The fourth nerve-shattering installment of the San Diego Case Files from New York Times bestselling author Karen Rose sees Kit McKittrick's sister caught in a maelstrom of deadly family secrets. As an infant, Kit McKittrick's foster sister Akiko was abandoned at a firehouse. Now 32, Akiko has received an unsettling phone call from a woman who says that she knew her birth mother but refuses to divulge any details except in person. Akiko is nervous but also thrilled at the prospect of finally learning about her blood relations. Kit has a bad feeling about this and insists on accompanying Akiko to meet the woman. Sure enough, as they stand on Mary Sherman's doorstep, shots are fired and Kit is hit...and inside the house is a corpse: Mary Sherman herself. Although she's on medical leave and forbidden to work the case, Kit cannot rest. With police psychologist Sam Reeves, she undertakes a covert investigation into the mysterious Mary Sherman. Was she Akiko's birth mother? Why did she reach out after all these years? And who had a motive to kill her? As more bodies pile up, Kit starts to put together the pieces of the frightening puzzle that is Akiko's birth family, and she'll come to wonder whether some secrets should stay buried after all.