Finding a missing boy will be hard. Dinner with Shaw's parents might be murder.

When a rising star in the state senate asks Shaw Aldrich and North McKinney to transport her son, Flip, to and from his drug testing appointments, they're not happy-they don't do babysitting jobs. Arriving at the boy's dorm room, though, they discover that the door has been forced and that Flip has disappeared, and rumors of strange men on campus suggest that something seriously bad has happened. The students and staff at the ritzy private school have plenty to tell about Flip, but the deeper North and Shaw dig, the less they understand what might have happened to the boy.

Then one of Flip's friends is found dead, and it's clear that she was killed for coming too close to the truth. As North and Shaw search for answers, they meet resistance from every angle: from the school's staff, from Flip's friends, from the police, even from Flip's family. Someone wants the boy to disappear-and is willing to kill to make sure it happens.

The home front has its share of trouble too. North's 'uncle' Ronnie is back at his old games, drawing North and Shaw into a job that seems simple on the surface-find a missing man who might be in trouble-but they suspect that the request hides something sinister. Ronnie's involvement, and the job itself, puts the detectives on a collision course with Shaw's parents and a strain on their fledgling relationship.

As the days pass, North and Shaw realize time is running out for Flip and, maybe, for them as well. They have been misled from the very beginning-and they might be too late.