When 13-year-old Savannah Hopkins doesn’t come straight home from school, as she always does, her mother Jane immediately raises the alarm. Leading the investigation is Detective Natalie Ward, whose daughter, Leigh, is the same age as Savannah. Soon Natalie’s worst fears are confirmed when the teenager’s broken body is found in nearby shrubland. Evidence points toward a local recluse, but just as the net is closing around him, one of Savannah’s friends, Harriet, is reported missing.

Deep in the muddy fields of the Lincolnshire Fens, a teenage girl is found wandering, delirious, claiming to have been drugged at a party. Metres away, the drowned body of another girl is found on an isolated beach. And all this on a small stretch of land where, nearly 10 years ago, the shocking disappearance of a young girl remains an open case.

Following an alleged conversation between respected attorney Rayna Martin and teenager Christina Hayes, one of them is dead, the other arrested for their murder. Boston lawyer David Cavanaugh faces his toughest case to date when what appears to be a tragic accident turns into something else entirely. David soon finds that his most dangerous battle is taking place outside the courtroom.

Doctor Jeffrey Logan, daytime TV's most loved psychologist, has a top-rating talk show seen around the world – and his picture-perfect life is completed by his talented lawyer wife, Stephanie Tyler, their 16-year-old daughter Chelsea, and 13-year-old J. T. But this image of domestic bliss is shattered when Stephanie is killed instantly by a bullet from a big-game rifle in the family's pristine Beacon Hill kitchen.

It's been a long time since criminal defence attorney David Cavanaugh has heard his childhood friend Chris Kincaid speak of Marilyn Maloney; for hers is a name from the past, from a time when David, Chris, and the third in the gang of three, Mike, vowed never to let a girl get in the way of their friendship. But now Chris is the "successful, happily married US Senator for New Jersey", and when he pleads with David to return home to help him locate the girl he "used" to love, David reluctantly agrees..