The animal stench triggers Dawn's gag reflex. The constant grinding of stone on stone irritably attacks her frayed nerves, and then it abruptly stops. Odd scratching sounds echo in her half-conscious state. She pulls herself into a sitting position and stares at a cage door. She gasps at the thing peering into her eyes. A year before CJ Hand arrives as the new instructor at Loess Hills Community College, the former instructor disappears. Local law enforcement seeks help from the Department of Justice, but the Federal investigators run into problems and ask CJ to lend his expertise with the strange case involving native plants. On finding the miraculous plant in question, he launches into the geocaching world at meteoric speed. The geocache note, written in riddles, places him in the grip of matching wits with a killer. Complicating the case is his summer class beginning in two weeks. The new dean adds to his mental and physical stress by suggesting CJ is in violation of his teaching contract. Time is against him and his cohorts working the missing person case, Tom Thies, and Dr. Trisha Baker. How does a small reptilian creature and an oddly named plant figure into the tormentor's game? CJ is thrust into a world of pharmaceutical collusion with death defying odds.