A young woman is found with her throat slashed on the grounds of the biggest charity event in Texas. The people in power know a murder at such an esteemed event could garner the wrong kind of attention from an unenlightened public that the charity has come to depend on to fill its treasure chest. Immediate action has to be taken and they go into a mode of subterfuge and misdirection to cover up a crime. Detective David Storm, a defeated cop slowly deteriorating in place as he awaits his pending retirement, is assigned to lead the investigation. Haunted by addiction and depression due to his own wife's inexplicable death, he is hand picked by the establishment to play the role of the patsy to yet another unsolved crime. Armed with only his friends, detective Storm relentlessly digs for answers, all the while fighting the obstructions of City Hall, the charity officials, and even his own department, only to find that there's a pattern of multiple slayings-a series of crimes more sinister than ever imagined . . . As the clock ticks and another body is found, will this unlikely champion be able to vanquish his personal demons and stop a cunning killer?