There's a sweltering heat wave outside. Nearly a year after Pittsburgh psychologist and trauma expert Daniel Rinaldi helped unravel a baffling murder, he finds himself drawn into another case.
When a daring bank robbery goes horribly wrong, resulting in the deaths of all the hostages except one, Rinaldi is called in to question Treva Williams, the traumatized young woman who survived. However, what seemed a simple robbery soon explodes into a series of events that plunge the investigating officers, Sgt. Harry Polk and Det. Eleanor Lowrey--as well as Rinaldi himself--into a vortex of mistaken identity and kidnapping.
Meanwhile, thrown together by the demands of the case, Rinaldi and Eleanor deal with the growing attraction between them. Then there's the gubernatorial campaign of Rinaldi's former romantic rival, District Attorney Leland Sinclair. Plot twists multiply as a frenzy of accusations and political maneuvering gathers steam.