Sergeant Roxanne Calloway should be on maternity leave for six more weeks—but when a body turns up in a sunflower field near her home in Manitoba’s Interlake region, she can’t resist the pull of duty. Especially when the victim is Coop Jenkins, a former Winnipeg police detective who once saved her life.

Drawn into the case, Roxanne is determined to find Coop’s killer. But when the Major Crimes sergeant assigned to the investigation is also murdered, the danger becomes all too real. Her partner, Matt, fears she’s getting too close—too emotionally involved, too at risk.

Teaming up with Coop’s fierce and grieving daughter, Hailey, Roxanne is prepared to go all the way. But at what cost?

She went back the way she had come. The road to the highway was quiet, not another car in sight. She slowed down and looked across a green field dotted with black cattle. The sun was high in the sky now. She could see the sunflower heads fringing the horizon to the south. The Klassen farm was visible to the east. She stopped so she could have a good look.

It wasn't far from the farmhouse where Coop had been staying to where he was found dead, especially if you cut across the fields. Had he left the door unlocked? Had he taken his phone with him? Had it been on the body? She didn't know.

As a working PI, he might have been armed. If so, where was the gun? In the house, or had his killer taken both his phone and his gun from his body?

Had he run across the pasture, pursued by someone on the Carlsons' quad? Tried to escape by hiding among the sunflowers? Or had he been a passenger--willing or taken under duress? Was he already dead by then, killed in the house behind her? A large quad could carry a lifeless body. Had he been dumped in the sunflower field in the hope that his remains wouldn't be found until Pete McBain harvested the crop? That wouldn't happen until two, maybe three months from now.

There was another possibility. The quad could have taken a different route, gone along the road she was on right now. They were usually driven off-road, on the other side of the ditch. It could have turned at the highway just up ahead and headed along past the Klassen farm to the sunflower field.

If Coop had been alive and taken against his will, he might have tried to escape and hide among the tall plants. Had the quad's driver pursued him in and found him? Cut him off and shot him right there, on the spot? Was the track the quad had made as it smashed through the sunflower stalks the only one? Would Ident have thought to check for footprints leading from the road to where Coop's body was found?

So many questions and she had no answers. Usually she would find out. As the sergeant in charge of the local detachment she would be kept informed, but right now she was not in a position to ask. She bit her lip in frustration. It was her old buddy Coop who had been killed here. How was she supposed to stand aside and wait? Do nothing?