Haunted by her rape and seeming rejection by God, the deeply religious Maria Vargas seeks absolution and a back door into heaven by rescuing an unborn child in this moving tale of love, loss, tragedy and renewal. Following a disturbing sexual encounter, Kat Reed, Maria's skeptical sister of the heart, becomes pregnant and in mortal danger from Tio, the malevolent biological father who will stop at nothing to keep his career-ending perversion from discovery. Banding together, these two courageous women confront the relentless evil threatening their right to choose . . . life. This is not your grandmother's thriller: "God was not in His heaven that warm summer night, as the freight train lurched up the grade toward the sleepy Texas town of Bandera. If He had been, surely He would have let Death sleep. Unfortunately, the staccato shock of couplings reaching their limit awoke Death."