Florida is full of human predators, and all of them offer Dr. Kay Scarpetta the opportunity and the means to do what she does best - to persuade the dead to speak to her. In Boston, Benton Wesley is working on a secret case involving convicted killers, a task that causes Scarpetta intense concern, as does the behavior of her niece, Lucy, who is spending too much time in cheap bars seeking casual relationships. The Academy is called when a woman's body is found in Boston. She has been tortured, sexually abused, and her body is tattooed with handprints. The same handprints that Lucy saw on the body of her last relationship. Meanwhile, Scarpetta and Marino investigate the disappearance of a family in Florida, summoned by a concerned neighbor, but as they investigate and find the characteristics of an abduction instead of a disappearance, they also discover that someone has assumed the identity of the caller, who is now dead. They are trapped and it becomes clear that someone is watching their every move.