James Jagger dedicated the first six years of his adult life to rescuing fallen heroes. Now, he appears destined to spend what may be the last nine days of it, becoming one.

Jagger had plummeted as far as any man could without a shattering impact. Convicted of recklessly taking the life of a child, and teetering on the edge of emotional collapse, Jagger is living the hopeless life of a parolee factory worker, waiting to die. With his fiancé long departed, military career wasted, and his purpose lost, Jagger receives a phone call that could save, or cost him, his life. After almost a decade, old friend Bill Turnbill is calling, offering something that Jagger cannot get anywhere else, redemption.

Chief of Police Bill Turnbill's small city of Cranton, New Hampshire has been the setting of a series of haunting kidnappings; kidnappings followed by rape, culminated by the vicious public displays of the slain childrens' bodies. When Bill Turnbill's son Jameson disappears, he knows he has to call the best. For Jagger, answering that call means becoming a fugitive from the law, and the man he once was, The Retriever.