A nurse’s curiosity and strong sense of duty involve her in a high-profile murder case.
Frankie Stapleton left her busy job as an ER nurse in Chicago to help her family back in Stillwater, Illinois, deal with an emergency. Feeling pushed to take over the family hardware store and marry her high school sweetheart, Frankie had fled to Chicago, where she entered and broke off two other engagements. Now she’s sharing a room with her niece, helping in the store, and working a short-term contract at Stillwater General, where she was recently instrumental in solving several murders (Time of Death, 2016). Her night shift is interrupted when a man claiming his name is John Mueller walks in, saying that he was in an accident and hit a deer. Frankie senses that he’s lying, but before she can do anything, an ambulance arrives with Katherine Tibbs, a heavily pregnant woman badly hurt after driving off the road. The team saves her baby but not her. Katherine’s husband, District Attorney Steven Tibbs, was hailed as a hero for rescuing people in a big fire when Frankie was in high school. Now a candidate for Congress, he has wealthy backers and a savvy handler who give him a good chance. The hospital is flooded with police after Mueller walks out, making himself the prime suspect for who might have deliberately run Katherine off the road. Despite mutual hard feelings, there’s still a spark between Frankie and her first ex-fiance, sheriff’s deputy Noah MacLean, who’s constantly warning her to keep out of police business. Mueller turns up at Katherine’s funeral but escapes again in the uproar over the announcement that Trey Tibbs has been stolen from the neonatal unit. Things go from bad to worse as Frankie joins in a desperate search for the missing baby.
A nicely balanced blend of medical knowledge, political trickery, and hints of the heroine’s future.