Lily hides a traumatic past beneath a prickly exterior, but in the third book, the karate expert lets her guard down long enough to make peace with her family and help solve a series of grisly murders. Returning to Bartley's hometown (a stone's throw from where she lives in Shakespeare, Arkansas) for her sister Verena's wedding, Lily becomes immersed in an eight-year-old kidnapping investigation. After her former lover and friend Jack Leeds (a private investigator with a questionable past) arrives to follow up on an anonymous tip that the kidnapper and missing girl are in Bartley. When everyone's favorite town doctor, his nurse and young mother are beaten to death, suspicion falls on Verena's fiancé, a widower who happens to have an eight-year-old daughter. As the investigation heats up, Lily uses her family connections and impeccable cleaning skills to uncover some crucial information.