Clay Carter at the office of the public defender like most of his colleagues dreams of a better job in a real firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit D.C. every week. As he digs into his background, however, Clay stumbles on a conspiracy too horrible to believe, a complex case against one of the largest pharmaceutical companies...

New York City medical examiner Laurie Montgomery faces the case of her career involving the suspected poisoning murder of a CIA agent and possible links to a powerful pharmaceutical company and start-up stem-cell research labs.

Married FBI agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich are investigating a rather unusual case: Senator David Hoffman is experiencing a ghostly apparition with possible malicious intent. They're no closer to cracking the case when a call comes in from Connecticut: A top foreign Schiffer Hartwin employee has been found murdered behind the drug company's U.S. headquarters.