Horse vet Gail McCarthy's life turns stranger than fiction when her old boyfriend, Lonny Peterson, is arrested for murder -- by none other than Gail's childhood friend, Bret Boncantini, now a sheriff's deputy in a Sierra foothills town. Lonny is accused of the murder of two local livestock auctioneers, one his girlfriend and the other her brother. Both Gail and Bret are sure of Lonny's innocence, and decide to investigate. As they begin to turn up evidence and two more murders occur, the trail leads to Gail's home on the Central California coast. And as Gail closes in on the answer, the ruthless murderer may decide she needs to be eliminated, too.