Kay Willingham led a life as glamorous as it was public --- she was a gorgeous Georgetown socialite, philanthropist and the ex-wife of the vice president. So why was she parked in a Bentley convertible idling behind a DC private school, in the middle of the night, with the man who was the head of that school? Who shot them both, point blank, and why? The shocking double homicide is blazed across the internet, TV, newspapers --- and across Alex Cross' mind. Kay had been his patient once. And maybe more. She had many enemies, but all of them seemed to need her alive. The harder the investigators push, the more resistance they find when they leave behind the polite law offices and doctors' quarters of the state capital.