Was it a mugging or something more sinister? Either way, a man has been killed. The woman found lying beside him in an alley is in a coma. Answers may be as close as a four-year-old child found abandoned in downtown Minneapolis, but the boy won't communicate. For Ray Schiller and his partner Detective Dick Waverly, the silence is maddening. Jealousy? A custody battle? Their list of suspects and motives only grows when the discovery of a second murder victim complicates their case. On a personal level, Ray is even more troubled by another kind of silence. Waverly is keeping something from him, and the implications are becoming increasingly disturbing.