Two shots ring out from a rooftop. When the smoke clears, Chalice is down and her new partner is dead. While she lies helpless in the hospital, her police brethren search citywide for the shooter, a predator who may very well be the serial killer she was investigating prior to the shooting. He's a psychopath who has just claimed his third victim-raped and murdered her in an abhorrent manner. A slow recovery takes Chalice off the active duty roster, but not off her game. She's been hurt, she's raw, and she's angry. Flying beneath the radar, she runs her own secret investigation so that she can do what she's always done best. The perp has a very distinctive MO, one that stands alone in the files of violent crime, one only Stephanie Chalice can decipher. He leaves virtually no clues and strikes but once a year. The riddle would be tough enough to decrypt operating at one hundred percent efficiency, but Chalice has sustained a traumatic head injury that has left her suffering with seizures and a compromised memory. The pieces are slowly falling into place, but will Chalice be able to make sense of it all before the killer comes for her again?