After killing her husband, Angela Chandler flees from New York to California abandoning her nine year old son, Frankie, leaving a cryptic note for him. When no relative will take him in, Frankie becomes a ward of the state and spends his next nine childhood years being bounced from the State Home and various foster homes all the time waiting for Mommy to return and reclaim him. During his time at the Home and other places, he is subjected to physical and sexual abuse. These incidents, plus the failure of his mother to return, turns him bitter and vengeful. However, his relationship with Detective Danny Boyland somewhat restores his good nature and he joins the Navy becoming proficient in computers. Using his new found knowledge he attempts to locate his mother and his search leads him to a trail of murders, a tragic deception when Angela confesses to him that she is not his biological mother, and a renewed search for his real mother. And when he finds her is it love or revenge that drives him, Detective Boyland and the story to its heart-racing, bittersweet conclusion?