Mary Towne's son, Alex, went missing six years ago. Five years later he finally turned up--as a corpse in a car wreck. Missing persons investigator David Raker doesn't want the work: it's clearly a sad but hopeless case of mistaken identity brought to him by a woman unable to let go of her son. But haunted by a loss of his own, he reluctantly agrees.

As Raker digs deeper, he discovers that Alex's life was not the innocent one his mother believed. Buried in his past are secrets that were never meant to be found--and dark, dangerous men willing to kill to protect them.