"There are many terrible ways to die, but few die as terribly as Elizabeth Creay, a young mother and Washington Post reporter. Tortured in her Washington, D.C., townhouse, she didn't go out of this world easily. Now it's the job of Detective Jack Cassian and Sergeant Darius "D" Train to figure out who could have committed such a monstrous crime." "Sydney Chapin, Elizabeth's younger sister, has a mission of her own. Returning to her wealthy, politically influential family from nine years of self-imposed exile, she is determined to discover the truth for herself, and willing to risk anything and everything to find the answers. Stunned and grieving, she is driven by the need to comprehend her sister's murder, but the more she learns the less she understands, as the elusive motive for the killing remains shrouded in mystery."

"Cassian and Train, too, suspect that the homicide has a dark, hidden dimension. But secrets are nothing new in the District, where the best and worst of humanity nestle side by side in marble halls and on rubble-strewn streets. Only after the personal lives of cops and victims become intertwined does the truth begin to emerge, and even the hardened detectives are unprepared to grasp the full horror behind Elizabeth's murder and a terrifying conspiracy with its roots in the arrogance of money, the burdens of power, and the secrets of ... the betrayed."--BOOK JACKET.