An embattled author. Fanatical parents. A son who can’t stay out of trouble. It’s the last one that’ll probably kill him.

When Emery Hazard gets drawn into a brawl at a monthly school board meeting, he knows he’s in trouble; his husband, John-Henry Somerset, is chief of police, and they’re already under enough scrutiny as they try to finalize their foster son’s permanency plan.

Hazard’s actions, however, have an unexpected consequence: A woman shows up at his office the next day, and she wants to hire him to protect her mother. Loretta Ames is a famous—and famously troublesome—author, and a string of recent attempts on her life suggests that someone is determined to get rid of her. Under pressure from his assistant, Hazard takes the job, assuming that it will be two days of babysitting before Loretta returns to New York.

Her murder changes everything. To find the killer, Hazard and Somers will enter a murky world of concerned parents, entitled teenagers, internet trolls, and a whole lot of grassroots crazy. But nothing is straightforward about the investigation, and even Loretta’s daughter seems to have her own reasons to want her mother dead. And when the killer abducts Colt’s friend, Hazard and Somers realize they are running out of time, and they must race to save him before it’s too late.