Still Guilty

"The most dangerous filing system is the one maintained by someone who understands exactly which documents to lose." Legal Aid attorney Sloane Aldrich has spent her career fighting for the forgotten. When a DNA exclusion flag crosses her desk for Caleb Rhune—a man who has served eighteen years in prison for the brutal murder of his wife—Sloane expects a standard vacatur proceeding. But as she digs into the suspiciously thin case file, the missing defense motions, and the corrupted physical evidence, she uncovers a chilling and meticulously maintained paper trail. The trail doesn't lead to a typical corrupt cop or a careless prosecutor. It leads directly to the Darrow County Clerk's Office. And specifically, to Sloane's own mother, Vivian. Vivian Aldrich is a pillar of the Carthage community, known for her Sunday pot roasts, her church attendance, and her immaculate home. She is also the cold, calculating architect of a twenty-five-year cover-up. Sloane discovers that Vivian accepted a $40,000 payoff to manufacture Caleb's conviction, allowing the true killer to walk free and secure a multi-million dollar inheritance. As Sloane covertly turns her legal expertise against her own family, she realizes that the mother who packed her lunches and kissed her cheek is a master manipulator who will stop at nothing to protect her system. Witnesses are dying, evidence is disappearing, and powerful forces in Albany are moving to shut Sloane's investigation down. Sloane must now make an impossible choice: protect the mother who raised her, or risk everything to free an innocent man locked in a cage.