Geordan Taylor's shock and grief over her mother's sudden death is great enough without discovering in the days that follow that nothing she knew about her past is true. Bewildered, she turns to the Internet in search of information about the only family she's ever known, and soon finds help and comfort through a fellow searcher from an online chat room. Meanwhile, a killer dubbed the Bagman has claimed his fifth victim, and once again FBI Special Agent Sam Cathcart is frustrated by the lack of leads. His colleagues don't know how personal the case is for him-eerily, the Bagman's victims resemble his long-ago murdered daughter. But time is running out: If he doesn't crack the case soon, the FBI's retirement mandates and his own health problems will force him to end his career in failure. When Geordan's roommate Jess is abducted and brutally attacked, similarities to the Bagman's modus operandi draw Cathcart and his team. But it isn't Jess who resembles the killer's previous victims-it's Geordan. And because Jess's attack too conveniently follows Geordan breaking a date to meet a cyber-friend in person, Cathcart soon believes that the key to apprehending the Bagman is to be found in the same murky history that Geordan seeks. At the FBI agent's request, Geordan offers herself as online bait to draw the fiend who nearly murdered her best friend. Though masked in cyberspace, this 'Net stalker is circling ever closer-a killer who believes he will avenge a decades-old injustice only with Geordan's death.