Content Warning: This section contains descriptions of child abuse and neglect, trauma, panic attacks, drug addiction, death from a drug overdose, death from a car accident, and murder.

Best interest attorney Stella Hudson waits on a busy intersection to catch sight of her potential new client. She typically works with older children, but she has been asked to take on this case by Charles Huxley, her mentor and father figure. Stella sees the girl, Rose Barclay, walk by with her mother. Rose appears younger than her nine years, and her mother is elegantly dressed. So quickly that she almost misses it, Stella notices Rose bend down to pick a shard of glass up off the sidewalk and furtively slip it into her pocket.

Stella wonders why Rose would feel the need to save a shard of glass and wonders if Rose plans to use it as a weapon. She puts the thought aside for the moment, however, as she is on her way to meet Marco. Stella and Marco met while at law school at Georgetown and have been married for 10 years, but they are now amicably divorcing. He is also an attorney and has the requisite divorce paperwork with him when Stella arrives.