President Clarke enacts a no-tolerance policy on the southern border to prevent refugees from entering the US. Jamie Stroud a reporter for The Chicago Clarion receives permission to travel to Brownsville Texas to interview detained families at the border. She meets Maria Hernandez who fled from Guatemala with her 7-year-old daughter after the death of her husband and son at the hands of a gang who shot them and kidnapped her 15-year-old daughter. Maria and Sofia Hernandez enter the US after being granted asylum and are promptly separated from each other and caged like wild animals. Jamie writes an emotional article for The Chicago Clarion on the plight of Maria, eliciting enormous sympathy from her readers. At the same time, she is hunting down a serial killer who has arrived in Chicago and has so far murdered 9 innocent women. Her private investigation business TM Investigations has never been busier, and she and her partner's Lucy and Sir Christopher buy a tracker dog named Poirot to help them capture the murderer.

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