Lainey Abbott

On the eve of trial, Assistant District Attorney Lainey Abbott gets a disturbing phone call. Her baby sister, Stephanie, who should have been back at her college dorm after visiting for the weekend, never arrived. At first, she isn’t too worried, because she’s a system insider and has plenty of resources available to locate her sister quickly, including Russ Sanders, the police detective she’s been on and off with for years. It’ll take a couple days, tops. They’ll find Steph and give her a piece of their mind for being so irresponsible. But a year later, Stephanie still hasn’t been found.

Former ADA turned defense lawyer Lainey Abbott is beginning to worry. It looks like the rest of her professional life will be spent representing dope boys in stop-and-frisk cases, just to help keep the lights on at her and Greg Knight’s law practice. Then a star football player from an elite college shows up at their door. A young, beautiful classmate, with whom he had an erratic three-month fling, was just found dead, and right away he’s in the NYPD’s crosshairs. Could be a fairly straightforward case to defend. Or maybe not. He's Black, and the missing girl is white.