On a quiet afternoon in Houston, four-year-old Joey Warner is lured from a sandbox by a stranger looking for his runaway dog. When his mom, Crystal, discovers he has disappeared, her reaction is odd. Meanwhile, on a cattle ranch outside the city, Texas Ranger and profiler Sarah Armstrong assesses a symbol left on the side of a slaughtered prize-winning bull, a figure dating back to sugarcane and slavery. Before long, the two investigations converge...