When Judge Victor Montgomery is murdered in a particularly gruesome way (think severed body part) the police suspect his seventeen-year-old stepdaughter, Emily. After all, blood was found in her bedroom and she apparently tried to kill herself with booze and pills. But Deputy District Attorney Julia Chandler doesn't believe her troubled niece would commit such a violent act. To prove Emily's innocence, she recruits PI Connor Kincaid who'd helped find Emily when she ran away from home three years earlier. Connor and Julia don't like each other, but they're the only people who truly want to help Emily. As their investigation proceeds, an attraction slowly grows between them.