Is someone born a serial killer or do they evolve with circumstance?
Vincent Padilla is the real deal, a psychopathic genius who leaves a devastating wake behind wherever he goes. Highly intelligent and physically attractive, Vince has plenty of opportunity to pursue his biggest interest-hunting and killing for sport. If he is inadvertently crossed, that person most certainly will not live to rue the day.
When Vince wakes up in a hospital bed having been viciously beaten by a gang and left for dead, it affirms a fact he has always known: He is invincible.
With the help of a past acquaintance, he moves to new territory where he can make a fresh start. There he meets the impressionable Axel and under the guise of friendship grooms him to be his assistant. Axel becomes not only a perpetrator himself but a victim as well.
Vince develops a penchant for Axel's sister, Amanda, who is not only beautiful but intellectually challenging-a rare combination in his experience. Amanda becomes an obsession and Vince's manipulations are designed to destroy her and everyone she loves. His shrewdness ties the entire family into knots that can never be undone.
Another of Vince's targets is Roger Walton, a quiet bachelor living an uncomplicated life with his two cats. Roger's world is turned up-side-down when he unintentionally pulls in front of Vince's truck making him the new focus of Vince's rage and retribution. Roger learns to challenge his submissive nature, giving him the courage to face his fears and the confidence to develop a relationship he previously couldn't bring himself to pursue.
When Vince is recruited as a confidential informant for the police department, he uses the position as an opportunity to play both sides of the coin. His entire operating system is threatened when Axel falls in love with Wanekia, a Piute beauty he meets at a convenience store near their customary body dumpsite on the Arizona Strip. For the first time Vince's smooth talk isn't enough to control Axel and before long Vince's C.I. status comes into question.
Meanwhile, Cora Carlsen is juggling two jobs, an absentee husband and a gullible teenage daughter who has a knack for finding trouble wherever she goes. Cora struggles in vain to keep Jessie from falling prey to the disguised evils that lurk within the outskirts of her quiet suburb home in the desert. Cora learns that a mother's protection can only go so far. Sometimes the choices of the innocent cannot override the choices of the guilty.
Is justice a truly obtainable commodity? Ask any victim of violent crime. Better yet, ask any serial killer-born or bred.
Inspired by real events, Gail Winegar takes you on a roller coaster ride you will not soon forget.
