To Darby Shaw her brief was no more than a legal shot in the dark, a brilliant guess. But to the Washington establishment it was political dynamite.

Suddenly Darby is witness to a murder—a murder intended for her. Going underground, she finds there is only one person she can trust—an ambitious reporter after a newsbreak hotter than Watergate—to help her piece together the deadly puzzle. Somewhere between the bayous and swamps of Louisiana and the inner sanctums of the White House, a violent cover-up is being engineered, and it involves the Supreme Court of the United States.

Someone has read Darby's brief. Someone who will stop at nothing to destroy the evidence of an unthinkable crime.