Hard to Kill

Criminal defense attorney Jane Smith and her investigator and best friend, Jimmy Cunniff, a former NYPD detective, attend the Nassau County Courthouse in Mineola to watch former client Rob Jacobson turn himself in on new murder charges. Jane and Jimmy recently won Jacobson an acquittal for killing the Gates family in Suffolk County: a father, mother, and teenage daughter. Now he faces charges for the nearly identical murders of the Carson family of Garden City. Before he is handcuffed, Jacobson silently mouths a plea for Jane to call him. As media swarm her on the courthouse steps, Jane spots a man in a hoodie making a gun gesture at her. She believes it is Nick Morelli, a witness from the first trial who was presumed dead after his empty fishing boat was found off Montauk.

What Jane has not told almost anyone is that she has stage four cancer of the neck and head. Her internist and lifelong friend, Dr. Samantha Wylie, reports that two rounds of chemotherapy have stabilized the cancer but not reversed it. On the drive home, both Jane and Jimmy receive threatening texts signed by Joe Champi, the corrupt former NYPD officer and Jacobson fixer whom Jane killed during the first trial. Someone is using a dead man's name to send a message.

Despite her illness and Jimmy's objections, Jane agrees to defend Jacobson again, privately acknowledging that standing on those courthouse steps made her feel alive for the first time since her diagnosis. She flies to the Meier Clinic outside Geneva for advanced treatment, including immunotherapy and experimental nerve therapy. Her tumor shrinks slightly, the first real good news she has received. She meets Fiona Mills, a terminally ill British woman who urges her to treat every hour as precious and to open her heart to her boyfriend, Dr. Ben Kalinsky, a veterinarian. Jane has already revealed her cancer to Ben; he tells her he knew all along but waited for her to say it.

While Jane is abroad, Jimmy reinvestigates the case from its roots. His NYPD contact, Detective Craig Jackson, reveals that a boy named Edmund McKenzie was present at the Jacobson town house the day Rob's father killed a teenage girl and then himself, but McKenzie's wealthy hedge-fund father had the boy erased from the record. Years later, McKenzie was accused of rape and blamed Jacobson for framing him, vowing revenge. Jackson notes a rumored connection between the McKenzie family and Sonny Blum, a powerful organized crime figure. Jimmy confronts McKenzie at the Carlyle hotel, but McKenzie is hostile. That night, intruders drug Jimmy at home, tie him to a chair, and warn him to stop investigating, threatening that Jane will "die of something other than cancer."

Jane returns and secures Jacobson's $5 million bail before Judge Alicia Kane. Jacobson tells Jane he and her sister Brigid are seeing each other again, news that disappoints Jane. A cascade of violence follows. Elise Parsons, a socialite who publicly slapped Jane at a fundraiser, and Elise's daughter Ellie are found shot dead. State Police investigator Danny Esposito questions Jane and gradually becomes an ally. Claire Jacobson, Rob's estranged wife, is found nearly drowned in her pool; she refuses to identify her attacker, though Jane glimpses a fleeing figure she suspects is Eric Jacobson, Rob's estranged son. Brigid then delivers devastating news: Her non-Hodgkin's lymphoma has relapsed.

Jimmy discovers through Dave Wolk, a reformed thief, that Eric, Morelli, and Wolk once ran a teenage burglary ring, and that Morelli's uncle is mob figure Bobby Salvatore. Eric breaks into Jane's bedroom at night, holding her gun, and demands she quit the case, claiming Rob confessed to killing his own father, Robinson Jacobson Sr., and a teenage girl named Carey Watson. Jimmy's upgraded alarm system triggers a silent alert that brings police, and Eric escapes. Esposito reveals that the murdered families and McKenzie share a mob-connected bookie, tying McKenzie to the criminal underworld surrounding both cases.

Jane confronts Allen Reese, a real estate mogul and Jacobson's rival, about Reese's financial partnership with Salvatore. Reese warns her she is "messing with the wrong people." Ben is attacked at his veterinary office, and Jane's ex-husband, Martin Elian, is drugged and dumped on her doorstep as another warning. Martin reveals he borrowed money from Anthony Licata, Champi's former partner and a corrupt ex-cop, through McKenzie. Through retired Detective Dick Kelley, Jimmy learns that Champi and Licata built a business as fixers for wealthy families after leaving the police force, and that a rumored "third partner" was never identified. Jimmy visits retired Lt. Paul Harrington, the legendary former commander who investigated the original Jacobson case and booted Licata from the department. Harrington presents himself as incorruptible and offers to help.

Salvatore's boat explodes off Montauk with Licata reportedly aboard; no bodies are recovered. Morelli enters Brigid's house at gunpoint and threatens to kill everyone Jane loves unless she stops investigating. He reveals that someone owes Jane's dead father a favor, the only reason she is still alive. Brigid, furious, leaves for Maine. Jane and Jimmy argue for the first time when Jimmy refuses to stop investigating; he cannot let go of finding who killed his former partner, Mickey Dunne. A man named Len Greene visits Jimmy's bar on behalf of Sonny Blum, offering a cease-fire and revealing that Licata, not Champi, killed Dunne. Jane defies all warnings and confronts Morelli and Eric at McKenzie's estate, pistol-whipping Morelli and firing a warning shot near Eric to deliver her own ultimatum. Wolk is later found executed on a Montauk beach.

Jane's health deteriorates during her worst round of chemotherapy. She collapses at a restaurant, is hospitalized, and tells Jimmy she wants to quit. She drives to the courthouse intending to withdraw but remembers her father's advice about going a few more rounds even after you are beaten, and walks back out: "Oh, hell no."

The climax comes when Jane receives a panicked late-night call from someone claiming to be McKenzie, luring her and Jimmy to the Walking Dunes, a remote stretch of sand dunes in Montauk. It is a trap. Licata, who faked his death by leaving the boat before it exploded, emerges with a gun while his partner, a woman named Mei, covers from the dunes. An unknown shooter fires from a second dune, hitting Mei and driving Licata into the open. A wave of chemo-induced dizziness nearly costs Jane her life, but she steadies herself and shoots Licata twice in the chest. As he dies, he whispers what Jimmy recognizes as "Lieu," the abbreviation for lieutenant that subordinates used for Harrington. Licata's phone rings; Jimmy answers in Licata's raspy voice, and the caller, Harrington, asks if "it's done," confirming he ordered their murders with Jane listening on speaker. Licata's laptop yields recorded calls between him and Harrington, and Harrington's phone records show extensive calls to Blum's landline. The legendary cop was the hidden third partner all along. Esposito arrests Harrington for conspiracy and accessory to attempted murder.

Questions remain: The identity of the shooter in the dunes, the whereabouts of Mei, and who actually killed the Carson and Gates families are all unresolved. On the morning jury selection begins, Jane stands in her kitchen feeling intensely alive. She looks out the window and sees a hummingbird at the feeder her father built for her mother, whose nickname for Jane was "Hummingbird." The bird's return connects her to her mother's memory and to the promise she made to Fiona Mills to treat every hour as precious.