The case: A parent's nightmare. The moment his mother turns her back, three-year-old Michael Panesivic vanishes. The cop: She grew up on the streets of L.A., so Detective Jackie Kaminsky understands the troubled kids and broken families she deals with every day. And she knows when people are lying. Like now. Despite eyewitness accounts and lie-detector tests, something about little Michael's disappearance doesn't ring true. The witness: His story is chilling, but is he a credible witness? He claims he's never met the Panesivic family; he's simply a carpenter who dreams of returning to his Montana ranch. Hell, he's not even sure what he knows or what he's seen. Jackie has three choices. She can dismiss the man as a handsome nutcase. She can arrest him as the only suspect. Or she can believe him. With a little boy's life at risk, she can't afford to make the wrong choice.

Readers of Margot Dalton's First Impression will recognize Detective Jackie Kaminsky. This time she's in charge of a murder investigation—one that strikes painfully close to her own life and tests the bonds of newfound love. It seemed like a routine break and enter until Spokane detective Jackie Kaminsky took a second look at the evidence.... The intruder knew his way around Maribel Lewis' home—yet took nothing. The intruder left a threatening letter ... and a vile photograph. The intruder seems to know Maribel's deepest secret—and wants payment in blood. Then the killing begins. And the suspects are all members of Maribel's strange extended family—a hostile son, an ex-daughter-in-law, an oddly aloof teenage girl and a terrified grandson. But when the suspects become victims, it's clear... Everybody's guilty of something ... and now somebody's guilty of murder.

In Detective Jackie Kaminsky's newest case, a "perfect family man" vanishes without a trace. Now considering marriage herself, this case is causing Jackie to have serious doubts. After all, if a husband as dependable as John Stevenson can't be trusted, who can? Missing person? Murder victim? Or murderer? That's what Spokane detective Jackie Kaminsky must uncover. And all she has to go on is what the distraught young wife can tell her about John Stevenson. He loves his wife, he's crazy about their four kids and he's got a good job working for an up-and-coming Spokane politician. But one night he went out to get baby formula—and he didn't come back. Has the "perfect husband and father" simply abandoned his family? Is he somehow connected to the hit-and-run death of his boss' young daughter? Or as Jackie is beginning to suspect, is John's disappearance the perfect decoy for something more sinister?

Officially, she's still on maternity leave. But unofficially, Detective Jackie Kaminsky can't ignore a thirty-year-old unsolved murder. Especially since the bodies are buried in her own backyard.... Spokane detective Jackie Kaminsky finds her instincts as both a cop and a mother put to the ultimate test when she unearths the bodies of a murdered woman and a baby buried behind her new house. As a cop, she suspects this peaceful neighborhood is hiding a sinister secret. As a mother, she fears for her own baby's safety. Her unofficial questioning of the longtime residents rattles someone into threatening both Jackie and her baby boy. But it's only when she uncovers the dead woman's diary that the true tale of desperation and twisted motives begins to emerge—even deadlier now than thirty years ago. Somewhere in this quiet, idyllic neighborhood, a murderer is about to strike again.