Lethal Intent — Cara Putman

When Caroline takes a job with a promising medical start-up, she believes she’s on the side of angels . . . until she’s asked to go too far.

When the judge she’s clerked for dies, Caroline Bragg starts over as in-house counsel for a pharmaceutical start-up working on innovative adult stem cell research with the potential to save thousands of lives. But when her charismatic new boss ignores her legal advice, Caroline''s left unsettled. Then the company launches into headlines when a furious family demands answers regarding how the start-up used their deceased relative’s cells for innovation—with neither informed consent nor agreement for compensation. Caroline must defend the work of the company even as she realizes informed consent couldn’t have been given and the business is operating on questionable legal and ethical grounds.

Caroline’s friend Brandon Lancaster is at risk of losing his life’s work—a group foster care called Almost Home that has provided for sibling groups needing a landing place. He’s desperate for a solution, but then the pharmaceutical company’s he invested his last dime in is losing value fast. He’s been counting on the eventual sale of the start-up to save Almost Home, but with every other effort failing, he’s out of options and out of time.

With the start-up in trouble, Caroline''s and Brandon’s problems intersect. He needs the story to end so he can salvage his investment, and she wants the truth to come out. Will their relationship survive? And will they survive the changes that are inevitably headed their way?