<P><B>Detective Lindsay Boxer vows to protect a young woman from a serial killer long enough to see her twenty-first birthday.</B></P> When young wife and mother Tara Burke goes missing with her baby girl, all eyes are on her husband, Lucas. He paints her not as a missing person but a wayward wife&#8212;until a gruesome piece of evidence turns the investigation criminal. While <I>Chronicle</I> reporter Cindy Thomas pursues the story and M.E. Claire Washburn harbors theories that run counter to the SFPD's, ADA Yuki Castellano sizes Lucas up as a textbook domestic offender . . . who suddenly puts forward an unexpected suspect. If what Lucas tells law enforcement has even a grain of truth, there isn't a woman in the state of California who's safe from the reach of an unspeakable threat.

Unabridged.