The Cold Case Files - A Rhys Taylor Story, #16

THE COLD CASE FILES: A Taylor & Carter Investigation

Rhys Taylor was starting to believe the quiet might kill him.

Six months after a blood-soaked takedown in California wine country, life at his Lake Tahoe cabin feels almost…normal. Too normal. Then Annabelle Carter shows up with a grin, a proposition, and the kind of restless energy that only comes from a retired New Orleans detective who misses the hunt.

Together, they hang out a shingle—Taylor/Carter Investigations—to chase the cases everyone else abandoned: cold trails, missing people, and mysteries that never made it into the light.

Their first job? A Cold War ghost story handed to them off the record by an old CIA contact: Emil Varga, a double agent presumed dead for decades…now linked to a string of modern assassinations. The deeper they dig, the uglier it gets—an erased operation called Black Panther, a shadow pipeline running through New Orleans, and a hidden power broker selling secrets like currency.

Then the warning arrives: a trashed hotel room, a playing card, and a phoenix stamped on the back.

Now Taylor and Carter aren't just solving a case—they're fighting for their lives. With Kat on the keyboards, Digger on overwatch, and enemies who don't arrest you—they erase you—the investigation becomes a race from the bayous of Louisiana to an offshore fortress in the Florida Keys.

Because some cold cases aren't dead.

They're waiting.

And once you open the file…you're in it.