Alix Mendez, the flamboyant Hispanic chief of detectives of Red Pine, a small community in the Pacific Northwest, is summoned to the home of Dr. Meagan Rathburn after Meagan's husband, Steven, is found murdered in the couple's home. Alix, sensing that something is amiss, is convinced of Meagan's guilt, although she has neither proof nor motive-Steven Rathburn is a well-respected professor and a prominent member of the community who has hidden from everyone his ugly secret-he is a wife beater. After two other abusive men are murdered, Alix slowly begins to realize that they are connected and that Meagan is the killer and sets out in earnest to prove it. This is the story of two women, one relentlessly pursuing the truth and the other spurred by her personal demons and her burning need to avenge other abused women. After a twist of fate leaves Meagan with only a short time to live, she elicits her final dark revenge from one last abuser as she slowly slips into madness while Alix learns compassion and understanding as she peers into the mind of a killer and realizes that things are not always black and white.