After barely surviving Halloween—physically and emotionally—Shade is ready for a distraction. She gets her wish when her technology-savvy ally, Silence, hires her to look into the disappearance of his friend and fellow hacker—a young man known only as Keys. According to the technomancer, while investigating a top secret security breach, his friend followed a potential suspect to a motel room—and was taken prisoner.

Now Keys is gone.

And his suspect is dead.

Evidence suggests Keys was held captive by the victim before he escaped, but there’s no clue to what happened to him after the murder, and Shade is forced to call on unusual allies to help her in her search—allies as chaotic as they are helpful. Piece by piece, they start to put together a picture of what happened.

Unfortunately, the first murder isn’t the last. As Shade is blindsided by one shocking revelation after another, she begins to realize that someone is working against her behind the scenes…

The line between friend and enemy blurs, and Shade suddenly understands that a choice between two evils is no choice at all…