Amy Youngston is Family. It hasn't done much for her until one day, when Raymond Escarton Fields, the head of the Family, hires her to find out who's trying to kill him. The Family has many doctors, lawyers and other professionals, but in all of those thousands of cousins, there's only one private investigator, and that's Amy. She takes the case, but when some party or parties unknown start by bugging her office that very night, it's clear that she can't handle this alone. The only person she can turn to is Alec, a close friend who isn't Family, and, because it's secret, he doesn't even know about it - until now, because Amy has to tell him. She's not supposed to tell outsiders, but he has to understand what's going on, doesn't he? She could tell him if she married him, and they're certainly close enough, but . . . let's not go there. Amy's got some serious problems with intimate relationships, especially with Alec. Problems she'd rather not think about (but they still keep coming back). When Amy finds that there's a target on her back as well as on Fields', she begins to wonder. Did he hire her because she was the only choice he had - or because he had it in for her? The most frustrating part for Amy is that there doesn't seem to be any reason for someone to want to kill the head of the Family. Of course, the same can't be said for whoever it is that's sending her repeated messages that she's in their crosshairs as well. Especially when they ambush her and Alec, tie them up and proceed to torture them in her own kitchen. Expecting to be killed in the immediate future tends to get one's attention. They've definitely got hers...