An audio book.
The narrator, Alexandra Cooper, a lawyer, is back to work after a case where her boss was shot dead. Her colleague, Helen Wyler, needs her help in a multiple rape case against S. Helen received txts from a witness which she should have forwarded to the defence. Instead she deleted them, and the judge knows. The judge, Corless, has been unfaithful to his wife. He tells Alexandra that his wife claims that he hit her.
Lucy, 24, no fixed abode, is brought to her office. She won't speak to the police. She's mixed race but looks white. When she was 14 and with 2 black friends her friends were shot dead. She was a witness. She's been done for a lot of shoplifting. She tells Alex about a rape case. Nobody took her seriously. A photo in the police station might have triggered a reaction.
She tries to cancel Lucy's previous convictions. She contacts Lucy's aunt. Lucy used to live with her, then Lucy suddenly left, taking money and a cousin's ring. The aunt tells Alexandra that the cousin used to like Lucy, but Lucy can't be trusted. Alex has trouble getting a coherent story from Lucy.
She reveals that she agreed a Blood Oath with an important man who threatened her not to expose him. She gives sufficient hints for Alexandra to deduce that the man is Zak Palmer, head of anti-terrorism.
Francie (a friend/colleague of Alexandra) is in hospital on life-support after collapsing earlier in the day. Alexandra's shocked to learn that she's pregnant. She was poisoned with a nerve agent.
Mike (a detective) is Alexandra's partner. Corless's wife is accusing her husband of trying to strangle her. Zak, divorced, wants to see Alexandra. He's applying to be her boss (the old boss died in the previous case) and wants to talk her out of applying too. His pretty PA, Josie, met Lucy a decade before.
Lucy falls onto subway rails and is saved. Alex thinks it wasn't an accident. She gets Lucy a place in the secure hospital where Francie is. She discovers that Francie has the same blood-oath scar as Lucy has. It's discovered that Zak as a student used to help on a scheme for troubled kids, one of them being Francie. Francie dies in the night. Alex meets Zak and tells him that he'll soon be arrested. She visits Corless and secretly gets a DNA sample from him, suspecting that he's the father of Francie's foetus.
In the hospital Alex is chased through dark tunnels by Josie. Zak's already arrested but Josie doesn't know it. Alex escapes. We learn that Josie is Zak's half-sister.
Good dialogue. Plot twists sometimes depend on detailed technicalities.
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