The wealthy world of the Palm Beach horsey set seems a long way from a cop's world in the narotics division. A lifetime ago, undercover sheriff's detective Elena Estes work the mean streets and back alleys, living by her wits and playing the long odds until she took one risk too many. Now Estes lives on the ragged edge of lost hope and self-hatred, hiding from the past and believing she doesn't deserve to have a future. But the past is about to come back with a vengeance, and the future is about to become a race between life and death. A young woman is missing and her twelve-year-old comes to Estes for help. No one but serious, studious Molly Seabright seems concerned about what happened to her troubled older sister. But Molly is convinced that Erin is in danger. Estes has no P.I. license, no interest in a naw career and no desire to break her self-imposed exile. But the more she learns about the people Erin Seabright was involved with, the more her long-dormant cop instincts come back to life. One trip to the show grounds where Erin worked as a groom, and Estes is quickly pulled into the dark side of the glamorous sport. Behind the glittering, ultrarich facade is an untraruthless world of drugs, payoffs and dirty deals. A world of dissolute playboys and crooked horse dealers, of royalty and rabble, of rivals and enemies. An obscenely wealthy world where anything can be had for a price - including a life. And in that world stalks a killer who will lead Estes down a dark, twisted trail of decadene and decit, mayham and murder - from the gilded life of Palm Beach to a final show down that could cost her everything. A race against time and evil. A race where Etes is the dark horse...and no one is betting on her to win.