JENNIFER CROSS INVESTIGATIONS

When the accusation is the weapon, the truth is the only way out.

Private investigator Jennifer Cross built her career on one rule: only take the cases that matter. When Senator Eric Bean's campaign manager calls with a rape accusation three weeks before election day, Jennifer's first instinct is to say no. Her second instinct — the one she trusts — is to find out whether the senator is actually innocent before she decides anything.

In Springfield, everyone has something to hide. Some secrets are just more fatal than others.

Private investigator Jennifer Cross just closed a case she can't talk about, for a client she doesn't entirely trust, in a city where the real crimes are always buried in the paperwork. She was two days into a well-earned week off when her private line rang.

A body has been found on Meridian Street. 

 Some cases stay closed because justice was served.
Others stay closed because the right people wanted them that way.
Private investigator Jennifer Cross has just wrapped the most complicated case of her career. She's earned a week off, a decent cup of coffee, and the professional satisfaction of a job done right.  What she gets instead is a retired assistant district attorney sliding a fifteen-year-old memo across her desk.

The education program was real. The children were real. 

The money was not.

When Springfield Repertory Theatre's artistic director is found dead , private investigator Jennifer Cross gets the call before the police do — because the person making it is Peter Richards, her compliance attorney boyfriend, who took the theater as a client six months ago 

 Trust is easy—until someone uses it against you.
When a fellow private investigator is found dead, Jennifer Cross expects to investigate a murder.
She doesn't expect to discover that the victim had been investigating her.
Then a formal complaint threatens Jennifer's license, damaging evidence begins appearing in places it shouldn't, and a respected Springfield civic leader suddenly becomes very interested in Jennifer's future. 

 Some secrets survive twenty years. 

Some people will kill to keep them buried.

When Evelyn Mercer hires private investigator Jennifer Cross to find an accountant who disappeared two decades ago, the case appears to be little more than an old mystery buried in forgotten files.

Then Jennifer discovers a financial document bearing the name of Gerald Whitmore, a defunct corporate property transfer, and a handwritten list of seven people connected to a trail of charitable money, political influence, and a controversial development project.