Early one morning in May 1997, a young couple on their way to work off a dirt road in the mountains of Colorado spotted a man dragging a woman?s body up a trail. The man fled, leaving behind a bloodied, dying woman. The beautiful, densely wooded area seemed such an incongruous place for a violent crime that at first the couple had a hard time believing what they were seeing. But it was all too real. Indeed the investigation into the death of young street walker Anita Paley would lead from that idyllic spot to the seamy underbelly of Denver and a world of prostitution, drug dealers and violent criminals. And it would expose the lives of two of that world?s inhabitants, the suspect, Robert Riggan, and Anita?s friend, Joanne Cordova, a former?cop-turned-crack addict and hooker. In the past, Cordova had submitted to violent sex with Riggan in exchange for drugs; it was just part of her life on the mean streets. But when her friend Anita was murdered, Joanne had to make a choice. She could go to her former colleagues on the police department and tell them what she suspected, which would put her own life in dange