Use the children' is a phrase picked up in a Chinese intelligence intercept, the one that convinced CIA analyst Beth Bradford to take on the case that would haunt her ever since. She will not rest until she tracks down The Neighbor, a highly dangerous recruiting agent who preys on high-value, vulnerable intelligence targets in hopes they might betray their own country. But Beth's life's work has come at the expense of her family, and things are beginning to fall apart. She dropped off her youngest at college and her husband has moved out, the consequence of years of neglecting their marriage. And then, the CIA moves her off the impossible Chinese counterintelligence assignment that she's given her life to. She can't make her kids young again. She can't convince her husband they share something they don't. But this case is different. It's something she can change. She'll find the information she's looking for, one way or another, because she's close to finding The Neighbor. She can feel it. She has to be. Because right now, she has nothing else. And The Neighbor might be right under her nose.