Ten years ago, former special agent Cleo North ignored her gut instinct -- and a young sergeant wound up brutally murdered. Finally she is in a position to find out what went wrong.

Cleo is certain the official story -- a murder-suicide -- is wrong. Now she has a new assignment working with Major Jack Donovan and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, offering security to a pampered celebrity as a front for a terrorism fact-finding mission. At last she has access to the one man she's sure is involved in the decade-old murder.

But as Cleo is plunged into a tangle of violence and lies, she must quickly decide who the real victims are. And who's covering up a first deadly mistake.