1985: a man runs for his life — wounded, exhausted, hunted remorselessly by a woman assassin know only as The Headhunter.

2001: sixteen-year-old Kerry Lumsdon runs across the same terrain. She runs to win and runs to forget.

When a headless body is found in the wastelands of the Seahills Estate, Detective Inspector Lorraine Hunt is called in to investigate. But then a more urgent case lands on her desk when Kerry’s sister, Claire, is violently kidnapped.

Headstrong, willful, and wary of police, Kerry sets out on a frantic search for Claire. But her hunt takes her to a violent underworld, a sixteen-year-old murder and, finally, to secrets about her own past her mother hoped she’d never have to face.

And all the time, for Claire, the clock is ticking. . .