In the mid-1980s a young woman is found strangled in a wooded area north of the town of Graham, Colorado. A young man, near death from a drug overdose, is found nearby. The implications are obvious to the members of the community. As Sheriff Emmett Taylor begins his investigation, conflicting evidence raises the questions in his mind. The autopsy reveals the young woman had sex sometime during the evening of the murder, but apparently was not raped. The young man, the town's bad boy, was carrying a lethal dose of heroin, a drug not readily available in the farm community, in his veins. Despite the interference of Marta Sanchez, the assistant district attorney, the mayor of Graham, and various city officials, Sheriff Taylor is determined to conduct the investigation in his own manner. To complicate matters further, Nathan Crowley, a suspected killer of six young women that Taylor sent to jail four years ago has been released. And he is coming back. And he is looking for revenge. Sheriff Taylor realized in the final resolution, he will either come out on top, or end up dead.