An attorney must find a missing client, who may have killed her abusive ex-boyfriend and tried to steal the attorney’s identity.

SYNOPSIS:

When Maryland attorney Stephanie Ann “Sam” McRae’s client, Melanie Hayes, disappears and her ex-boyfriend, Tom Garvey, is found murdered, the county police and the FBI visit Sam to see if she knows where Melanie might be. The FBI agent asks whether Sam knows Gregory Knudsen and Christof Stavos, a mobster from New York. Sam doesn’t know them, and the FBI’s involvement worries her. Tom was a freelance computer consultant for the bank where Melanie works. When Donna, a mutual friend who works at the same bank, asks Sam to look for Melanie, she discovers that her apartment has been tossed and she might be part of an identity theft ring — one that tried to steal Sam’s identity. Sam keeps looking for Melanie, not only for Donna’s sake, but to ask her about the identity theft scheme and why she disappeared. The stakes for Sam heighten when she’s kidnapped by Stavos, who thinks she knows where Melanie is. Despite Sam’s assurances that she doesn’t, the mob beats her up as a warning. After relentless searching, Sam finds Melanie in Pennsylvania and convinces her that she must return to Maryland. Melanie denies knowing anything about the murder or identity theft scheme. When the mob catches up with them, the two women are forced to make a run for it. By the time they reach Maryland, they learn that not only is Melanie suspected of murder and identity theft, but that she’s been sued in civil court, along with the bank where she and Donna work. Following a lead from Melanie, Sam breaks into the strip club where Tom and his friend Bruce Schaeffer worked, to search through their records. She questions anyone who knew the two men. As it turns out, Tom Garvey was an assumed name, taken by Gregory Knudsen after he tried to blackmail Stavos. However, when Bruce is found dead, by apparent suicide, finding the killer becomes a process of elimination. Ultimately, Sam discovers that Tom Garvey, aka Gregory Knudsen, and Bruce Schaeffer were running the identity theft ring from the club. The only other who could have known about it was the assistant manager, Rhonda. Sam delves into Rhonda’s past and discovers a motive for murder. When she confronts Rhonda, the woman won’t admit anything. However, when the strip club’s bartender shows up, brandishing a gun, Sam is able to goad a confession from him. Rhonda murdered both men in revenge for what they did to her in high school. The bartender was an accessory after the fact. He’s also Rhonda’s half-brother, who tried to protect her out of a sense of obligation. Overwhelmed with guilt, the bartender shoots himself and Rhonda is taken away by the police in hysterics. In the end, Donna admits that her carelessness in hiring Tom Garvey to work for the bank led to everyone’s problems. She begs Sam not to tell Melanie, and Sam agrees.