The investigation of LaShawn Tompkins's murder seems straightforward enough. Upon his release from death row, the ex-drug dealer returned to his old neighborhood, where he was gunned down on his mother's doorstep. Just another case of turf warfare.

At least that's what it looks like on the surface to Seattle investigator J. P. Beaumont, who's been handed the assignment under the strictest confidence. But as Beau starts digging, the situation becomes more complicated than he'd thought. It appears that LaShawn really had turned over a new leaf at the King Street Mission and his murder was premeditated. Someone had targeted the man for death.

Meanwhile, Beau's lover and fellow cop, Mel Soames, is given her own hush-hush investigation. A routine check on registered sex offenders has revealed a disturbing pattern: they're dying off at an alarming rate, and not all due to natural causes. Details of the latest death suggest an inside job, and Mel isn't letting this go.

Suddenly, Mel's investigation becomes entangled with Beau's, and the two begin to uncover a nightmarish conspiracy that could involve people in high places—including their own top brass.

The murder of an ex-drug dealer ex-con—gunned down on his mother's doorstep—seems just another turf war fatality. Why then has Seattle homicide investigator J.P. Beaumont been instructed to keep this assignment hush-hush? Meanwhile, Beau's lover and fellow cop, Mel Soames, is involved in her own confidential investigation. Registered sex offenders from all over Washington State are dying at an alarming rate—and not all due to natural causes.

A metropolis the size of Seattle holds its fair share of brutal crime, corruption, and dirty little secrets. But when the separate trails they're following begin to shockingly intertwine, Beau and Mel realize that they have stumbled onto something bigger and more frightening than they anticipated—a deadly conspiracy that's leading them to lofty places they should not enter . . . and may not be allowed to leave alive.