Sixteen-year-old Julia Whitmire appeared to have everything:
a famous father, a luxurious Manhattan town house, a coveted
spot at the elite Casden prep school. When she is found dead
in her bathtub, a handwritten suicide note left on her bed,
her parents insist that their daughter would never take her
own life.
But Julia's enviable world was more complicated than it
seemed. The pressure to excel at Casden was enormous. Abuse
of prescription antidepressants and ADHD medication ran
rampant among students; an unlabeled bottle of pills in
Julia's purse suggests she had succumbed to the trend. And a
search of Julia's computer reveals that in the days leading
up to her death she was engaged in a dangerous game of
cyberbullying against an unlikely victim.
NYPD detective Ellie Hatcher is convinced the case is a
suicide, but she knows from personal experience that a
loving family can be the last to accept the truth. When the
Whitmires use their power to force a criminal investigation,
Ellie's resistance causes trouble for her both at work and
in her personal life. As she is pressured to pursue a case
she doesn't believe in, she is pulled into Julia's inner
circle—an eclectic mix of overly precocious teenagers from
Manhattan's most privileged families as well as street kids
from Greenwich Village. But when the target of Julia's
harassment continues to receive death threats, Ellie is
forced to acknowledge that Julia may have learned the hard
way that some secrets should never be told.