The race for the governor's mansion is on and only a beltway insider would think of that as the smaller story. Ambitious reporter Helen Davis has reached the top of her profession only to be unimpressed with the view. With the puzzling death of Lawrence Bowman, the biggest endorsement for the mayor, everyone seems to want Helen to cover the start of the campaign, except for her. Now someone has decided to change her life for better or worse. While Helen has her hands full fending off the attentions of fans and old friends, she realizes too late that she has been lured into another race entirely, one in which she has no idea where the beginning or end is, one against her own daughter.As a full time field reporter who only wants to tell her stories her way and on her terms, Leta Burroughs spends every free moment part-timing as an assistant director of an inner city multipurpose clinic. She both tells and safeguards many secrets. Some are new identities; some are anonymous donors, and some are even hidden truths about herself that she thought were long buried. Secrets that someone, who now is forcing her to face her demons one after another without rest, wants exposed.Just two short years ago, Danielle Morgan was one of Baltimore's finest. Now, she's a first-year FBI agent with as much authority as a twenty-year veteran. With the lead on the case of a lifetime and not a single clue in the death of the president of the Baltimore City Council, she tries to be something she's not: a quiet, professional FBI agent. Newly promoted, her job already hangs on the line as she tries to keep the details of Bowman's death out of the press and away from her own mother. Alive, Bowman's secrets came at a price; dead, they lay dangerously waiting for anyone to discover. Danielle finds herself in way over her head and reluctantly hoping to enlist the help of a veteran agent who wants nothing to do with her. Together they set out to determine what happened to the mayor's biggest endorsement for governor and why.