Following her success with The Cheater, Nancy Taylor Rosenberg returns to her most memorable character, Lily Forrester. Lily is a tough judge in Ventura County, California, who has overcome adversity and heartache to achieve a position of power to help those who can't help themselves. Like the current case before her, the sensational murder trial of a woman who tortured and killed her beautiful two-year old son. Lily is determined to see justice done but she's thrown for a loop when she receives word that her own daughter, Shana, months away from graduating from Stanford Law School, is on the verge of dropping out. Lily rushes north and what she discovers causes her to fear for her daughter's mental state. She must get back to the trial and decides that she will take Shana to a facility where they can evaluate her and if needed give her some counseling or medication. Which is when things go horribly awry. For the institution that Lily has chosen is far...

As a dedicated district attorney, Lily Forrester presents the perfect image of a defender of justice. Only she knows the dark secret of what happened six years ago, when a desperate crisis drove her to step outside the law and exact a horrifying personal vengeance. Now her ex-husband, faced with serious criminal charges, threatens to expose her unless she compromises her most cherished beliefs to help him. A violent rapist she put behind bars is back on the streets and looking for her. Her beloved daughter seems to be the target of a dangerous madman. And Lily must call on her deepest strength to face her accusers and ensure that the values she holds most dear will triumph.

SUMMARY: Monday morning's are hell. That's what Carolyn Sullivan is thinking as she arrives at her office at the Ventura County Probation Department. She's got a paper due for law school. Two high energy kids who need to be in different places at the same time. A mountain of debt. Her boss is on the warpath before she even has a chance to grab her first cup of coffee. But Carolyn's day is about to get a lot worse. One of her probationers has just been arrested for rape. It's a front-page headline story that leads squarely back to Carolyn's paper-strewn desk and overwhelming caseload. Could she have prevented the crime? She fears the top brass, pressured by the media, may destroy her career. Just when Carolyn should be lying low, instead she's assigned a sensitive case that's sure to have everyone breathing down her neck - supervising convicted killer and paranold schizophrenic Daneil Metroix. Carolyn dives into a case that everyone else seems to want to keep closed...one that leads behind the glossy exteriors of Ventura's most prominent sons into the darkest corners of the American dream. Someone doesn't want Carolyn to discover the truth. Someone who knows where she lives, where she goes, who she sees. Someone who will strike at the very heart of every mother's worst fear in order to silence her for good.