Joe Pickett had good reason to dislike Dallas Cates, even if he was a rodeo champion, and now he has even more--Joe's eighteen-year-old ward, April, has run off with him. And then comes even worse news: The body of a girl has been found in a ditch along the highway--alive, but just barely, the victim of blunt force trauma. It is April, and the doctors aren't sure if she'll recover. Cates denies having anything to do with it--says she ran away from him, too--and there's evidence that points to another man. But Joe knows in his gut who's responsible. What he doesn't know is the kind of danger he's about to encounter."--Provided by publisher.
