When Liv Dugan ducks out of work for lunch, it's just an ordinary day. When she returns, she stumbles onto a massacre. All her colleagues at Zuma Software have been shot. Only luck has left Liv unscathed, and that might be running out.... Liv suspects the shootings are tied to her past - and to the package she recently received from her long-dead adoptive mother. Sensing she's being followed, Liv jumps into a stranger's car and orders him to drive. Her "hostage" complies, listening carefully as her story unwinds.

"Do unto others…" Carefully, he carves the words into their flesh. The victims are all young, brunette, pretty. But she's the one he really wants. The others are just a way to ease the rage that has festered for years, until the only thing that calms him is his knife slicing through skin… Detective September Rafferty - Nine to her friends - recognizes the artwork that arrives in the mail. She created it back in second grade. Now a killer's words are slashed across it in what looks like blood. He knows her.

She senses their twisted desires before she meets them. It's as if fate is helping her stop these monsters from preying on others the way she was preyed upon. And after she has delivered brutal justice, she'll let the whole world see their guilt. The first victim - naked, bound, frozen to death - wore the note strung around his neck. Now there's another note - this one attached to Detective September Rafferty's own stepbrother. Stefan survives, but September is sure he knows more than he's saying. Someone is eliminating suspected sexual predators.

It's the ultimate test of strategy and skill. The killer chooses each opponent carefully, learning each one's weaknesses. Every meticulously planned move is leading to a devastating checkmate. Because in this game, all the pretty pawns must die.