Mary Beth Winston, a divorced mother of two grown girls, had her own very successful business, a lovely home and two very entertaining spaniels. She lived a pretty uneventful life until the day she returned from work to find her dogs running loose, her boyfriend, Bob, brutally murdered in her foyer, and herself the main suspect in a homicide. It just kept getting better and better. She discovered that the man whom she had believed to be her soul mate was married, ostensibly happily married with three children.

Although Mary Beth seemed to be the primary suspect in the murder, she and the police sergeant, who was the only investigator, became romantically involved; and he used his position take suspicion off her, and to gain more and more control over her. She soon realized she had a very dangerous ally, and that the cure might be much worse than the disease.