A Killer's Wife (desert Plains, #1)

The novel opens with Jordan Russo, a young woman and later-revealed first victim of the novel's central killer, leaping from a moving car in the Nevada desert. She tries to call 911 but has no signal, and her abductor drags her from her hiding spot among the rock formations.

The story shifts to Jessica Yardley, a federal prosecutor in Las Vegas and the ex-wife of Eddie Cal, a convicted serial killer known as the "Dark Casanova," who murdered multiple couples in their beds before his arrest nearly sixteen years earlier. Yardley has built a new life for herself and her fifteen-year-old daughter Tara, Cal's child, who possesses extraordinary intellect. FBI Agent Cason Baldwin, Yardley's former boyfriend, and his partner Agent Oscar Ortiz approach her with crime scene photos of two couples found dead with their throats slit. Baldwin believes the killings are the work of a copycat of Eddie Cal and asks for Yardley's help. She refuses.

At home, Yardley deals with Tara's suspension from school for drinking and nearly striking a teacher. Her boyfriend, Wesley Paul, a law professor who also volunteers at the Guardian ad Litem's Office, an agency that represents children in legal proceedings, urges her not to get involved, citing her traumatic past and recurring nightmares. Despite his objections, Yardley agrees to take the case. She visits the Olsen crime scene in St. George, Utah, and officially becomes the screening prosecutor, the attorney who reviews evidence and decides whether to file charges.

After briefly pursuing a suspect who is quickly cleared, Yardley hits a dead end. Baldwin asks her to visit Cal in prison, confessing that Cal refused to help unless Yardley is personally involved. Furious at Baldwin's deception, Yardley initially cuts ties with him but relents after he describes his own childhood trauma: His mother was murdered when Baldwin was seven, and telling the Dean children their parents were dead broke him.

At the Low Desert Plains Correctional Institution, Yardley faces Cal for the first time in nearly sixteen years. He asks to see Tara, which Yardley refuses. Cal reveals he knows about the copycat and offers to help in exchange for having his death sentence commuted to life and seeing his daughter. Yardley agrees to look into the execution stay but refuses to let him see Tara.

Under a court order, Cal is taken to the Olsen crime scene. He deduces that the killer hid under the backyard play set to watch the family and used the wife's underwear to gag her so she would not wake the children. Testing confirms his theory. Cal receives an email from the copycat with a photograph of the gagged victim. The FBI traces the email to Austin Ketner, a young man whose parents were among Cal's victims. Baldwin arrests Ketner, finding stolen mementos from both crime scenes in his apartment.

Yardley interviews Ketner and believes he is innocent, suspecting the evidence was planted. Her doubts deepen when she receives a threatening letter signed "With warm regards," the same closing from the email to Cal, a phrase known only to a handful of people in law enforcement. Meanwhile, Tara runs away with her boyfriend Kevin Watson. Yardley finds her in a squalid apartment where Kevin's associates attempted to coerce her into sex trafficking. Mother and daughter reconcile.

The copycat attacks the Miles family, whose home Baldwin had recently visited after a suspicious report. Jay Miles fights the attacker and survives, though severely wounded. Wesley gives Yardley an ultimatum about quitting the case.

After Cal hints that the Olsens' bedroom door holds a clue, Yardley finds a replaced hinge with a mismatched screw, evidence the killer repaired the door so the child would have to push both doors wide open, maximizing the horror of discovery. Searching the federal juvenile-records database, she discovers that all the targeted families have children with sealed adoptions, records accessible to only a few agencies, including the Guardian ad Litem's Office where Wesley volunteers.

Yardley reviews Cal's prison visitation videos and identifies Wesley visiting under an alias thirteen times. She obtains a search warrant for his condominium and finds hidden DVDs, one containing night-vision footage of Wesley killing the Olsens. Wesley arrives, traps her, and confesses, revealing he stalked her for years before engineering their relationship. Yardley locks herself in the bathroom with her gun but cannot bring herself to shoot. Baldwin and Ortiz arrive and arrest Wesley.

During interrogation, Wesley manipulates Ortiz by revealing he has kidnapped Ortiz's infant daughter, Emilia. He secretly activates an audio recorder, provokes Ortiz into beating him, and delivers a "confession" while being assaulted, creating grounds to suppress both the confession and any evidence derived from it. Wesley files a pretrial suppression motion—a legal request to exclude the tainted evidence from trial—and wins. The original murder charges are dismissed.

Tara visits Cal in prison for the first time. Acting on information Cal provides through Tara, Yardley investigates Wesley's first victim: Jordan Russo, the young woman from the novel's opening. She finds Jordan's journal in Wesley's former home office, with entries mentioning "Wes," and discovers Jordan's ring and a lock of her hair among Wesley's belongings. Wesley is rearrested for Jordan Russo's murder.

Yardley's supervisor assigns the case to senior prosecutor Tim Jeffries, relegating her to second chair, a supporting role in which she assists the lead attorney. Yardley learns from Cal that Wesley's only friend, Dominic Hill, helped abduct Jordan Russo. Seeking to maneuver Jeffries off the case, she directs Hill to contact Jeffries. Jeffries tells Hill to leave the state rather than disclose information to the defense. Wesley's private investigator discovers this misconduct, and Judge Madison Aggbi removes Jeffries from the case. Yardley assumes lead prosecution.

Wesley's investigator, Wehr Parker, kills the forensic odontologist, a dental specialist prepared to match bite marks found in Jordan Russo's bone to Wesley's teeth, before he can testify. Baldwin tracks Parker to a motel and kills him in a shootout. At trial, Wesley dismantles prosecution witnesses and frames the case as Yardley's personal vendetta. Yardley provokes Wesley by discussing his traumatic childhood, then calls Dominic Hill to testify. Hill states that he picked up Jordan Russo at Wesley's request and that Wesley confessed to killing her. Wesley lunges at Yardley; she Maces him, and marshals restrain him. The jury convicts him of first-degree murder. Emilia Ortiz is found alive at a home day care.

After the conviction, Baldwin uncovers Wesley's real identity: Wesley Deakins, born to parents who were murdered by a biker gang in the same manner as Cal's victims. Wesley witnessed their deaths as a child. Yardley visits Cal one final time. He reveals he orchestrated Wesley's killing spree to generate grounds for a new appeal and warns that another follower, a woman, can still help him. Yardley visits Jordan Russo's mother, Isabella Russo, and learns that before the lineup, a teenager with very blue eyes who resembled Yardley showed Isabella a photograph of Wesley to ensure identification.

In the final chapter, Tara visits Wesley at his appeal hearing and reveals the truth. Cal's actual first victim was Jordan Russo. Cal provides Tara with Jordan's hair, ring, and original journal. Tara forges a copy of the journal substituting "Wes" for "Eddie," plants the evidence among Wesley's belongings, and coaches Dominic Hill, one of Cal's obsessive followers, to give false testimony. Wesley lunges at Tara but is restrained and dragged away. Tara walks out of the courthouse smiling, having ensured Wesley can never hurt her mother again. Yardley prepares to leave for the Cal family ranch in New Mexico with Tara, planning a hiatus from her career, while the full truth remains known only to her daughter.