One cold November night when Kate White was fifteen years old, she and some friends held up a store. One of them killed an off-duty cop. They got away with it.

Thirteen years later, Kate has built a new life for herself. Now a single mother with a nine-year-old son, she is a prosecutor in the Philadelphia district attorney's office.

Then one day she walks into court and the accused is Mario Castellanos, the one who probably did commit the crime. If Kate doesn't convince the judge to let him go, he'll claim that she was the one who killed the cop. Before real despair sets in, Mario is found dead - in Kate's apartment, and with Kate's pistol. Homicide detective Tom Braga shows up to investigate the murder and things get worse: she and Tom have clashed since she started working for the prosecutor's office.

But then another man who knows the secret of Kate's past gets involved in the investigation. Kate's life - and her son's - are in danger. The only person she can turn to is Tom Braga . . .