At first glance it appears to be a random multiple murder -- a prominent plastic surgeon, his nurse, and receptionist shot dead in their plush Century City office. But to Jessie Drake, the savage nature of Dr.Ronald Bushnell's fatal wounds suggests a crime of intense passion...and bitter retribution.

Following her suspicions, the smart, conscience-driven detective takes her investigation into the core of the seemingly harmonious family life of the slain surgeon. On the surface, Ronald Bushnell had everything: respect, money, a palatial home, a loving wife and daughter. But there is a joker in the deck. Bushnell had a foster son, Ethan Meissner -- a troubled young loner with dark spaces in his history. And the boy hasn't been seen since the murders.

Ethan's unexplained disappearance suggests that the runaway knows something; that he's either a material witness in a triple homicide or a premeditated killer...or another vicitm. The search for the missing teenager is taking Jessie across many volatile borders -- those between nations, between families, and across the razor-thin boundary that separates love from hatred. But the truth lies somewhere in a harrowing past of tainted blood and horrific personal tragedy. The deeper Jessie ventures into this shadow world of cruelty and secrets, the more she is haunted by the unanswered echoes of a lost soul's cry for help...and by the most heinous crime of all, where the sins of teh guilty are visited on the innocent.