Amanda offers herself as bait and Jason must decide whether protecting her means pushing her away—or finally fighting for the future neither thought they could claim.

In the mountains that once hid them, they’ll risk everything to turn the cartel’s own code against them—and discover that the greatest danger may be the one they pose to each other’s hearts.