Bill Furyk is an ex-cop with an anger management problem and intimate relationship with Vicodin. For the last two years he's been a civilian, but people in need still seem to find him. When a woman from his past is arrested after being found hunched over the body of her still-bleeding husband, a knife in her hand, he is pulled in. As he tries to untangle what happened to the meek, gentle Merrill, a larger story unravels. He picks at the threads and learns of a brutal, cruel, and profitable venture in which troubled young women are tricked into becoming playthings for powerful men. Politicians, police, and professionals are the clients. The dead man was a therapist who treated the young women, then recruited them into this form of slavery. Furyk must find out if the wife is the killer. But when he begins to uncover the vast, horrible business that is behind the murder, he is determined to put an end to it.