When Eleanor Wooley's best friend Rette suddenly disappears, Eleanor abandons her job as a crime reporter for The Gold Strike Tribune in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and sets off in desperate pursuit.

What begins as a search and rescue operation quickly becomes an obsession and a personal quest for truth.

Spurred by gut instinct, Eleanor scours Northeastern Nevada during the worst heat wave in recorded history. Obscure signs appear?an intruder's dire warning, a casino's mysterious graffiti, a random sighting of a killer on the run. On the road to wherever the signs point, Eleanor discovers the dark world of today's inhumane treatment of wild horses, and when the secrets of her trusted best friend's past surface, Eleanor finds herself in grave danger.

On a backdrop of the American West's high desert wilderness?it's towering, rugged mountains and vast open range?Eleanor is forced to decide if continuing her search for Rette is worth losing her own life.