Crooks make the best detectives. They know how the guilty think and where the guilty hide.

Xavier Rule - Ecks to his friends - didn't come to California searching for salvation. A thief and a killer on the run from the law, he expected to disappear. But under the influence of the unusual church he's begun attending, Ecks has started to forgive himself and others for past misdeeds. Then Benol Richards walks through the door.

Twenty-three years ago, she helped her lover kidnap three baby boys and sold them on the black market - she has carried the guilt with her ever since. Now she wants to know what became of the children, and Ecks is given the job of finding out. But if he is to pick up this trail and follow where it leads, he will have to fight his old, lethal instincts - and know when justice demands he give in to them.