A twenty-something court reporter by day, law student by night, Anne Marshall lives in a sleepy Midwestern college town with her fiancé Jason, the town’s District Attorney. But Anne has a secret: Jason isn’t the only man in her life and the other man—the ghost of her father, James Marshall—still plays a big, and sometimes complicated, role in Anne’s life. When law professor Elliott Spence is viciously run down and killed in an accident that’s quickly ruled a homicide, police name the professor’s wife, Kathy Spence, as the prime suspect. Kathy has no alibi, and her car, which matched eyewitness accounts of the hit-and-run, was found abandoned not far from the crime scene. But why would this seemingly-loving wife murder her husband? When Anne becomes a reluctant but diligent amateur sleuth, her favorite ghostly sidekick shows up to help But this ghost/daughter duo finds that investigating this seemingly open-and-shut case opens up a colossal can of worms. There are some dark secrets lurking in the past—including several jaw-dropping events in the days before the murder, and a simmering rage that’s been building for over a century. Now a ghost is certainly a handy thing to have in an investigation, but in real life, Anne is going to need some earthly protection. Anne Marshall is hot on the trail of a cold-blooded killer, and when the real killer catches wind of Anne’s sleuthing, there will be only one way to stop the investigation— and that’s stopping Anne. For good.
The story begins with Ross Craig and Professor Elliott Spence meeting at a bar after not seeing each other since Elliott’s marriage to Kathy. They had not seen each other in years. Elliott is not sure what they meeting was about as he leaves the bar and walks across the street and suddenly is run down by a speeding car.