PJ Hashman and Maggie Doyle are called to the U Wreck panel repair works where the foreman, Jeff Dimmock, lies injured outside - a victim of a hit-run driver. Dimmock is a feared bully with any number of enemies who must be regarded as suspects. But Dimmock himself believes the culprit to be Molly Beggs, one of two apprentices whose lives at work have been marred by the culture of torment and vicious practical jokes.
While PJ and Maggie begin their investigations, another mystery surrounds one of the Heelers themselves. Adam Cooper is missing. The pressures mounting recently in Adam's married life as well as a disaster in his career give Tom Croydon and Nick Schultz some unease about whether he may have suicided.
Dash McKinley does not believe Adam would suicide over the misbehaviour of his wife, Stacey. From Slender clues, Dash uses her detailed knowledge of the Mt Thomas landscape to work out where Adam may have gone. She and Nick discover Adam in the bush, lying near death with a bullet in his chest and his own gun ion his hand. It certainly looks like a suicide attempt.
Meanwhile, Maggie and PJ are narrowing the field in their hunt for the hit-run driver - who proves to be someone unexpected.
Dash persuades Inspector Monica Draper to be allowed to see over the crime scene where Adam was discovered. She believes he was ambushed by an unknown gunman. They discover blood near some car tracks. Further down the track, a car has slid into the bush, and inside is the badly wounded Brad Dimmock, who gasps out the accusation that "Cooper shot me".
Adam certainly had some motivation. Brad, the brother of Jeff Dimmock, is his wife's lover, and the real father of the unborn baby Stacey lost.
Adam revives in hospital, and gives the story of the ambush Brad had staged, intending it to look like a suicide. Brad himself does not recover from the wound Adam gave him in self-defence.
Brad's death leaves Dash McKinley tracing the full plot against Adam. The truth she discovers is tough for everyone to take.
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