Successful in her investigative work for All Souls Legal Cooperative, happy with her newly renovated house, and feeling somewhat more secure in her relationship with the mysterious environmental activist, Hy Ripinsky, Sharon is shocked to find herself suddenly faced with a wrenching ultimatum. No longer a small, informal co-op, All Souls has grown. New legal partners, exasperated with Sharon's free-wheeling ways, want to kick her upstairs with a raise, perks, and a "career opportunity" that will chain her to a desk forever.
Offered a take-it-or-leave-it deal, Sharon is in turmoil. And to make matters worse, Hy has disappeared. His abandoned plane, wrecked rental car, and a road map point to RKI, a firm of international security consultants with a reputation for questionable, unorthodox tactics and clients engaged in controversial research. Sharon discovers that they hired Hy as a free-lance operative and that they, too, are looking for him.
Determined to find out what has happened, Sharon pushes aside her career concerns at All Souls and plunges into a search that will force her to take unlikely sanctuary in her abandoned San Diego childhood home and find and unexpected ally in her wild, unpredictable brother John. From the drive-by hiring hall for illegal aliens in Imperial Beach to an opulent villa on the Mexican coast, she will track down every clue in a complex plot that builds to a breathtaking climax on the treacherous canyon trails that lead back across the border. There, in a no-man's-land where terrified pollos defy la migra in a desperate bid for freedom...and where decisions won't wait, Sharon must make the tough choices that put her own life, her own freedom, and everything she holds dear at deadly risk.