Book excerpt: Connie Price is not the kind of woman who suffers fools--or injustice--lightly. When she noticed an old broken-down trailer in the woods behind her neighbor's house that was only visited late at night, she knew someone was up to no good. Myrtle Beach is notorious for attracting young runaways--especially underage girls--who come down for the ocean and sunshine and end up missing or dead. Between the missing girls and the abandoned trailer and its late-night traffic, Connie knew this could only spell trouble. So she set out to do something about it. What she found was the tip of the iceberg of corruption that runs deep in her little beachside city. What she didn't know is how much trouble this would cause her. When a chance encounter with the wrong doctor left Connie with third-degree burns from an illegal medical laser and a prolonged, near-fatal illness, no doctor in town would treat her, no lawyer in town would honestly represent her, and no court in Horry County would give her a fair trial. Her attempts to bring justice for the missing girls of Myrtle Beach had come back to haunt her. There was no way to know that hiring a new lawyer--Stephen Stanko--would bring its own set of troubles. He turned out to be nothing more than a con man, a psychopath who would tell any story to anyone to get what he wanted. When Connie, without knowing the true extent of Stanko's deception, gave him the proof of the cover-up and corruption that surrounded her malpractice suit, Stanko was ecstatic. He now had the ammunition necessary to blackmail nearly the entire town to cover for his own crimes. Stanko could get away with anything but murder. Before he could complete his nefarious plans, he snapped and murdered his girlfriend and attempted to murder her 15-year-old daughter, leaving her for dead. By the time Stanko was caught, he had also killed a kind old man who had helped him on several occasions, and possibly others. Just about the only person he didn't manage to kill was Connie Price.