Every house has a second story. Some are better left unopened.

When Nell returns to the Lake Michigan town of Grayhaven and starts an estate clean-out business, she expects dusty attics, forgotten heirlooms, and families arguing over who gets Grandma's china.

She doesn't expect the last box in Evelyn Bell's attic.

Inside are a brass key, an old ferry token, a blue scarf, and a photograph connected to the mysterious death of seventeen-year-old Maren Gray nearly thirty years earlier.

The key leads Nell and her quick-witted niece Piper to an abandoned ferry-terminal locker—and to evidence someone went to considerable trouble to hide.

Then local real-estate developer Graham Rusk turns up dead in Evelyn Bell's greenhouse.

Suddenly, a forgotten tragedy from 1997 isn't so forgotten.

As Nell begins sorting through the Bell family's possessions, she also finds herself sorting through decades of lies: a fatal night on Lake Michigan, a suspicious police investigation, a valuable property deal, an old friendship shattered by secrets, and several people who have very good reasons to make sure the past stays buried.

With Detective Adrian Shaw warning her not to get too involved and Piper enthusiastically doing the opposite, Nell must figure out which secrets explain an old death—and which one was worth killing for today.

Because in Grayhaven, the most dangerous thing in an old house may be the story someone thought they packed away forever.

The Key in the Last Box is Book One of The Last Box Mysteries, a clean contemporary cozy mystery series featuring small-town secrets, an amateur sleuth, family history, and a very curious estate clean-out business.