When Rae Jefferson retired from the Navy, all she wanted was a normal life, to leave the clandestine intrigue of naval intelligence behind her, and perhaps someday find love. She knew she had asked for too much after she meets a grad student from Northwestern University one night at a local club. When the police find the young woman in the Chicago River several days later with Rae’s business card in her pocket, it naturally makes Rae a prime suspect—so much for love. Enter Sarah Connelly, a professor at Northwestern University. She lives the “normal life”—teaching with comfortable tenure, and like Rae, hoping someday she’ll find love. She meets the retired naval commander whom she finds very attractive and wonderfully intriguing, and hope springs eternal. Nothing like this ever happens to Professor Connelly. But murder and love? Her brain says, “Run like the wind,” but her heart says something altogether different.