Third in the Sarah Armstrong Mystery Series.
A quiet afternoon in the park. Four-year-old Joey Warner plays in the sandbox, when a stranger approaches looking for his runaway dog. While Joey's mom, Crystal, talks on her cell phone, the stranger convinces the child to help search. By the time Crystal turns around, her son has disappeared. Yet her behavior is odd, not what one would expect from a distraught mother.
Meanwhile, on a cattle ranch outside Houston, Texas Ranger Sarah Armstrong assesses a symbol left on the hide of a slaughtered longhorn, a figure that dates back to a forgotten era of sugarcane plantations and slavery. Soon other prizewinning bulls are butchered on the outskirts of the city, each bearing a different but similar drawing. Before long, the investigations converge at the same time a hurricane threatens. Someone close to Sarah is brutally murdered, and the clock ticks, as the storm moves in. If Sarah doesn't act quickly, the child will die.