The Boy in the Basement

Book excerpt: It’s Halloween 2019 in Mobile, Alabama. Jennifer Riley, CPS supervisor and her team, face a nightmare line-up of child abuse cases. A young boy, imprisoned by his mother, in the family basement, fights for his very life. A baby girl, whose parents are drug addicts, is on life support from a traumatic brain injury. Despite the signs and natural assumptions that could lead the team to the perpetrators, the investigators discovered that the truth is never that simple. The team must navigate the “who” and “why” of these cases, with guidance from Jennifer. But when a ghost from her past reappears, Jennifer is shaken to her very core. One of her former foster children, who had survived the system, is murdered. What follows challenges her beliefs. Will her own self-doubt derail the team? A romance is the last thing she wants. But maybe, it is just what she needs.